I still get very scared when I step in front of a live audience.

It’s terrifying to play your favorite band’s song in front of your favorite band.

Americans are apocalyptic by nature. The reason why is that we’ve always had so much, so we live in deadly fear that people are going to take it away from us.

I’m afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn’t fit that will become unnecessary.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don’t want to meet them.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

Paranoia is just another word for ignorance.

Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.

Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense.

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it’s Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is.

I’ve been afraid of people playing their life away with too many toys.

I’m not ashamed to say I fear something.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

If you can feel that Mother Earth is in you, and you are Mother Earth, then you are not any longer afraid to die because the earth is not dying. Like a wave appears and disappears and appears again.

I’ve had the honor of speaking at many commencements.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

I have a wish. It as a fear as well – that in my end will be my beginning.

We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.

Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don’t fear death, I’m a fatalist. I believe when it’s your time, that’s it. It’s the hand you’re dealt.

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.

People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, ‚always do what you are afraid to do.‘

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

As long as the people don’t fear the truth, there is hope. For once they fear it, the one who tells it doesn’t stand a chance. And today, truth is still beautiful… but so frightening.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

In oratory the will must predominate.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

There’s two sorts of fear: one you embrace and one you should listen to and turn the other way.

The worst part of success is, to me, adapting to it. It’s scary.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

I think I’m like most people – we fear the unknown and the things that have yet to come to pass, which are the very things that don’t deserve to be feared. When you give God complete control, it’s very hard not to be fearless.

I write all my sermons.

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

I’ve been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can’t remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

So when I speak in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don’t really get nervous because I know what I want to say and I know what message I want to give.

I don’t think anybody in America ought to be scared.

I’m not one of those guys that has a great worldview. I kind of deal with terror and fear and isolation and abandonment.

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

In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of producing persuasion; second, the language; third the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

I think so many people live their whole life in fear and doubt and shame.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

Nothing scares me more than people with some doll collection.

I have never talked publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms.

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

Death is a fearful thing.

Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

I’m not that keen on the idea of being unconscious.

When you walk out onstage in front of 65,000 people, it can bring you to tears.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.