May 24, 2008
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Face Your Fears
Quotations on fear, death, the unknown, and fear of death and the unknown:
People living deeply have no fear of death.
–Anais NinFear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
–Bertrand RussellFears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.
–Karl Augustus MenningerFear: False Evidence Appearing Real.
–Anonymous (common 12-step maxim)Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.
–Isa Upanishad, Hindu ScriptureThe oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
–H. P. LovecraftThe enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.
–Mahatma GandhiWhen we fear things I think that we wish for them … every fear hides a wish.
–David Mamet, EdmondIs it that they fear the pain of death, or could it be they fear the joy of life?
–Toad the Wet Sprocket, Pray Your GodsFear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
–Yoda, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom MenaceThe cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
–Joseph CampbellFearlessness requires attention and receptivity–it takes focus to stand in the still eye of a tornado and not be swept away by it.
–Susan Piver, O Magazine, Apr. 2007Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
– Arthur Somers Roche.Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
– Helen Keller.There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
– 1 John 4:18.You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
– Eleanor Roosevelt.Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile… initially scared me to death.
– Betty Bender.One hates what one fears.
– Marylin Manson.Fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.
– Shirley MacLaine.It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.
– Unknown.If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost.
– Lloyd Cassel Douglas.It has been said that our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength.
– Charles Haddon Spurgeon.There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.
– André Gide.A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us.
– Pema Chodron.Love is always creative, fear always destructive.
– Emmet Fox.Fear not death, for the sooner we die the longer we shall be immortal.
– Benjamin Franklin.The most dangerous person is the fearful; he is the most to be feared.
– Lidwig Borne.Fear; if allowed free rein, would reduce all of us to trembling shadows of men, for whom only death could bring release.
– John M. Wilson.People don’t get along because they fear each other. People fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they have not properly communicated with each other.
— Martin Luther King.The soft-minded man always fears change. He feels security in the status quo, and he has an almost morbid fear of the new. For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.
— Martin Luther KingWhere fear is present, wisdom cannot be.
— LactaniusI must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
–Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
(Frank Herbert’s Dune series)We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.
— Titus LiviusA fear of the unknown keeps a lot of people from leaving bad situations.
–Kathie Lee GiffordIf we fear the unknown then surely we fear ourselves.
–Bryant H. McGillThe one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.
–H. L. MenckenThere are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors.
–Jim MorrisonChristianity has made of death a terror which was unknown to the gay calmness of the Pagan.
–OuidaPeople don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.
–Chuck Palahniuk
Comments (18)
If I faced my fear of heights, I would end up dead. terrifies me to no end.
@Blue_ButterflyBaby - Apparently, your fear of death is keeping you from transcending your acrophobia. Interesting….
Awesome quotes. Hope your day is going better now.
I’m still trying to figure out what I’m afraid of. Truly afraid of not just worried about. The only fear I ever remember having was of heights. Then after I flew on a plane the first time I fell in love with them. Haha. That one because of a bad experiance though. When I was three or four I kept climbing a fire escape with no side and I got spanked every other step down two days in a row. >.o
@OhGodWhyMustItBe - Don’t discount the “worries,” the low-level anxieties. Look at them. They, as well as the things that anger you, are manifestations of fear just as much as terror is, only varying in intensity or mode of expression.
I think I’m afraid of repeating old wounds — to lose everyone around me. That happened to me twice before I was 2. Then I lost my adoptive dad when I was three.
In a way this helps me to never take anything for granted. But I still fear getting close to people, to trust others. Because I know how much ot hurts to lose them.
@relaxolgy - Distancing yourself from people to avoid “losing” them — doesn’t that produce the same isolation, but without the warmth and pleasure in the interim?
I went through similar feelings after losing my children. I wouldn’t even keep a pet for years. I couldn’t bear to give my heart to anything and risk the loss. Those were the bleakest years of my life. Now I love without possessiveness, without need for love being returned, and this is the most joyous time of my life.
@SuSu - yes, it is crating the isolation that I fear. But it’s the strategy of “if I don’t have anything to lose, I don’t need to fear losing it”. And part of me has become addicted to the isolation.
On the other hand, somehow life has blessed me with a family of my own, man & children. I only fear how vulnerable we are.
But I do want to let go. To just be open to others. I want to evolve careerwise. And helping others is actually the profession I’v choosen, and trained for. I know it’s the right path for me - I just need to get rid of that shyness and insecurity.
When my kids say “I’m afraid”, I asked them this question: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Then they tell me and I say “How about if you try that first?” They have overcome many fear type situations with that. Now at 15, 9, and 7, I hear them ask others the same question.
@Jaynebug - That’s a powerful question: “What would you do if you were not afraid?” Much more effective than, “What are you afraid of?”
@SuSu - ”What are you afraid of?” would be like mocking their true feeling at that moment and would close them off from an answer. I want them to empower themselves with solutions.
Most of what we consider to be the individual self is the complex system of defenses we have erected around the “true self.” We began to put those defenses in place on the day we were born, and we have continued to elaborate on them throughout our lives.
Now these defenses limit our ability to give and receive love like the walls of a prison keep the prisoner from walking in the sunshine. We created these blocks with good intention, and they helped us to survive real threats to our integrity when we were vulnerable and small. But now most of them are unnecessary because the danger has passed. Now we are larger and more capable. Now these defenses have become a heavy suit of armor that weighs us down and saps our energy.
Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure that the threat is no longer present is to drop the defense. Then we can say, “Oh, I no longer need that.” But to do so, we must allow ourselves to feel vulnerable, to expose ourselves to the fear that prompted us to put up the wall to being with. Only then can we see that we don’t need it anymore. Dismantling that defense structure can take a lifetime, maybe many lifetimes. When there is no longer anyone to defend, there is no need for defenses.
It’s really true that nothing matters
no mad, mad world and no mad hatters,
there’s no one pitching cause there ain’t no batters
in Coconut Grove. — Fred Neil
I find fear is my biggest problem. I copied these into a document so I can look at them whenever I want. thanks.
Thank you. This comes if a good time for me to read.
I had read some of them before, and haven’t read many others. I will copy certainly.
I always had too much fear in my life. When I overcame the fears attached to everyday matters (like facing people, all kinds of shyness and insecurity) at least to the point in which they didn’t prevent me from living, I moved on to fear the big things: death, sickness loss. I am working on moving on to …well…living!
@Yogi616 - You ever see the movie V is for Vendetta? What you wrote sounds like what she (Natalie Portman’s) character.
@SuSu - How did you learn to love without possessiveness?
@Jaynebug - You rock BTW. Just thought I’d let you know that.
Good quotes. Nothing I didn’t know before, but all very true and all very insightful. I like what Yogi dude had to say.
I thought orgasm was called, ‘little-death’ (referring to Bene Gesserit’s Litany against Fear quote). Maybe that only applies in France. La petite mort.
I’m going to copy these to my computer! Thanks.
@jaeyounglee - I learned to love without possessiveness through a lot of experience of the corrosive power of possessiveness. Allowing others their freedom is liberating to me. I love liberty, and I don’t need anyone else to validate me.