Quotes about fear

Men are always more inclined to pitch their estimate of the enemy's strength too high than too low, such is human nature.

Timidity is the root of prudence in the majority of men.

Is it worse to be scared than to be bored, that is the question.

"Fear is a hammer, and when the people are beaten finally to the conviction that their existence hangs by a frayed thread, they will be led where they need to go."

"Which is where?"

"To a responsible future in a properly managed world."

I'm either a mutant or a cripple, and I refuse to be a cripple. People pity cripples, but they're afraid of mutants […] Fear implies respect.

Fear feeds the imagination.

Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I know beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid.

People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don’t dream at all.

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of a loss of power.

Among primitives sometimes evil is escaped by never mentioning the name, as in Malaysia, where one never mentions a tiger by name for fear of calling him. Among others, as even among ourselves, the giving of a name establishes a familiarity which renders the thing impotent. It is interesting to see how some scientists and philosophers, who are an emotional and fearful group, are able to protect themselves against fear. In a modern scene, when the horizons stretch out and your philosopher is likely to fall off the world like a Dark Age mariner, he can save himself by establishing a taboo-box which he may call "mysticism" or "supernaturalism" or "radicalism." Into this box he can throw all those thoughts which frighten him and thus be safe from them.

... nearly all men are afraid, and they don’t even know what causes their fear — shadows, perplexities, dangers without names or numbers, fear of a faceless death. But if you can bring yourself to face not shadows but real death, then you need never be afraid again, at least not in the same way you were before. Then you will be a man set apart from other men, safe where other men may cry in terror. This is the great reward.

He didn't believe in psychiatrists, he said. But actually he did believe in them, so much that he was afraid of them.