Fear Quotes

Ivy: How is it you are brave when all the rest of us shake in our boots? Lucius: I don’t worry about what will happen, only what needs to be done.

Active fear occurs when the risky or difficult situation that we fear is thrust upon us....We cannot avoid it and have to find a way to overcome our fear or suffer real consequences. Such moment are oddly therapeutic....

Over time....The actual terrors that we faced began to lessen in intensity as we gained increasing control over our environment. But instead of our fears lessening as well, they began to multiply in number....It was as if the thousands of years of feeling fear in the face of nature could not go away - we had to find something at which to direct our anxiety, no matter how small or improbable.

In the passive mode, we seek to avoid the situation that causes us anxiety....When we are in this mode it is because we feel that we are fragile and would be damaged by an encounter with the thing we dread.

Fear creates its own self-fulfilling dynamic - as people give in to it, they lose energy and momentum. Their lack of confidence translates into inaction that lowers confidence levels even further....

Fear is an emotion we find hard to resist or control.

The greatest enemy a man can have...is fear.

In the beginning, fear was a basic, simple emotion for the human animal

In the evolution of fear, a decisive moment occurred in the 19th Century when people in advertising and journalism discovered that if they framed their stories and appeals with fear, they could capture our attention.

When we live in relatively comfortable circumstances....We find it harder to tolerate feelings of fear because they are more vague and troubling - so we remain in the passive mode.

Your attitude is the knife's edge that separates failure from success in life. It has the power to help shape your reality. If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode.

Fear is not designed (to make us) feel that we are fragile creatures in an environment full of danger....It’s function is to stimulate powerful physical responses, allowing an animal to retreat in time. After the event, it is supposed to go away. An animal that cannot let go of its fears once the threat is gone will find it hard to eat and sleep.

Throughout history...there are people who have lived...(with) dangers pressing in on them on a daily basis. These types must confront their fears in the active mode again and again and again....Countless people grow up in or with such circumstances and their spirit is crushed by adversity. But a few rise above. It is their only positive choice - they must confront these daily fears and overcome them, or submit to the downward pull. They are toughened and hardened to the point of steel. Understand: no one is born this way. It is unnatural to not feel fear. It is a process that requires challenges and tests. What separates those who go under and those who rise above adversity is the strength of their will and their hunger for power. At some point, this defensive position of overcoming fears converts to an offensive one - a fearless attitude. Such types learn the value not only of being unafraid but also of attacking life with a sense of boldness and energy and an unconventional approach, creating new models instead of following old ones. They see the great power this brings them and it soon becomes their dominant mind-set. We find these types in all cultures and all time periods - from Socrates and the Stoics to Cornelius Vanderbilt and Abraham Lincoln.

Napoleon Bonaparte represents a classic fearless type. He began his career in the military just as the French Revolution exploded. At this critical moment in his life, he had to experience one of the most chaotic and terrifying moments in history.He faced endless dangers on the battlefield as a new kind of warfare was emerging, and he navigated through innumerable political intrigues in which one wrong move could lead to the guillotine.He emerged from all this with a fearless spirit, embracing the chaos of the times....And in one of his innumerable campaigns, he expressed the words that could serve as the motto for all fearless types. In the spring of 1800 he was preparing to lead an army into Italy. His field marshals warned him that the Alps were not passable at that time of year and told him to wait, even though waiting would spoil the chances for success. The general replied to them, "For Napoleon's army, there shall be no Alps."...It was the force of one man's will that brought them through the Alps, catching the enemy completely by surprise and defeating them. There are no Alps and no obstacles that can stand in the way of a person without fear.

Frederick Douglass...was born into slavery....As he later wrote, slavery was a system that depended on the creation of deep levels of fear. Douglass continually forced himself in the opposite direction. Despite the treat of severe punishment, he secretly taught himself to read and write. When he was whipped for his rebellious attitude, he fought back and saw that he was whipped less often....He became a leading abolitionist....The abolitionists wanted him to stay on his lecture circuit..., but Douglass wanted to do much more and he once again rebelled, He founded his own anti-slavery newspaper, an unheard of act for a former slave. At each stage of his life Douglass was tested by the powerful odds against him. Instead of giving in to the fear...he raised his level of boldness and pushed himself further onto the offensive. This confidence gave him the power to rise above the fierce resistances and animosities of those around him. That is the physics that all fearless types discover at some point - an appropriate ratcheting up of self-belief and energy when facing negative or even impossible circumstances.

For the type of person (the fearless), any kind of encounter with adversity or limitation, at any age, can serve as the crucible for forging the attitude.

On the streets, showing fear would make people lose respect for you. You would end up being pushed around and more likely to suffer violence because of your desire to avoid it.

The 50th Law is based on the following premise: We humans generally have little control over circumstances....the margin of control we have over people and circumstances is depressingly narrow. The 50th Law, however, states that there is one thing we can actually control - the mind-set with which we respond to these events around us. And if we are able to overcome our anxieties and forge a fearless attitude towards life, something strange and remarkable can occur - that margin of control over circumstances increases, At its utmost point, we can even create the circumstances themselves, which is the source of tremendous power that fearless types have had throughout history. And the people who practice the 50th Law in their lives all share certain qualities - SUPREME BOLDNESS, UNCONVENTIONALITY, FLUIDITY, and A SENSE OF URGENCY - that gives them this unique ability to shape circumstance.

We are social creatures, and so it is natural for us to want to conform to the people around us and the norms of the group. But underneath this is a deep fear - that of sticking out, of following our own path no matter what people think of us. The fearless types are able to conquer this fear. They fascinate us by how far they go with their unconventionality. We secretly admire and respect them for this; we wish we could act more like they do. Normally it is hard to hold our attention....But those who fearlessly express their difference compel our attention on a deeper level for a longer duration, which translates into power and control.

No amount of education, connections, or technical knowledge can save you. Your fearful attitude encloses you in an invisible prison, and there you will remain.

The key to possessing this supreme power (the 50th Law) is to assume the active mode in dealing with your fears. This means entering the very arenas you normally shy away from.... You deliberately put yourself in difficult situations and you examine your reactions. In each case, you will notice that your fears were exaggerated and that confronting them has the bracing effect of bringing you closer to reality. At some point you will discover the power of REVERSAL - overcoming the negative of a particular fear leads to a positive quality....And once you start on this path, it is hard to turn back. You will continue all the way to a old and fearless approach to everything.

But great entrepreneurs have a different response to the fear of failure. Yes, they’re afraid of failing, but they’re even more afraid of failing to try.

In work and in life, there are two kinds of failure: actions and inactions. You can fail by starting a company that goes out of business or by not starting a company at all.

I jumped off that cliff. And I did die in that moment. The coward inside of me died.

Jump off the cliff and become alive, or spend a lifetime regretting it like a dead man walking.

Why pursue dreams when you're already living a dream?

The most successful animal in the animal kingdom is the lion living in the cage of a zoo. He gets his every meal, guaranteed and on time. He has no natural enemies. Even diseases and harsh climates are not a concern. Eat. Sleep. Die. If lions in the zoo could speak, they'd tell you "I don't want this to be it".

False fear is a destructive emotion. True fear is a rightfully protective emotion. The key is to allow reason to sift out false fear from true fear.

There are many places in the scriptures that counsel mankind to fear God. In our day we generally interpret the word fear as “respect” or “reverence” or “love”; that is, the fear of God means the love of God or respect for Him and His law. That may often be a correct reading, but I wonder if sometimes fear doesn’t really mean fear, as when the prophets speak of fearing to offend God by breaking His commandments.

The importance of having a sense of the sacred is simply this—if one does not appreciate holy things, he will lose them. Absent a feeling of reverence, he will grow increasingly casual in attitude and lax in conduct. He will drift from the moorings that his covenants with God could provide. His feeling of accountability to God will diminish and then be forgotten. Thereafter, he will care only about his own comfort and satisfying his uncontrolled appetites. Finally, he will come to despise sacred things, even God, and then he will despise himself.

The peace Christ gives allows us to view mortality through the precious perspective of eternity and supplies a spiritual settledness that helps us maintain a consistent focus on our heavenly destination. Thus, we can be blessed to hush our fears because His doctrine provides purpose and direction in all aspects of our lives.

The peace Christ gives allows us to view mortality through the precious perspective of eternity and supplies a spiritual settledness (see Colossians 1:23) that helps us maintain a consistent focus on our heavenly destination. Thus, we can be blessed to hush our fears because His doctrine provides purpose and direction in all aspects of our lives.

Humans are hard-wired for self-protection. As a result, we are always on the lookout for bad news—and we’re naturally suspicious of good news. This makes us quick to read bad intent in others’ actions. So, when leaders talk the talk about collaboration and empowerment, we tend to hold back and watch their actions for evidence of their true intent.

What do we learn from these examples—and the hundreds of others in the scriptures? First, the righteous are not given a free pass that allows them to avoid the valleys of shadow. We all must walk through difficult times, for it is in these times of adversity that we learn principles that fortify our characters and cause us to draw closer to God. Second, our Heavenly Father knows that we suffer, and because we are His children, He will not abandon us.8 Think of the compassionate one, the Savior, who spent so much of His life ministering to the sick, the lonely, the doubting, the despairing.9 Do you think He is any less concerned about you today? My dear friends, my beloved brothers and sisters, God will watch over and shepherd you during these times of uncertainty and fear. He knows you. He hears your pleas. He is faithful and dependable. He will fulfill His promises. God has something unimaginable in mind for you personally and the Church collectively—a marvelous work and a wonder.

Everybody is fearful. Everybody is terrified. It's the unknown that is fearful. It's the unknown and the uncertainty which is terrifying. Realize that we live in a time, and luckily particularly in this country, we live in a place, that is more of a chance of handling this than anywhere else on earth. We are blessed.

The worst sorrows in life are not its losses and misfortunes, but its fears

I've always felt that if you back down from your fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people. So I've always said 'yes' to the thing I am most scared about.

Fear makes most of us inhuman....everybody is afraid of a generalized danger. But specific, identifiable danger is something else. ~ John Jericho

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandolf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Fear is going to be a player in your life, but you get to decide how much.

You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future, but all it will ever be is what's happening here, the decisions in that we make in this moment, which are based in either love or fear.

There is a huge difference between a dog that is going to eat you in your mind and an actual dog that's going to eat you.

A man who sincerely desires to walk in righteousness need have no fear of the devil.

Traitors who have hours ago crossed their personal Rubicon and know there's no way back do not...radiate sweet contentment. The exultation that comes from believing you are the center of the universe is more often followed by a plunge into feelings of fear, self-recrimination and profoundest solitude: for who in the world can you trust from now on except the enemy?

Where danger shews it self, apprehension cannot, without stupidity, be wanting; where danger is, sense of danger should be; and so much fear as should keep us awake, and excite our attention, industry, and vigour; but not to disturb the calm use of our reason, nor hinder the execution of what that dictates.

The next thing is by gentle degrees to accustom children to those things they are too much afraid of. But here great caution is to be used, that you do not make too much haste, nor attempt this cure too early, for fear lest you increase the mischief instead of remedying it.

Since the great foundation of fear is pain, the way to harden and fortify children against fear and danger is to accustom them to suffer pain.

How much education may reconcile young people to pain and sufference, the examples of Sparta do sufficiently shew; and they who have once brought themselves not to think bodily pain the greatest of evils, or that which they ought to stand most in fear of, have made no small advance toward virtue.

Inuring children gently to suffer some degrees of pain without shrinking, is a way to gain firmness to their minds, and lay a foundation for courage and resolution in the future part of their lives.

The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him. The great art in this is, to begin with what is but very little painful, and to proceed by insensible degrees, when you are playing, and in good humour with him, and speaking well of him: and when you have once got him to think himself made amends for his suffering by the praise is given him for his courage; when he can take pride in giving such marks of his manliness, and can prefer the reputation of being brave and stout, to the avoiding a little pain, or the shrinking under it; you need nor despair in time and by the assistance of his growing reason, to master his timorousness, and mend the weakness of his constitution.

The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him.

When by these steps he has got resolution enough not to be deterr'd from what he ought to do, by the apprehension of danger; when fear does not, in sudden or hazardous occurrences, decompose his mind, set his body a-trembling, and make him unfit for action, or run away from it, he has then the courage of a rational creature: and such an hardiness we should endeavour by custom and use to bring children to, as proper occasions come in our way.

The future is the place of all potential monsters.

You can't be held captive by the fear of failure or the fear of what people may say.

“Why are ye so fearful?”9 “Where is your faith?”10 There is a mortal tendency, even a temptation, when we find ourselves in the middle of trials, troubles, or afflictions to cry out, “Master, carest thou not that I perish? Save me.” Even Joseph Smith pleaded from an awful prison, “O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?”

Recently, President Nelson promised “that decreased fear and increased faith will follow” as we “begin anew truly to hear, hearken to, and heed the words of the Savior.”

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

When you're scared to death and hope seems remote, laughter sometimes drives out fear. ~ Esther Wheeler

Limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.

Fear is something that we create in our own minds. Fear could be like fire. You can use it to heat you up, keep you warm, cook your food. There are so many things you can use it for. But if you allow it to go out of control, it will destroy you and everything around you.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

When you are afraid, do the thing you are afraid of and soon you will lose your fear of it.

Who is all-powerful should fear everything.

Summer's wisdom: Take advantage of the opportunities life presents to us instead of letting them slip by unseen....We face opportunities...to grow every day, but we don't always recognize them. Even when we do..., it's much easier to make excuses or put off action than it is to make these opportunities fruitful....The voice of fear and sloth often convinces us to see golden opportunities as mere pipe dreams.

Don't worry about the rejections. Everybody that's good has gone through it.

If you suppress your fear of failure and are open to the lessons, you can learn each time you make a mistake you will be stronger for it. Failure can be embarrassing, but if you never try, all you will end up with is regret.

Pain is one of fear's agents. Sometimes we need to lean into the pain.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

...how much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.

There's a line in the old testament; the fear of god is the begining of wisdom. And I think it's more like that, it's not that I'm courageous, it's that I'm afraid of the right things.

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

Many men fail because they quit too soon. They lose faith when the signs are against them. They do not have the courage to hold on, to keep fighting in spite of that which seems insurmountable. If more of us would strike out and attempt the "impossible," we very soon would find the truth of that old saying that nothing is impossible...Abolish fear and you can accomplish anything you wish.

If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.

Curiousity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

Willing to experience aloneness, I discover connection everywhere; Turning to face my fear, I meet the warrior who lives within; Opening to my loss, I gain the embrace of the universe; Surrendering into emptiness, I find fullness without end. Each condition I flee from pursues me, Each condition I welcome transforms me And becomes itself transformed Into its radiant jewel-like essence. I bow to the one who has made it so, Who has crafted this Master Game; To play it is purest delight - To honor its form, true devotion.

Our eyes are not viewers, they're also projectors that are running a second story over the picture that we see in front of us all the time. Fear is writing that script, and the working title is 'I'll never be enough'

If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.

Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you. Like a snowball on a hill, you can pick it up and throw it or do anything you want with it before it starts rolling down, but once it rolls down and gets so big, it’ll crush you to death. So one must never allow fear to develop and build up without having control over it, because if you don’t you won’t be able to achieve your objective or save your life.

Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn.

Fear is like fire; it can be helpful if you know how to use. If not, you'll get burned.