Fear quotes

Fear

2.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

2.7K quotes
Lewis Grizzard
Lewis Grizzard Author, Humorist

""Have you done your homework?" my mother would ask. "I'll do it later." "You will do it now, young man. I don't want you winding up on the third shift at Flagg-Utica." Flagg-Utica was a local textile plant. Somehow, I never could figure how failing to read three chapters in my geography book about the various sorts of vegetation to be found in a tropical rain forest had anything to do with facing a life as a mill hand. But with enough guilt and fear as catalysts, you can read anything, even geography books and Deuteronomy."

Voltaire
Voltaire Philosopher, Writer

"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men."

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Fear quotes (page 1 of 134)

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Leo Tolstoy Novelist, Philosopher
Fear

"Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking."

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Leader
Fear

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate... Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

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William James Philosopher, Psychologist
Fear

"The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds."

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Frederick Douglass Social Reformer, Writer
Fear

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."

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Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Activist, Politician
Fear

"The years of imprisonment hardened me ... Perhaps if you have been given a moment to hold back and wait for the next blow, your emotions wouldn't be blunted as they have been in my case. When it happens every day of your life, when that pain becomes a way of life ... there is no longer anything I can fear. There is nothing the government has not done to me. There isn't any pain I haven't known."

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Marcus Aurelius Philosopher, Emperor
Fear

"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."

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Dwight D. Eisenhower Military Leader, Politician
Fear

"This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."

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Ramana Maharshi Spiritual Teacher
Fear

"If a man considers that he is born, he cannot avoid the fear of death. Let him find out if he has been born or if the Self has any birth. He will discover that the Self always exists, that the body that is born resolves itself into thought and that the emergence of thought is the root of all mischief. Find from where thoughts emerge. Then you will be able to abide in the ever-present inmost Self and be free from the idea of birth or the fear of death."

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Dale Carnegie Author, Speaker
Fear

"Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire."

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Eleanor Roosevelt Political Activist, Diplomat
Fear

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."

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