“If you are in a difficult situation, a low mood, if you are afraid of other people and of yourself, if you are tormented, then tell yourself: ‘I will love everyone whom I meet in this life.’ Try to follow this rule; and you will see that everything will find its way, and everything will seem simple, and you will no longer have doubts or fears.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 202)
“It is not that you must be free from fear. The moment you try to free yourself from fear, you create a resistance against fear. Resistance, in any form, does not end fear. 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, not how to resist it through courage and so on.”
J. Krishnamurti, via Sunbeams (Page 155)
“Untamed fear consumes you, becomes you, until what you are most afraid of turns alive.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 281)
“I tell my kids, what is the difference between a hero and a coward? What is the difference between being [cowardly] and being brave? No difference. Only what you do. They both feel the same. They both fear dying and getting hurt. The man who is [cowardly] refuses to face up to what he’s got to face. The hero is more disciplined and he fights those feelings off and he does what he has to do. But they both feel the same, the hero and the coward. People who watch you judge you on what you do, not how you feel.”
Cus D’amato, Bad Intentions
“To quell my own fears, I needed space from theirs.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 252)
“Show me someone who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear. I could name a former Consul who is a slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is the slave of the cleaning woman… No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.”
Seneca, via The Daily Stoic (Page 287)
“The things we fear pale in comparison to the damage we do to ourselves and others when we unthinkingly scramble to avoid them. An economic depression is bad; a panic is worse. A tough situation isn’t helped by terror—it only makes things harder. And that’s why we must resist it and reject it if we wish to turn this situation around.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 271)
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.”
Yoda, Star Wars | Read Matt’s Blog on this quote ➜