Fear is what you make it, and each one of us sees and faces our fears differently. It entirely depends on you on how you decide to confront, or maybe avoid, your fears. So don’t let fear take over your life and dare to be in control with these 170 quotes about fear.
Quotes About Fear
1. Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop. – Usman B. Asif
2. The 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. – Henry Louis Mencken
3. Fear is faith that it won’t work out. – Sister Mary Tricky
4. Fear is the highest fence. – Dudley Nichols
5. To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another. – Katherine Paterson
6. You can’t let fear direct your life — because then you don’t really move, you just stand still. – Nyla Gibson
7. Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day. – Brendan Francis
8. Fear cannot take what you do not give it. – Christopher Coan
9. There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls. – Aeschylus
10. Fear cannot conquer the mind if the heart teaches it how to live strong. – Sarah Heintze
11. Fear has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours. – Zig Ziglar
12. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. – Jack Canfield
13. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
14. Many times, the thought of fear itself is greater than what it is we fear. – Idowu Koyenikan
15. Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
16. Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. – Jim Morrison
17. I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. – Rosa Parks
18. Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind. – Dale Carnegie
19. Living with fear stops us taking risks, and if you don’t go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit. – Sarah Parish
20. Fear is a self imposed prison that will keep you from becoming what God intends for you to be. You must move against it with the weapons of faith and love. – Rick Warren
21. The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear. – Gandhi
22. The presence of fear does not mean you have no faith. Fear visits everyone. But make your fear a visitor and not a resident. – Max Lucado
23. Fear is the thief of dreams. – Brian Krans
24. Beloved, I say, let your fears go, lest they make you fainthearted. Stop inspiring fear in those around you and now take your stand in faith. God has been good and He will continue to manifest His goodness. Let us approach these days expecting to see the goodness of the Lord manifest. Let us be strong and of good courage, for the Lord will fight for us if we stand in faith. – Francis Frangipane
25. The chains of love are stronger than the chains of fear. – William Gurnall
26. How very little can be done under the spirit of fear. – Florence Nightingale
27. Are you facing fear today? Perhaps you are afraid of losing your job, of developing cancer or being left by your spouse. At times all of us experience fear. But don’t allow fear to keep you from being used by God. He has kept you thus far; trust Him for the rest of the way. – Woodrow Kroll
28. We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
29. You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear. – Sammy Davis, Jr.
30. As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it. – Chanakya
31. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. – Bertrand Russell
32. Fears are nothing more than a state of mind. – Napoleon Hill
33. Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. – William Congreve
34. Failure isn’t an option. I’ve erased the word ‘fear’ from my vocabulary, and I think when you erase fear, you can’t fail. – Alicia Keys
35. Fear is only as deep as the mind allows. – Japanese Proverb
36. To overcome fear, here’s all you have to do: realize the fear is there, and do the action you fear anyway. – Peter McWilliams
37. Don’t fear, just live right. – Neal A. Maxwell
38. No power so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. – Edmund Burke
39. Being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it. – Bear Grylls
40. The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear. – Brian Tracy
41. Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom. – Marilyn Ferguson
42. 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. – Marie Curie
43. If you want to cure the world, don’t emanate fear – emanate love. – Ram Dass
44. Fear has a large shadow, but he himself is small. – Ruth Gendler
45. Your fears are a kind of prison that confines you within a limited range of action. The less you fear, the more power you will have and the more fully you will live. – Robert Greene
46. There can be no initiative if one has fear, and fear compels us to cling to tradition, gurus, etc. – Bruce Lee
47. Fear is temporary. Regret is forever. – Unknown
48. Fear is the enemy of logic. – Frank Sinatra
49. Now’s not the time for fear. That comes later. – Bane (Batman)
50. Thinking will not overcome fear but action will. – W. Clement Stone
51. You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. – Michelle Obama
52. There is no illusion greater than fear. – Lao Tzu
53. Fear does not stop death. It stops life. – Vi Keeland
54. Do what you fear and fear disappears. – David Joseph Schwartz
55. Feel the fear and do it anyway. – Susan Jeffers
56. Fear kills growth. – Gary Vaynerchuk
57. Fear cuts deeper than swords. – George R.R. Martin
58. Your choices define you. Don’t let fear be your definition. – Tom Bilyeu
59. Focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear. – Tony Robbins
60. I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. – Frank Herbert
61. Don’t let your heart be colonized by fear. – Jack Kornfield
62. The beautiful thing about fear is, when you run to it, it runs away. – Robin Sharma
63. Don’t fear. Prepare. Don’t fear. Learn. Don’t fear. Build. Don’t fear. Endure. – The Stoic Emperor
64. Sometimes, what we fear the most is what we most need to do. – Tim Ferriss
65. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are. – Don Miguel Ruiz
66. Fear makes us feel our humanity. – Benjamin Disraeli
67. Everyone is afraid of something. We fear things because we value them. We fear losing people because we love them. We fear dying because we value being alive. Don’t wish you didn’t fear anything. All that would mean is that you didn’t feel anything. – Cassandra Clare
68. You must understand fear so you can manipulate it. Fear is like fire. You can make it work for you: it can warm you in the winter, cook your food when you’re hungry, give you light when you are in the dark, and produce energy. Let it go out of control and it can hurt you, even kill you. – Cus D’Amato
69. Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d like to see you in better living conditions. – Hafiz
70. Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, and fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear. – Swami Vivekananda
71. Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return. – Leigh Bardugo
72. Don’t move the way fear makes you move. – Rumi
73. Understand your fears. Face your fears. Laugh at your fears. This is the sequence to self-ownership. – Adrian Iliopoulos
74. The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply. – Thich Nhat Hanh
75. Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. – German proverb
76. The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream. – William Golding (Lord of the Flies)
77. When you are confronted with something immediately there is no fear. It is only when thought comes in that there is fear. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
78. Fear is more crippling than the actual consequences. – Vince Vaughn
79. Fear is a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life. – Donald Miller
80. Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear. – Cheri Huber
81. And loss of control is always the source of fear. It is also, however, always the source of change. – James Frey
82. I have accepted fear as part of life – specifically the fear of change… I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back. – Erica Jong
83. Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day. – Sophocles
84. The emotion of fear often works overtime. Even when there is no immediate threat, our body may remain tight and on guard, our mind narrowed to focus on what might go wrong. When this happens, fear is no longer functioning to secure our survival. We are caught in the trance of fear and our moment-to-moment experience becomes bound in reactivity. We spend our time and energy defending our life rather than living it fully. – Tara Brach
85. Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free. – Stephen King
86. Where fear is, happiness is not. – Seneca
87. Do what you fear most and you control fear. – Tom Hopkins
88. There are four ways you can handle fear. You can go over it, under it, or around it. But if you are ever to put fear behind you, you must walk straight through it. Once you put fear behind you. Leave it there. – Donna Favors
89. Fear isn’t an excuse to come to a standstill. It’s the impetus to step up and strike. – Arthur Ashe
90. The key to change….is to let go of fear. – Rosanne Cash
91. One great enemy we must all endeavor to fear not conquering is fear. Fear can cripple purpose and purposeful life. Fear asks question we must fear. Fear makes vision a nightmare. One must always cross the barrier of fear to get to the great city of true purposefulness. A great number of us who are unable to live to accomplish the true reason for our existence on earth are unable to cross the barrier of fear in the first place. – Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
92. The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed. – Buddha
93. There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational- or in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don’t. – Lemony Snicket
94. Courage is feeling fear, not getting rid of fear, and taking action in the face of fear. – Roy T. Bennett
95. Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me. – Isabel Allende
96. Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will. – James Stephens
97. Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance. – Arnold Glasow
98. Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil. – Aristotle
99. Fear is the needle that pierces us that it may carry a thread to bind us to heaven. – James Hastings
100. Fear of self is the greatest of all terrors, the deepest of all dread, the commonest of all mistakes. From it grows failure. Because of it, life is a mockery. Out of it comes despair. – David Seasbury
101. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. – H. P. Lovecraft
102. “Because fear kills everything,” Mo had once told her. “Your mind, your heart, your imagination.” – Cornelia Funke
103. I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you. – Yann Martel
104. A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it. – J.R.R. Tolkien
105. Without fear there cannot be courage. – Christopher Paolini
106. That is the fear: I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without. – John Green
107. Fear doesn’t shut you down; it wakes you up – Veronica Roth
108. I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker. – Stanley Kubrick
109. Fear isn’t so difficult to understand. After all, weren’t we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It’s just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual. – Alfred Hitchcock
110. When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears. – Anthony Robbins
111. Best way to deal with fear is to confront it. – Pittacus Lore
112. Your fear is 100% dependent on you for its survival. – Steve Maraboli
113. Fear can’t hurt you,” she said. “When it washes over you, give it no power. It’s a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you. – Maureen Johnson
114. To know a species, look at its fears. To know yourself, look at your fears. Fear in itself is not important, but fear stands there and points you in the direction of things that are important. Don’t be afraid of your fears, they’re not there to scare you; they’re there to let you know that something is worth it. – C. JoyBell C.
115. May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. – Nelson Mandela
116. Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear. – St. Catherine of Siena
117. Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something.It is a cold slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading. – Lucy Maud Montgomery
118. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves… – Cheryl Strayed
119. Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy… fear makes you always, always hold something back. – Philip K. Dick
120. When we’re afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators’ repression. – Marjane Satrapi
121. “Fear,” the doctor said, “is the relinquishment of logic, the willing relinquishing of reasonable patterns. We yield to it or we fight it, but we cannot meet it halfway.” – Shirley Jackson
122. Fear makes idiots out of us all, at some time or other. – Patricia Briggs
123. To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around. – Richie Norton
124. Fear is a good thing. It mean you’re paying attention. – Tamora Pierce
125. Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of. – Viktor E. Frankl
126. Fear can force obedience, but it can never transform a heart. – Stacey Jay
127. Fear is a part of life. It’s a warning mechanism. That’s all. It tells you when there’s danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it. – Jim Butcher
128. Fear could break a line faster than any enemy charge. – Sarah J. Maas
129. There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and the air of the streets. Fear walks through the city, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare speak. – Ayn Rand
130. Fear is a weakness. It makes a person lose her nerve and her cool. It makes people jumpy and organizations nervous, and when that happens, there is always a chance to take advantage. – Ally Carter
131. Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here. – Marianne Williamson
132. The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then. – Thomas Carlyle
133. There is no passion so contagious as that of fear. – Michel de Montaigne
134. Fear stifles our thinking and actions. It creates indecisiveness that results in stagnation. I have known talented people who procrastinate indefinitely rather than risk failure. Lost opportunities cause erosion of confidence, and the downward spiral begins. – Charles Stanley
135. Fear has many eyes and can see things underground. – Miguel de Cervantes
136. Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself. – Samuel Butler
137. Fear can be good when you’re walking past an alley at night or when you need to check the locks on your doors before you go to bed, but it’s not good when you have a goal and you’re fearful of obstacles. We often get trapped by our fears, but anyone who has had success has failed before. – Queen Latifah
138. Fear is the mother of foresight. – Thomas Hardy
139. Fear is excitement without breath. – Robert Heller
140. Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. – John Cheever
141. The mark of fear is not easily removed. – Ernest Gaines
142. No one should have to live in fear. – Jeff Fortenberry
143. Fear is the mother of morality. – Friedrich Nietzsche
144. Fear follows crime and is its punishment. – Voltaire
145. Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty. – Marcus Tullius Cicero
146. Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it. – Leonardo da Vinci
147. Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego’s fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life. – Eckhart Tolle
148. Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you. – Wayne Dyer
149. I really believed that fear is contagious. – Joel Osteen
150. The only answer to fear is faith in God, knowing He loves you unconditionally and individually. – Joyce Meyer
151. Fear clogs; faith liberates. – Elbert Hubbard
152. Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear. – Jean-Paul Sartre
153. Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater. – George Washington Carver
154. Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy. – Henri Nouwen
155. I’m sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you’re afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation. – Edmund Hillary
156. When desire dies, fear is born. – Baltasar Gracian
157. In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in failure. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
158. Fear is the passion of slaves. – Patrick Henry
159. Resist your fear; fear will never lead to you a positive end. Go for your faith and what you believe. – T. D. Jakes
160. When we drop fear, we can draw nearer to people, we can draw nearer to the earth, we can draw nearer to all the heavenly creatures that surround us. – bell hooks
161. Fear motivates, more than love or ambition or joy. Fear is more powerful than anything else in the world. I have spent so long yearning for things—for love, for acceptance—that I do not really need. I need nothing except the submission that comes with fear. I do not know why it took me so long to learn this. – Marie Lu
162. …What you fear will not go away; it will take you into yourself and bless you and keep you. That’s the world, and we all live there. – William Stafford
163. Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground. – Terry Pratchett
164. Fear is the worst kind of grave, because it buries one alive. – Beth Fantaskey
165. Everything we do in life is based on fear, especially love. – Mel Brooks
166. Where your fear is,
there is your task.
– C.G. Jung
167. Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge – Roshani Chokshi
168. But fear doesn’t need doors and windows. It works from the inside. – Andrew Clements
169. Early sign of getting lost is fear. – Toba Beta
170. It may be that the fear contains information. Something can be interesting if you get to the other side of that fear. – Craig Ferguson