I won’t touch on risky, because that’s subjective. People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don’t necessarily merit fear.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Seeing Pax get extra-nervous about which shirt he is going to wear when he meets Aung San Suu Kyi, I get very moved. He rightfully doesn’t get nervous going to a movie premiere; he gets nervous going to meet her.

I’m kind of claustrophobic… It’s not even like enclosed spaces. It’s like I hate being stuck in one band, you know? Just being stuck is the biggest drag, for fear that, you know, just that you can’t get out.

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

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

The thing that I fear discriminating against is humor and truth.

The Russians feared Ike. They didn’t fear me.

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

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

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.

Too much self-centered attitude, you see, brings, you see, isolation. Result: loneliness, fear, anger. The extreme self-centered attitude is the source of suffering.

With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

Death obsesses me, yes it does. I can’t really understand why it doesn’t obsess everyone – I think it does really, I’m just a little more out about it.

The only answer to fear is faith in God, knowing He loves you unconditionally and individually.

Poverty entails fear and stress and sometimes depression. It meets a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts that is something on which to pride yourself but poverty itself is romanticized by fools.

The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything – diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.

Sometimes negative news does come out, but it is often exaggerated and manipulated to spread scandal. Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women, that is, the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.

The movie business is a big gamble.

There is not a truth existing which I fear… or would wish unknown to the whole world.

Nothing scares me more than people with some doll collection.

Let me spell it out: with the psychotic boss, nothing you do is ever quite right. They set traps, asking you to do things, and no matter how hard you think of accomplishing it in their way, it is wrong and you are to blame. This tends to instill a lot of fear in you.

All of us have been trained by education and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for ourselves. Though we cover it over with pleasant phrases, we have been educated for various professions within a system which is based on exploitation and acquisitive fear.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

Red is such an interesting color to correlate with emotion, because it’s on both ends of the spectrum. On one end you have happiness, falling in love, infatuation with someone, passion, all that. On the other end, you’ve got obsession, jealousy, danger, fear, anger and frustration.

People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don’t necessarily merit fear.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

True nobility is exempt from fear.

Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok?

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

I don’t want to wake up and be bored. That’s probably my greatest fear is to have nothing to do. What better job is there than to play quarterback for an NFL team, and certainly one that I’ve been on for a long time and had success with? I don’t plan on giving it up any time soon.

Worry – a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

I was in my thirteenth year when I heard a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. And the first time I was very much afraid.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

Fear is exciting for me.

It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth – then all Americans are in peril.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.

People are terrified of me, and I want them to be.

I have trust issues with allowing other individuals to know my innermost secrets for fear of how I may be viewed. Everyone has this.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‚I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.‘ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‚Yes, I deserve it.‘

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.

In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.