Excerpt: Fear holds you back. You can’t live your best life held back. Read our 46 fantastic quotes on fear to help you live your best life despite it.
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Introduction: Do you even know what you’re afraid of?
“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
Yoda
Many times we don’t even realize that we’re living in fear. When we find our comforts, we get comfortable living with them. It’s instinctual. It’s natural. It’s how we’re wired and what we’re drawn to. We’re living in a sort-of primal state of constant pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. Why wouldn’t that be the case? Who actually would want to seek out fear? Confront fear? Work to overcome fear? It’s scary! It’s uncomfortable! There’s so much resistance! You’d have to have a really good reason to do any of that.
One reason you might consider is that fear is a limiter. It handicaps performance. It prevents us from doing things that would help cultivate our full potential. Fear is like a magnetic force that tries to keep us pushed down into the smallest nugget of potential possible. We’ll call this, “the force of fear.” (See what I did there?) It’s easy to understand this force because we feel it every day of our lives! It’s the force that pushes us deep into our comfortable beds. The force that holds our butts to those comfortable chairs when there’s a scary opportunity right in front of us. The force that keeps those screens glued to our comfortable eyes. It’s the force that holds us back.
While this certainly doesn’t feel like good news, if you’re clever, you might be able to find the opportunity in this. If “the force of fear” is always trying to hold you back, then that would mean that our opportunity is always in the exact opposite direction. Like a reverse compass of sorts. The force is trying to keep you in bed? Do the opposite and get up and get after your day. The force is trying to keep your butt in that chair? Do the opposite and step up to the plate and accept the challenge when it’s there. The force is trying to keep that screen glued to your eyes? Do the opposite and put the screen away and interact with your world. This is what Eleanor Roosevelt was implying when she said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
It’s about doing the exact opposite—or at least trying to do the exact opposite—of what your thoughts (the force of fear) are trying to get you to do. The real power in this sentiment comes when you look more closely at the growth opportunities that lie on the other side of fear. What do you imagine doing if you were at your absolute peak? Reverse engineer and start taking steps towards THAT. Think you can’t become a good public speaker? Start speaking publicly to groups of people. Think you can’t manage a successful business? Start researching, planning, organizing, branding, and marketing the business you would start. Think you can’t get into the relationship you think you deserve? Start building up your feelings of self-worth, courage, and self-belief and consistently (but patiently) reach out to people who you are interested in.
An important side-note to this process is that you shouldn’t do EVERYTHING you fear doing—only the things that you fear doing, that you find yourself drawn to anyway. Things that you think would be cool to be able to do. Things that you would do if you had the courage, charisma, or guts. Those are the things to pursue. If you’re not interested in becoming a public speaker, then don’t worry about speaking on stages. If you do think it would be cool to run a successful business though, then you should start leaning into that process. You have to be honest with yourself, though, and call out your feelings for what they are—the force of fear can be tricky!
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If you tell yourself you don’t really want to do something—is that really the truth? Or is that the fear talking? If you say you’re not interested in talking to that person—is that really the case? Or are you just nervous that you’ll get rejected? If you admit to yourself that you don’t want to start your own business—is that really how you feel? Or are you actually just scared that it will fail? You have to keep it real and you have to be brutally honest. What are your unique fears? Do you even know what they are? Have you ever actually put your finger on them and identified them for what they are within your mind? Most people are so used to living in that sort-of primal state of constant pleasure seeking and pain avoidance that they don’t even realize that their life is being governed by fear!
Here’s your task: Name them. Write them down and make them real. Be honest with yourself and don’t let fear of failure, inadequacy, or embarrassment hold you back from being true to yourself. What does your ideal life look like? What would be the coolest thing that you can ever imagine yourself doing? Being? Sharing? Write it all down. Then, write down what’s really holding you back from pursuing it all. What are you scared of? What do you have to lose? What steps can you take—big and small—to start pushing back against the force of fear? From there, the path is simple. Banish them by working hard every day to overcome them. Simple, but definitely not easy. Stay strong. Stay woke. Live your best life. You deserve it. Yoda thinks so too.
Below you’ll find our list of quotes on fear that will help you understand what fear is, why it’s holding you back, how you can build courage, and what you have to do to overcome it so that you can live your best life.
Overcoming fear isn’t easy. Heck, many times we aren’t even fully aware of what our fears are! Today, after reading this list, I hope that changes.
I hope that this collection of quotes wakes you up to your potential, strength, and courage that you have lying dormant inside. Because life is better lived on the other side of fear. And we are all capable of so much more than we think. Good luck.
The List: 46 Fantastic Quotes on Fear:
“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.”
Japanese Proverb
“Facing your fears robs them of their power”
Mark Burnett
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
John Lennon
“Fear is a conditioned response: a life-sucking habit that can easily consume your energy, creativity and spirit if you are not careful. When fear rears its ugly head, beat it down quickly. The best way to do that is to do the thing you fear. Understand the anatomy of fear. It is your own creation. Like any other creation, it is just as easy to tear it down as it is to erect it. Methodically search for and then destroy every fear that has secretly slid into the fortress of your mind. This alone will give you enormous confidence, happiness and peace of mind.”
Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“If you let fear be a reason not to explore what life has to offer, you will never explore what life has to offer. A little shiver of fear is a necessary price you must pay to give yourself the gift of a year that involves trying something new. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you’re not trembling just a little bit, you’re not really venturing anything either. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to remember to not be afraid of fear.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 117)
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
William Shakespeare
“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.”
Dale Carnegie
“What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Identify the things that are holding you back. Are you scared of speaking or do you have trouble in your relationships? Do you lack a positive attitude or do you need more energy? Make a written inventory of your weaknesses. Satisfied people are far more thoughtful than others. Take the time to reflect on what it is that might be keeping you from the life you really want to know deep down you can have. Once you have identified what your weaknesses are, the next step is to face them head on and attack your fears. If you fear public speaking, sign up to give twenty speeches. If you fear starting a new business or getting out of a dissatisfying relationship, muster every ounce of your inner resolve and do it. This might be the first taste of real freedom that you have experienced in years. Fear is nothing more than a mental monster you have created, a negative stream of consciousness.”
Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
“The closer one gets to being motivated by altruism, the more fearless one becomes in the face of even extremely anxiety-provoking circumstances.”
Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert
“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.”
Tagore
“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”
Judy Blume
“Be fearless. Have the courage to take risks. Go where there are no guarantees. Get out of your comfort zone even if it means being uncomfortable. The road less traveled is sometimes fraught with barricades, bumps, and uncharted terrain. But it is on that road where your character is truly tested. Have the courage to accept that you’re not perfect, nothing is and no one is — and that’s OK.”
Katie Couric
“Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them… they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.”
Orison Swett Marden
“Fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.”
Steven Pressfield
“My whole life I’ve been telling myself, ‘don’t be afraid’. And it is only now that I’m realizing how stupid that is. Don’t be afraid. Like saying, ‘don’t move out of the way when someone tries to punch you’ or ‘don’t flinch at the heat of fire’ or ‘don’t blink’. Don’t be human. I’m afraid and you’re afraid and we’re all always going to be afraid, because that’s the point. What I should be telling myself is ‘be afraid, but do it anyway’. Live anyway.”
Unknown
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
Dale Carnegie
“Whether we’re talking about mental or physical effort, the first step to embracing the suck is to step up and face your fear of suffering. We all share this fear, which stems from a deep-rooted need for certainty and security. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that security is threatened because something is out of whack. However, when you consistently experience the personal growth that accrues from deliberately putting yourself out of balance, such as with hard workouts, you begin to embrace that temporary pain for the rewards it brings. The fear recedes into oblivion as you embrace the suck.”
Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
“Waiting to develop courage is just another form of procrastination. The most successful people take action while they’re afraid!”
Unknown
“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.”
Dawna Markova
“The first jump – that’s the most difficult part. Because you’ll always have some people who say things like, ‘Why would you do that?’ or ‘How can you do that?’ or ‘If you could do that thing you want to do – write that novel or become an entrepreneur or travel the world or whatever – then everyone would be doing it.’ It’s important to remember that these naysayers are just projecting. It’s that ingrained fear we all have, a natural instinct. We tend to be afraid of bucking the status quo. But when you do take that first jump, it actually becomes terrifying to do ‘normal’ things, because you realize what a risk it is to give up your entire life just to be normal.”
The Minimalists, Everything That Remains
“This may be the one-sentence essence of what I learned in my year among the oldest old: to shut down the noise and fears and desires that buffet our days and think about how amazing, really amazing, life is. Could I do this? Before the year began, my answer would have been no, that the noise and fears and desires were life itself. But as the year went along I found myself shifting my focus to the quiet beneath the noise—how unlikely the moment was, how each sliver contained a gift that might never return. Maybe this was what it meant to think like an old person. I couldn’t live wholly in the moment, because I had a future to think about, but if I had learned anything, it was to live as if this future were finite, and the present all the more wondrous as a result.”
John Leland, Happiness is a Choice You Make (Page 210)
“The fear is not of death, the fear is of time, and if you look deeply into it then you find that the fear is of an unlived life – you have not been able to live. If you live, then there is no fear. If life comes to a fulfillment there is no fear. If you have enjoyed, attained the peaks that life can give – if your life has been an orgasmic experience, a deep poetry vibrating within you, a song, a festival, a ceremony, and you lived each moment of it to its totality – then there is no fear of time. Then the fear disappears.”
Osho, The Art of Living and Dying
“Most of the time we pretend we aren’t clear on what our calling is when what’s really going on is that we’re horrified to face it because it seems too big or too impossible to make a living at or completely out of the question for us. But what if you had the audacity to leave your excuses and your shame about wanting to be huge and fabulous behind and really went for it full-on anyway? What if you decided to do the most outrageous, most exciting thing you ever dared fantasize about, regardless of what anyone, including your terrified self, thought? THAT would be living.”
Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Marianne Williamson
“When we are living only a portion of what a human being is capable of, our lives are incomplete. I don’t mean that we each have to do everything possible in life, but that the more possibilities we can imagine, the richer our lives will be. Defending ourselves against the stranger is a way of keeping out our own potentiality. The diminishment of our acquaintances is a diminishment of ourselves. The most challenging stranger is life itself, or the soul, the face and source of vitality. Life is always presenting new possibilities ,and we may fear that bountifulness. It may seem safer to be content with what we have and what we are, and so we cling to the status quo. But in these matters there is no convenient plateau. When we refuse a new offering of life, we develop emotional calluses. The habit of acting from fear sets in quickly and becomes steadily more rigid. Refusing life, we become attendants of death.”
Thomas Moore, Original Self
“By leaning just beyond your fear, you challenge your limits compassionately, without trying to escape the feeling of fear itself. You step beyond the solid ground of security with an open heart. You stand in the space of unknowingness, raw and awake. Here, the gravity of deep being will attend you to the only place where fear is obsolete: the eternal free fall of home. Where you always are. Own your fear, and lean just beyond it. In every aspect of your life. Starting now.”
David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man
“The fear of death is fear of time. And the fear of time is, deeply down, fear of unlived moments, of an unlived life. So what to do? Live more, and live more intensely. Live dangerously. It is your life. Don’t sacrifice it for any sort of foolishness that has been taught to you. It is your life: Live it! Don’t sacrifice it for words, theories, countries or politics. Don’t sacrifice it for anybody. Live it! Don’t think that it is courageous to die. The only courage is to live life totally; there is no other courage.”
Osho, The Art of Living and Dying
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