Fearful Quotes - Page 3

• April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.

  Franz Kafka

  Thinking, People, April

  Franz Kafka “1914-1923. Tr. by Martin Greenberg, with the co-operation of Hannah Arendt”

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• Sean reaches out between us and takes my wrist. He press his thumb on my pulse. My heartbeat trips and surges against his skin. I'm pinned by his touch, a sort of fearful magic. We stand and stand, and I wait for my pulse against his finger to slow, but it doesn't Finally, he releases my wrist and says," I'll see you on the cliffs tomorrow.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Waiting, Magic, Skins

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• ... active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with the love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one's life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and eveyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and persistence, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Love, Dream, Persistence

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• Only you and I can help the sun rise each coming morning. If we don't, it may drench itself out in sorrow. You special, miraculous, unrepeatable, fragile, fearful, tender, lost, sparkling ruby emerald jewel, rainbow splendor person. It's up to you.

  Joan Baez

  Morning, Jewels, Rainbow

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• Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman: a lucky charm, a brand of paper, but most often a writing instrument. Am I writing well? Thank my pen. Am I writing badly? Don't blame me blame my pen. By such displacements does the fearful imagination defend itself.

  Anne Fadiman

  Responsibility, Writing, Voice

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• In this way, his unhappy soul struggled with its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity come together, He too, while the olive trees trembled in the fierce breath of the Infinite, had brushed away the fearful cup that appeared before him, streaming with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths. (pg. 236)

  Victor Hugo

  Running, Stars, Men

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• We were like the Beatles, Dad.' 'I know you think that, sweetie' 'Seriously. Mom is John, you're Paul, I'm George, and Ice Cream is Ringo.' 'Ice Cream,' I said. 'Resentful of the past, fearful of the future...everytime we saw Ice Cream sitting there with her mouth open, we'd say, Poor Ice Cream, resentful of the past, fearful of the future.

  Maria Semple

  Mom, Dad, Past

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• I must, before I die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, that I have never said yet -- a thing that is not love or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce and coming from far away, bringing into human life the vastness and the fearful passionless force of non-human things.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hate, Essentials, Vastness

  Bertrand Russell (1995). “My Philosophical Development”, p.193, Psychology Press

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• that you seemed almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women were of neglect. (Edmund to Fanny)

  Jane Austen

  Praise, Neglect, Mansfield Park

  Jane Austen (2005). “Jane Austen: 8 Books in 1”, p.244, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• There is nothing more fearful for the average person in our society than to stand before a group of people and speak.

  Charles R. Swindoll

  Average, People, Groups

  "Interview: Charles R. Swindoll on Public Speaking and Letting God Lead Our Lives". Interview with Myles Collier, www.christianpost.com. February 23, 2012.

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• Sleep makes people calmer, more alert, less fearful - just plain happier, or so I see around me and in me. I am sure that if this great nation were to concentrate on getting more sleep, we would be a happier, more confident people, and that by itself would be a major achievement.

  Ben Stein

  Sleep, People, Achievement

  "Ben Stein Wants You To Sleep". www.huffingtonpost.com. March 24, 2011.

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• We're living in a fearful time. Since 9/11 people have become more afraid than before, because of terrorism. There's a lot of confusion about evil, where it's all coming from.

  Charles Stanley

  People, Evil, Confusion

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• I would never be fearful of any character.

  Idris Elba

  Character

  FaceBook post by Idris Elba from Feb 08, 2012

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• Both the five-year-olds looked at me with bewilderment and a bit of fearful uncertainty. I had a sudden horrifying image of the woman I might become if I'm not careful: Crazy Aunt Liz. The divorcee in the muumuu with the dyed orange hair who doesn't eat dairy but smokes menthols, who's always just coming back from her astrology cruise or breaking up with her aroma-therapist boyfriend, who reads the Tarot cards of kindergarteners and says things like, "Bring Aunty Liz another wine cooler, baby, and I'll let you wear my mood ring.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Baby, Crazy, Wine

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• I wanted to live, but whether I would or not was mystery, and in the midst of confronting that fact, even at that moment, I was beginning to sense that to stare into the heart of such a fearful mystery wasn't a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless education. P 99

  Lance Armstrong

  Heart, Facts, Priceless

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• His brow is seamed with line and scar; His cheek is red and dark as wine; The fires as of a Northern star Beneath his cap of sable shine. His right hand, bared of leathern glove, Hangs open like an iron gin, You stoop to see his pulses move, To hear the blood sweep out and in. He looks some king, so solitary In earnest thought he seems to stand, As if across a lonely sea He gazed impatient of the land. Out of the noisy centuries The foolish and the fearful fade; Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.

  Walter de La Mare

  Lonely, Kings, Stars

  Walter De la Mare (1920). “Collected Poems, 1901-1918”

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• Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times.

  Bernard Beckett

  Fear, Optimistic, Years

  "Genesis". Book by Bernard Beckett, www.npr.org. 2010.

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• Dissident Natan Sharansky writes that there are two kinds of states - “fear societies” and “free societies.”… The two societies make up two kinds of consciousness. The consciousness derived of oppression is despairing, fatalistic, and fearful of inquiry. It is mistrustful of the self and forced to trust external authority. It is premised on a dearth of self-respect. It is cramped …
  In contrast, the consciousness of freedom … is one of expansiveness, trust of the self, and hope. It is a consciousness of limitless inquiry … It builds up in a citizen a wealth of self-respect.

  Naomi Wolf

  Writing, Self, Two

  "Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries". Book by Naomi Wolf, September 16, 2008.

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• There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.

  Oscar Wilde

  Taken, Moving, Passion

  Oscar Wilde (2013). “The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Story of a Fashionable Young Man Who Sells His Soul for Eternal Youth and Beauty (Beloved Books Edition)”, p.212, Lulu Press, Inc

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• What is a normal child like? Does he just eat and grow and smile sweetly? No, that is not what he is like. The normal child, if he has confidence in mother and father, pulls out all the stops. In the course of time, he tries out his power to disrupt, to destroy, to frighten, to wear down, to waste, to wangle, and to appropriate . . . At the start he absolutely needs to live in a circle of love and strength (with consequent tolerance) if he is not to be too fearful of his own thoughts and of his imaginings to make progress in his emotional development.

  Donald Woods Winnicott

  Mother, Children, Father

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• I'm still prone to periods of isolation, still more fearful of the world out there and more averse to pleasure and risk than I'd like to be; I still direct more energy toward controlling and minimizing appetites than toward indulging them.

  Caroline Knapp

  Risk, Energy, World

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• The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.

  Alan Paton

  Christian, Country, Practice

  Alan Paton (2003). “Cry, the Beloved Country”, p.141, Simon and Schuster

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• There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.

  James A. Baldwin

  Splendor, Desolation, Absolutes

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• When gods die, self-respect buds', murmured Orland Fank. 'Gods and their examples are not needed by those who respect themselves and, consequently, respect others. Gods are for children, for little, fearful people, for those who would have no responsibility to themselves or their fellows.

  Michael Moorcock

  Atheist, Children, Responsibility

  Michael Moorcock (1988). “The chronicles of Castle Brass”

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• The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Mean, Light, Illumination

  Jacob Bronowski (1975). “Science and Human Values”, HarperCollins Publishers

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