Fear Of Unknown Quotes

The uncertainty, the fear of the unknown was driving him, almost to the point of desperation. He felt as if he was going down a dark stairway, missing a step, hurtling into the unknown and having no idea where he would land. ~ Ken Puddicombe

With that Nox turned a knob. There was a delay, but that was how the machine worked. First it gathered information about the subject, feeling, sensing - like a fighter in a ring, circling his opponent.
Kaleb sensed it, too. It was as if a doctor palpated his flesh, pushing his skin. It tingled gently. The tingling surged through his whole body. Was this it? Kaleb thought. Visions from his past shot through his brain. His mother. Father. Zenobia. Joan and Reck. The Three Musketeers. Pleasant memories.
Then the machine found what it searched for, and it acted. Waves of pain shot through his entire body, causing him to arch his back. He screamed in agony, his screams reverberating across the canyon. Then all of his muscles constricted. He couldn't breathe, couldn't even scream. It seemed to last forever. It stopped, and his muscles relaxed, allowing him to breath. ~ Cate Campbell Beatty

I was also supposed to quiz my various companions on a number of important matters such as nostalgia, fear of unknown animals, food fantasies, nocturnal emissions, hobbies, choice of radio program, changes in out look and so forth. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

And as I ran along the shore, crushing sleeping flowers with heedless feet and maddened ever by the fear of unknown things and the lure of the dead faces, I saw that the garden had no end under that moon; for where by day the walls were, there stretched now only new vistas of trees and paths, flowers and shrubs, stone idols and pagodas, and bendings of the yellow-litten stream past grassy banks and under grotesque bridges of marble. And the lips of the dead lotos-faces whispered sadly, and bade me follow, nor did I cease my steps till the stream became a river, and joined amidst marshes of swaying reeds and beaches of gleaming sand the shore of a vast and nameless sea. Upon ~ H.P. Lovecraft

We are against ignorance. We feel that you have to educate yourself, no matter what the situation is. People who refuse to educate themselves - people who refuse to find out what something is about, that they're frightened of - find comfort in being ignorant.
Zeena Schreck Interview for KJTV-1990 ~ Zeena Schreck

His love for his children bore down on his heart with the weight of three heavy stones. There were all his unnamed fears for them, and hopes for them. There was all he was powerless to change, including who they were
one too mild, one too easily tempted to be cruel, and the little girl (it was the weight of a heavy stone against his heart) a mystery to him, impossible to say what she, through her life, would need. And soon, one more. ~ Alice McDermott

Fear sees, even when eyes are closed. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear? Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for fear of the unknown.
(Narcotics Anonymous Book/page 33) ~ Narcotics Anonymous

Many times, the thought of fear itself is greater than what it is we fear. ~ Idowu Koyenikan

Fear is the most potent weapon. ~ Faraaz Kazi

Fear of the unknown and the other is the root of almost all hate. It is born of ignorance and fed by those who would keep us divided. ~ Tinnekke Bebout

Seeing what scares you for what it is does not lessen the terror. It still has the power to break your heart, over and over again. ~ Teri Terry

The greatest fear in life is not of death, but unsolicited change. ~ Raheel Farooq

In the presence of the storm, thunderbolts, hurricane, rain, darkness, and the lions, which might be concealed but a few paces away, he felt disarmed and helpless. ~ Henryk Sienkiewicz

For he or she that harbours no fear has never truly loved anything. You can only measure true love by the thought and fear of its loss. ~ Chris Jirika

Fears hide within fears.... ~ Jacqueline Ripstein

Once we face our fear, once we treat our anxiety itself as a thing, we can then choose otherwise. Instead of filling the unknown in our minds with expectations of the tragic, we can choose to fill the void with a different expectation – the expectation of adventure.
For example, Seneca, the Greek philosopher, refused to be afraid of what he did not know. When asked if he was afraid of dying, he replied, "Absolutely not, why should I be afraid of something I know nothing about." His orientation toward the unknown of death was not to fill the gap in his understanding with horror but potential. ~ David W. Jones

The origin behind myths and religion is human terror of annihilation. Human societies invented mythology and religion in order to militate against people's fear of living a mortal life. People fear time as a destroyer of human happiness, human beings, and human societies. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The problem is, these days you have to listen to too many parts of your body. Sometimes I go with my gut feeling, some say go with what your heart says - it's only a matter of time before my appendix will have an opinion. This is probably why there are so many helplines these days. No one knows who to bloody listen to! ~ Karl Pilkington

Fear spread through the house. ~ Carla H. Krueger

Where something even deeper than the marrow knows that the cost of avoiding what one fears is even greater than the actual object of that fear and so the fear itself is even more corrosive even more destructive than all the frightening potential of the thing that arouses it. ~ Joe Henry

It never ceases to amaze me when God wants to take someone to the next level in their life and they let fear of the unknown rob them of tremendous blessings. I think there are two common problems with Christians- They are scared to death of being truly free and of God's overwhelming love. ~ R. Alan Woods

It seemed a ruse that fear of death should be the sole motivation for living and, yet, to quell this fear made the prospect of living itself seem all the more absurd; to extend this further, the notion of living one's life for the purposes of pondering the absurdity of living was an even greater absurdity in and of itself, which thus, by reductio ad absurdum, rendered the fear of death a necessary function of life and any lack thereof, a trifling matter rooted in self-inflicted incoherence. ~ Ashim Shanker

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. How could the man who had taken her from her home - the person she had trusted with her safety, her life, her whole future - suddenly abandon her, and expect her to fend for herself in a foreign kingdom? ~ A. Grace Martin

Strength of my heart, I need not fail,
Not mind to fear but to obey,
With such a Leader, who could quail?
Thou art as Thou wert yesterday.
Strength of my heart, I rest in Thee,
Fulfil Thy purposes through me. ~ Amy Carmichael

It wasn't the darkness that killed people. It was the people who carried the darkness within them that did. ~ Angela Panayotopulos

Children delight in poetry if they are not frightened away by adults' fear of poetry. ~ Mary Crow

Together. Even in death. His fingers tightened their grip around her hand. A double statue of silver. Romantic. What would their faces show? Fear? Or love? ~ Cornelia Funke

In the case of pilots, it is a little touch of madness that drive us to go beyond all known bounds. Any search into the unknown is an incomparable exploitation of oneself. ~ Jacqueline Auriol

I think abstraction is a very rich area. And it is upsetting that people seem to have some fear of it. I'm constantly making these statements about how you should just look at it and react to it on your own; just relax and let go. ~ Brice Marden

these fond parents were not blind to the value of education it was that they realized only its external value. That is to say, they could not look beyond the fact that education enabled folk to get on in the world so far as the acquisition of rank, crosses, and money was concerned.
Certain evil rumours had arisen regarding the necessity of learning not only one's letters, but also various branches of science which until now had remained unknown to the world of Oblomovka; but, as I say, the good folk of that place had only the dimmest, the remotest, comprehension of any internal demand for education, and therefore desired to secure for their little Ilya only certain showy advantages, and no more--to wit, a fine uniform, and the getting of him into the Civil Service (his mother even foresaw him become a provincial governor!). ~ Ivan Goncharov

I came in haste with cursing breath, And heart of hardest steel; But when I saw thee cold in death, I felt as man should feel. For when I look upon that face, That cold, unheeding, frigid brown, Where neither rage nor fear has place, By Heaven! I cannot hate thee now! ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

When my play was with thee I never questioned who thou wert. I knew nor shyness nor fear, my life was boisterous.

In the early morning thou wouldst call me from my sleep like my own comrade and lead me running from glade to glade.

On those days I never cared to know the meaning of songs thou sangest to me. Only my voice took up the tunes, and my heart danced in their cadence.

Now, when the playtime is over, what is this sudden sight that is come upon me? The world with eyes bent upon thy feet stands in awe with all its silent stars. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

The fear of criticism robs man of his initiative, destroys his power of imagination, limits his individuality, takes away his self-reliance, and does him damage in a hundred other ways. ~ Napoleon Hill

There's a difference between not being afraid and acting in spite of fear. ~ Veronica Roth

I don't really have a fear of doctors, in the sense that they're going to do something bad to me. I don't have a fear of them eating me, or a fear of needles, or anything like that. I have a fear that I'm feeling completely fine, everything's good, and then when I go there, he's going to tell me something horrible. ~ Rob Zombie

Or what about attention deficit disorder, and the litany of negative, even catastrophic associations it carries? Fifteen years ago, it barely existed, but today it's being diagnosed left, right, and sideways. I'm not suggesting that some kids don't have it, or can't benefit from treatment, but ADD (and the fear of our children being diagnosed with it) has saturated our culture like a virus. And the result, of course, is millions of parents buying their children drugs. A parent's internal monologue may go something like this:

If my child doesn't take Ritalin, or Adderal or Concerta, he won't be able to concentrate in school. He'll fall behind. His grades will suffer. He'll be marginalized by his peers. He'll begin hanging out with other low-performing kids. He won't get into college. He'll drift from job to job. He may even end up in jail. All because I didn't address his ADD when he was in kindergarten.

Fear, in my experience, spreads faster than anything else - and the ads for those drugs have done a very nice job scaring the pants off us. ~ Martin Lindstrom

Men command the world that they know . Everything that men know they make their own. Everything that they learn, they claim for themselves. They are like the alchemists who took for the laws that govern the world, and then want to own them and keep them secret. Everything they discover,they hug to themselves: they shape knowledge into their own selfish image. What is left to us women but the realms of the unknown? ~ Philippa Gregory

Modesty is hardly to be described as a virtue. It is a feeling rather than a disposition. It is a kind of fear of falling into disrepute. ~ Aristotle.

I am hyper vigilant and would be dangerous if threatened ... If someone broke into my house or attacked me in the street, it's THEM I would fear for ... But as Yo La Tengo recently put it so succinctly: I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass. ~ Haven Kimmel

Yet I'm sure there's something more to be read in a man. People dare not
they dare not turn the page. The laws of mimicry
I call them the laws of fear. People are afraid to find themselves alone, and don't find themselves at all. I hate this moral agoraphobia
it's the worst kind of cowardice. You can't create something without being alone. But who's trying to create here? What seems different in yourself: that's the one rare thing you possess, the one thing which gives each of us his worth; and that's just what we try to suppress. We imitate. And we claim to love life. ~ Andre Gide

She had said she didn't feel fear, but it was a lie; this was her fear: being left alone. Because of one thing she was certain, and it was that she could never love, not like that. Trust a stranger with her flesh? The closeness, the quiet. She couldn't imagine it. Breathing someone else's breath as they breathed yours, touching someone, opening for them? The vulnerability of it made her flush. It would mean submission, letting down her guard, and she wouldn't. Ever. Just the thought made her feel small and weak as a child ... ~ Laini Taylor

I snicker, but the idea is momentarily appealing. Part of me is scared of leaving school. Part of me wants to go desperately. Tension of opposites. ~ Mitch Albom

Communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Time Does Not Bring Relief
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, - so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Don't be scared of your hunger. If you're scared of your hunger, you'll just be one more ninny like everyone else. ~ Elizabeth Strout

He thought the fear of death was perhaps the root of all art, perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, as transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do. ~ Hermann Hesse

Think of the moment you count
most foul in your life;
conjure it,
supplicate,
pray to it;
your face is bleak, you retract,
you dare not remember it. ~ Hilda Doolittle

Faith shall save your Soul from Death. Without Faith, Death is a drowning, the end of ends, and what sane man wouldn't fear that? But with Faith, Death is nothing worse than the end of the voyage we call life, and the beginning of an eternal voyage in a company of our Loved Ones, with griefs and woes smoothed out, and under the capacity of our Creator... ~ David Mitchell

Wardress in a prison,was she, that old hippopotamus? That is significant, perhaps."
Sarah said:
"You mean that that is the cause of her tyranny? It is the habit of her former profession."
Gerard shook his head.
"No, that is approaching it from the wrong angle. There is some deep underlying compulsion. She does not love tyranny because she has been a wardress. Let us rather say that she became a wardress because she loved tyranny. In my theory it was a secret desire for power over other human beings that led her to adopt that profession."
His face was very grave.
"There are such strange things buried down in the unconscious. A lust for power - a lust for cruelty - a savage desire to tear and rend - all the inheritance of our past racial memories...They are all there, Miss King, all the cruelty and savagery and lust...We shut the door on them and deny them conscious life, but sometimes - they are too strong."
Sarah shivered. "I know."
Gerard continued: "We see it all around us today - in political creeds, in the conduct of nations. A reaction from humanitarianism - from pity - from brotherly good-will. The creeds sound well sometimes - a wise régime - a beneficent government - but imposed by force - resting on a basis of cruelty and fear. They are opening the door, these apostles of violence, they are letting up the old savagery, the old delight in cruelty for its own sake! Oh, it is difficult - Man is an animal very delicately balanced. ~ Agatha Christie

There is nothing one fears more or is more ashamed of than not being oneself. Yet few people realize even an approximation of their true potential. Most people must live with varying degrees of the shame and fear of not being fully in control of themselves. ~ William S. Burroughs

Lenity is a part of justice; but she must not speak too loud for fear of waking justice. ~ Joseph Joubert

See, the 'On the Road' that came out in 1957 was censored. A lot of the honesty of it, the bitter honesty, is in the original scroll version that came out in 2007 on the 50-year anniversary. Back then, there was so much post-Second World War fear that was imposed on everybody - 'You must live life this way' - and these guys were bored. ~ Garrett Hedlund

Only one advantage still remained to Mandred, an edge that Vrrmik could never take from him. The soldiers who marched behind his banner were men and it was the hearts of men that beat within their breasts, hearts that could be moved to selflessness, could be stirred to valour and fired with courage. However numerous Vrrmik's horde, they were skaven, they were cringing beasts driven by fear and greed, incapable of believing in anything more vital than their own skins. Terror and avarice were the forces that drove them on, but such things could only stretch so far, overcome only so much. Mandred's troops could endure more than Vrrmik's monsters. That was the one strength the skaven could never equal. ~ C.L. Werner

Fear is blinding; it can make us miss the warning signes flashing right in front of our eyes. It can also make you miss those brilliant flashes of color, when the world isn't so gray. But, if you think about it, being afraid isn't such a bad thing. Because fear is a reminder that you still have something to lose.
Something Worth holding onto. ~ Cassia Leo

It's not the theme parks of Paradiso and Inferno that I dread most - the heavenly rides, the hellish crowds - and I could live with the insult of eternal oblivion. I don't even mind not knowing which it will be. What I fear is missing out. Health desire or mere greed, I want my life first, my due, my infinitesimal slice of endless time and one reliable chance of a consciousness. I'm owed a handful of decades to try my luck on a freewheeling planet. That's the ride for me - the Wall of Life. I want my go. I want to become. Put another way, there's a book I want to read, not yet published, not yet written, though a start's been made. I want to read to the end of My History of the Twenty-First Century. I want to be there, on the last page, in my early eighties, frail but sprightly, dancing a jig on the evening of December 31, 2099. ~ Ian McEwan

Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted. ~ Jacqueline Carey