Fearsome Quotes

The weight of words.
Words can be fearsome weapons, tools or means powerful! ~ Joko Ono

And yet fear builds its phantoms which are more fearsome than reality itself, and reality, when calmly analysed and its consequences willingly accepted, loses much of its terror. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

We used to be "shiftless and lazy," now we're "fearsome and awesome." I think the black man should take pride in that. ~ James Earl Jones

We are no longer awkward younglings. Our enemies may be fearsome, but so are we. It is time we remind them of that. ~ Christopher Paolini

Nothing in the world is as fearsome as a bloody, battered opponent who will never surrender. ~ Gerry Spence

Men deprived of female company quickly became fearsome creatures, and Trevor believed you could argue that civilization was in fact the invention of women, or at least the invention of the men who wanted to please them. If it were not for the ladies, Trevor often proclaimed, especially after a few beers, humanity would doubtlessly still be roaming the forests in animal skins. But ~ Kim Wright

Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu:
All our dream-worlds may come true.
Fairy lands are fearsome too.
As I wander far from view
Read, and bring me home to you. ~ Salman Rushdie

Here was the heart of dread. It was not fearsome. It was fetid, noxious, hopeless. A deep and exhausting misery, a crevasse so bottomless that, in the blackness, all one could make out were the contours of despair. ~ Laura Tillman

I'm of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Here, captured between covers, was the history of the human imagination, and nothing had ever been more beautiful, or fearsome, or bizarre. Here were spells and curses and myths and legends, and Strange the dreamer had for so long fed his mind on them that if one could wander into it, they would discover a fantasia. ~ Laini Taylor

Lack of leadership can have fearsome consequences. A dog's mental health, after all, depends to a large degree on leadership: dogs get enormously distressed when they think no one is in charge. Accordingly, it's not only nonsensical to fail to establish rules and limits with a dog ... but cruel. ~ Caroline Knapp

A lot of times when people meet me, theyll definitely try to make me feel young or inexperienced. Like, Its all taken care of. Teenagers are such a discerning group of people. Theyll immediately sniff out anything that feels contrived. Im, like, constantly scanning myself to see if Im some corporate executive version of a teenager. Ive developed something of a fearsome reputation. People know that if you talk down to me, I will roll my eyes or whatever. ~ Lorde

The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome. ~ George R R Martin

Tonight is a night to turn heads. Make them remember you. Make sure they never forget. You are the Calipha of Khorasan, and you have the ear of a king." Despina put her hand on Shahrzad's shoulder and grinned at their shared reflection. "More important, you have his heart." She bent forward and lowered her voice. "And, most important, you are a fearsome thing to behold in your own right. ~ Renee Ahdieh

Darkness is a defining characteristic of Rotters. But it's worthy to remember that darkness is just that - it's dark - and what is being concealed in the dark is not just the horrible and fearsome, it's also the inspirational and moving. Horror means nothing without happiness; dark means nothing without light. Rotters may make you feel scared, but hopefully it will also make you simply feel. It's that kind of book, or at least I hope it is. ~ Daniel Kraus

Go on," he offered magnanimously. "Feel free to piss on yourselves and
cower helplessly."
Gods, sometimes his generosity overwhelmed him. ~ G.A. Aiken

And he wonders if he has a space in his brain or in his soul for monsters and demons, or if he will, like most people, choose insanity when confronted with a fearsome reality. ~ Christopher Rice

For a moment the dark and fearsomely sad thoughts which inhabit her mind grow even sadder and darker; Lisey thinks they will either kill her or drive her insane. ~ Stephen King

Vast and fearsome as the human scene has become, personal contact of the right people, in the right places, at the right time, may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts. ~ Winston Churchill

Drink was the most fearsome of deceivers ... for it promised one thing and came through with quite another. ~ Kay Boyle

For Bulgakov, however, the greatest underlying source of unease, amounting at times to despair, was something less tangible though very real to him, since it occurs as an ever-present refrain throughout these stories. This was the sense of being a lone soldier of reason and enlightenment pitted against the vast, dark, ocean-like mass of peasant ignorance and superstition... [in] the fearsome, pre-literate, mediaeval world of the peasantry ~ Michael Glenny

I picked up the statue and looked at it from different angles. The eight arms were fearsome. Note to self: in a battle against Durga, run the other direction. ~ Colleen Houck

Bedlam: an institution with a history so fearsome it gave its name to a synonym for chaos and pandemonium. ~ Jon Ronson

Friedrich Engels once said: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism." What does "regression into barbarism" mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. ~ Rosa Luxemburg

A man's most useful friend and fearsome foe is the poet. ~ John Barth

Wow," said George. "I imagined the demon realms were fearsome and terrifying, but seems like it was pretty much nonstop nom nom nom. ~ Cassandra Clare

I had a terrible premonition. His flight was to Miami. The old news footage flashed through my mind of Air Florida Flight 90 to Miami that went down in a freezing rain. It showed pieces of the wings and smashed fuselage floating in a huge hole in the ice next to the Fourteenth Street Bridge. A helicopter trying to lift a survivor from the black water. Rescuers watching helplessly from the shore. I tried to call him, but the network was down. I'd seen this fearsome power of the past before, how it can rise up without warning and strike the living with unerring timing. Later Lorenzo called from Miami and said it was a rough flight but they made it. I was happy that for once my intuition was wrong. ~ J. J. Jorgens

A tiger, however fearsome, could be hunted into a corner. It fought alone, so it died alone. But to hunt a wolf was to constantly look over your shoulder, wondering if others were behind you in the dark. "Lost? ~ Nicholas Eames

The great anxious focus on the minutiae of appetite - on calories and portion size and what's going into the body versus what's being expended, on shoes and hair and abs of steel - keeps the larger, more fearsome questions of desire blurred and out of focus. American women spend approximately $1 million every hour on cosmetics. This may or may not say something about female vanity, but it certainly says something about female energy, where it is and is not focused. Easier to worry about the body than the soul, easier to fit the self into the narrow slots of identity our culture offers to women than to create one ... that allows for the expression of all passions, the satisfaction of all appetites. The great preoccupation with things like food and shopping and appearance, in turn, is less of a genuine focus on hunger - indulging it, understanding it, making decisions about it - than it is a monumental distraction from hunger. ~ Caroline Knapp

Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui - these are the true hero's enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real. ~ David Foster Wallace

Two against thirty two," Niten said. "Good odds."
"I've never fought the Spartoi before," Prometheus admitted. "I only know of them by their reputation - and it's fearsome."
"We have an equal reputation," Niten said.
"Well, you do," the Elder said. "I was never that much of a fighter. And after the fall of the island, I rarely took up weapons again."
"Fighting is a skill you never forget," Niten said, a touch of sadness in his voice. "I fought my first duel when I was thirteen. I've been fighting ever since."
"But you are more than just a swordsman," Prometheus said. "You are an artist, a sculptor and a writer."
"No man is ever just one thing," Niten answered. His shoulder dropped and his short sword appeared in his left hand, water droplets sparkling from the blade. "But first and foremost, I was always a warrior." He jabbed his sword into the fog and stirred it like liquid. ~ Michael Scott

The fearsome critic and not-very-tough composer Virgil Thomson once drew up a set of rules for hearing an unfamiliar work; the last of those is the question I take with me to every new-music event: "Is this just a good piece of clockwork, or does it actually tell time? ~ Aaron Copland

There was, apparently, a nuclear reactor at a place called Indian Point, just thirty miles away in Westchester County. If something bad happened there, we were constantly being informed, the 'radioactive debris', whatever this might be, was liable to rain down on us. (Indian Point: the earliest, most incurable apprehensions stirred in its very name.) Then there was the question of dirty bombs. Apparently any fool could build a dirty bomb and explode it in Manhattan. How likely was this? Nobody knew. Very little about anything seemed intelligible or certain, and New York itself - that ideal source of the metropolitan diversion that serves as a response to the largest futilities - took on a fearsome, monstrous nature whose reality might have befuddled Plato himself. We were trying, as I irreverently analysed it, to avoid what might be termed a historic mistake. We were trying to understand, that is, whether we were in a pre-apocalyptic situation, like the European Jews in the thirties or the last citizens of Pompeii, or whether our situation was merely near-apocalyptic, like that of the Cold War inhabitants of New York, London, Washington and, for that matter, Moscow. In my anxiety I phoned Rachel's father, Charles Bolton, and asked him how he'd dealt with the threat of nuclear annihilation. I wanted to believe that this episode of history, like those old cataclysms that deposit a geologically telling layer of dust on the floors of seas, had sooted its survivors with special in ~ Joseph O'Neill

There was something severed and rough about her, something tainted and, yet, at the same time those jagged pieces were the makings of something fearsome. She'd wanted to become someone the Senate would fear, why not shatter the sky? ~ Elise Kova

I would say I'm more fascinated by Big Daddy V than I am necessarily a huge fan of Big Daddy V. He simply threw on the double-strapped unitard ... and now he's some sort of fearsome, fighting, wrecking machine. ~ James Roday

One of the marvels of evolution is the Asian giant hornet, a predatory wasp especially common in Japan. It's hard to imagine a more frightening insect. The world's largest hornet, it's as long as your thumb, with a two-inch body bedecked with menacing orange and black stripes. It's armed with fearsome jaws to clasp and kill its insect prey, and a quarter-inch stinger that proves lethal to several dozen Asians a year. And with a three-inch wingspan, it can fly twenty-five miles per hour (far faster than you can run), and can cover sixty miles in a single day. ~ Jerry A. Coyne

I think back to our fearsome disaster of a night together, with the Old Yeller and the awkward and her pretty much jumping me in an alley. And then her pretty much jumping me in the car. Me pretty much wanting to jump out of my whole existence. And suddenly, I feel really grateful for that whole crazy-ass experience. I'm not sure where I'd be if it hadn't happened, but … chances are it wouldn't be here. It's not like I know where stuff's going to go from this point. Probably more difficult, scary, confusing, stressful-as-all places. But I've got a crazy old bastard trying to force-feed me citrus in the name of my own health, and that? That's not something I'd trade.

"Thanks, Cora," I say.

"Yeah," she replies, with this little smile that's almost gentle, "sure. ~ Hannah Johnson

Heroism is not fighting some big battle. It is not standing up to some fearsome foe ... Heroism is every day getting up with a mission to show this world that you are going to light it up with your spirit, to make the best out of yourself. ~ Cory Booker

I refer to the Gospel account in which Christ weeps at the grave of his friend Lazarus. We need to pause and consider the meaning of these tears, for in this very moment there occurs a unique transformation within religion in relation to the long-standing religious approach to death.

Up to this moment the purpose of religion, as well as the purpose of philosophy, consisted in enabling man to come to terms with death, and if possible even to make death desirable: death as the liberation from suffering; death as freedom from this changing, busy, evil world; death as the beginning of eternity. Here, in fact, is the sum total of religious and philosophical teaching before Christ and outside of Christianity - in primitive religions, in Greek philosophy, in Buddhism, and so forth. But Christ *weeps* at the grave of his friend, and in so doing his own struggle with death, his refusal to acknowledge it and to come to terms with it. Suddenly, death ceases to be a normal and natural fact, it appears as something foreign, as unnatural, as fearsome and perverted, and it is acknowledged as an enemy: 'The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ~ Alexander Schmemann

The future, at once hopeful and fearsome, does not possess the ability to prophesy the final word. That future day will come, and when it does, Now and Not Yet will be waiting there with open arms, cheering me on. ~ Robin Zaruba

But now you know what I've done," she said, staring at her hand, at his chest, anywhere but his face. "Before, you had only seen me do it to other people, but now you know the kind of pain I have caused people, so many people, just because I was too much of a coward to stand up to him." She scowled, and lifted her hand. "Getting you out was the one good thing I've ever done, and now it's not even worth anything, because here you are again, you…you idiot!"
She clutched at her side, wincing. She was crying again.
Akos touched her face. When he first met her, he thought she was this fearsome thing, this monster he needed to escape. But she had unfurled bit by bit, showing him her wicked humor by waking him with a knife to his throat, talking about herself with unflinching honesty, for better or for worse, and loving--so deeply--every little bit of this galaxy, even the parts she was supposed to hate.
She was not a rusty nail, as she had once told him, or a hot poker, or a blade in Ryzek's hand. She was a hushflower, all power and possibility. Capable of doing good and harm in equal measure.
"It is not the only good thing you've ever done," Akos said, in plain Thuvhesit. It felt like the right language for this moment, the language of his home, which Cyra understood but didn't really speak when he was around, like she was afraid it would hurt his feelings.
"It's worth everything to me, what you did," he said, still in Thuvhesit. "It changes everything. ~ Veronica Roth

Without the gospel, we may come and ask for things. Without the gospel, we may conceive of a holy God who is intimidating and who can be approached with petitions only if we are very good. Or we may conceive of a God whose "love" just means he regards everyone positively. To approach the first kind of "God" is fearsome; to approach the second kind of God is no big deal. Thus without the gospel, there is no possibility of passion and delight to praise and approach the true God. ~ Timothy Keller

FORGIVE OR NOT, AS YOU WILL, AND KNOW ALWAYS THAT YOU ARE A HURRICANE IN THE BODY OF A GIRL, GLORIOUS AND FEARSOME AND WONDERFUL AND CAPABLE OF ANYTHING. ~ Seanan McGuire

I loved weather, all weather, not just the good kind. I loved balmy days, fearsome storms, blizzards, and spring showers. And the colors! Everyday brought something to be admired: the soft feathery patterns of cirrus clouds, the deep, dark grays of thunderheads, the lacy gold and peach of the early morning sunrise. The sky and its moods called to me. ~ L. Jagi Lamplighter

I'm just so tired. I'm so, so tired all the time.' A tear slips down her face, all the way down till it drops off her chin, and she doesn't brush its trail away.
And I remember being in that jungle, lost in the darkest, wildest part of it, where fearsome beasts and carnivorous plants lurk between every tree. All I could do was lie down on the wet leaves. Bugs crawled up my legs, and I couldn't care enough to brush them off. ~ Emery Lord

Boredom is a fearsome prospect. There's a limit to the number of cars and microwaves you can buy. What do you do then? ~ J.G. Ballard

The fighting was horrendous. Bloodshed and death lie everywhere around us. It was not exciting, Vindhya. It is fearsome, and we were all scared out of our wits. There is no honour in battle but to protect you, my love. We have won the gates of Grilsom and lost the fortress of Loare...but we've gained allies from the Knights of Scrivehrim, and enemies of the dark elves of Scryire. There is no winning in War, my sweet...only loss. People die on
every side. How can any battle be won with such consequence and loss? I do not understand war. It's so unfair, so...unjustified.

We take innocent lives, yet we gain medals of highest honour and divine, sacred blessings. What is the sense of it? And even much less do I understand Andsar's concept of celibacy in soldiers, and that they choose to stay alone their entire lives. I might understand, were the reasoning that we would leave no one behind to suffer...but there is no reason for it. They tell us we are wrong to love one another, and so they justify our love by sending me to my assured death. If anyone were to find out about us, we'd both surely be killed. Love like this, though…I believe it is worth the cost of my life, if I could only be with you one moment. ~ Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Dom rose from his kneeling position, a keen hunger shining in his eyes. "Was that wicked enough for you, sweeting?" he drawled as he used his cravat to wipe his mouth.
With her heart thundering loudly in her ears and her breathing staggered, it took her a moment to answer. "Not quite," she managed, then tugged at the waistband of his drawers. "You still have these on."
That seemed to startle him. Then one corner of his lips quirked up. "I never guessed you were such a greedy little--"
"Wanton?" she asked before he could accuse her of being one.
But he just shot her a smoldering smile. "Siren."
"Oh." She liked that word much better. Feeling her oats, she gestured to his drawers. "So take them off."
With a laugh, he did so. "There, my lusty beauty. You have your wish."
"Yes…yes, I do." Now she could study him to her heart's content.
But the reality was rather sobering. His member, jutting from a nest of dark curls, couldn't possibly be hidden behind a tiny fig leaf like the ones on statues. "Oh my. It's even bigger and more…er…thrusting without the drawers."
"Are you rethinking your plan for seduction now?" he asked, with a decided tension in his voice.
"No." She cast him a game smile. "Just…reassessing the…er…fit."
"It's not as fearsome as it looks."
"Good," she said lightly, only half joking. She looped her arms about his neck. "Because I'm not as fearless as I look."
"You're a great deal more fearless than you ~ Sabrina Jeffries

It can be a fearsome weapon, patience. One that few men ever learn to use. ~ Joe Abercrombie

He flipped up his middle finger. "I don't care. I can't handle this. My game is talk. You tried to take that away." He shot an arm towards Mason. "He fights. I talk. That's the magic of our twosome fearsome. ~ Tijan

The mighty lion toys with the mouse that crosses his path - any other reaction would mar his fearsome reputation. ~ Robert Greene

Andrea's breath hurt, but wit her fear came rage, a killing anger. They'd taken her mate A female defending her mate was the most fearsome of Shifters, and whoever had done this to Sean didn't yet know the meaning of terror. ~ Jennifer Ashley

But, sir, isn't death a dreadful thing?" asked Malcolm.
"That depends on whether a man regards it as his fate or as the will of a perfect God. Its obscurity is its dread. But if God be light, then death itself must be full of splendor
a splendor probably too keen for our eyes to receive."
"But there's the dying itself; isn't that fearsome? It's that I would be afraid of."
"I don't see why it should be. It's the lack of a God that makes it dreadful, and you would be greatly to blame for that, Malcolm, if you hadn't found your God by the time you had to die. ~ George MacDonald

Lo!" I said. "I arrived at Camp Half-Blood as Lester Papadopoulos!"
"A pathetic mortal!" Calypso chorused. "Most worthless of teens!"
I glared at her, but I didn't dare stop my performance again. "I overcame many challenges with my companion, Meg McCaffrey!"
"He means his master!" Calypso added. "A twelve-year-old girl! Behold her pathetic slave, Lester, most worthless of teens!"
The policeman huffed impatiently. "We know all this. The emperor told us."
"Shh," said Nanette. "Be polite."
I put my hand over my heart. "We secured the Grove of Dodona, an ancient Oracle, and thwarted the plans of Nero! But, alas, Meg McCaffrey fled from me. Her evil stepfather had poisoned her mind!"
"Poison!" Calypso cried. "Like the breath of Lester Papadopoulos, most worthless of teens!"
I resisted the urge to push Calypso into the flower bed.
Meanwhile, Leo was making his way towards the bulldozer under the guise of an interpretive dance routine, spinning and gasping and pantomiming my words. He looked like a hallucinating ballerina in boxer shorts, but the blemmyae politely got out of his way.
"Lo!" I shouted. "From the Oracle of Dodona we received a prophecy - a limerick most terrible!"
"Terrible!" Calypso chorused. "Like the skills of Lester, most worthless of teens!"
"Vary your adjectives," I grumbled, then continued for my audience: "We travelled west in search of another Oracle, along the way fighting many fearsome foes! The Cyc ~ Rick Riordan

Forget the buildings and the monuments. Let the softness of dark come in, all those light-years between stars and planets. Cities were the works of men but the earth before and after those cities, outside and beneath and around them, was the dream of a sleeping leviathan--it was god sleeping there and dreaming, the same god that was time and transfiguration. From whatever dreamed the dream at the source, atom or energy, flowed all the miracles of evolution--tiger, tiger burning bright, the massive whales in the deep, luminescent specters in their mystery. The pearls that were their eyes, their tongues that were wet leaves, their bodies that were the bodies of the fantastic.

Spectacular bestiaries of heaven, the limbs and tails of the gentle and the fearsome, silent or raging at will . . . they could never be known in every detail and they never should be. ~ Lydia Millet

A noble and resolute people can safely tread a dark and fearsome path if they always shine before them the lamps of wisdom and valor. ~ Aleksandra Layland

Today is yesterday's victory, yesterday is tomorrow's conquest, and tomorrow is today's war. Though I face death, I am not fearsome. ~ Nadege Richards

At night she'd close her eyes and imagine: over a hundred million billion insects hatching and dying every year - all those bristling, pointed, winged lifetimes: murderers and egg raiders, cooperators and queens. There were the glamorous dragonflies and fearsome widows; slave-holding ants; migrating monarchs; the delicate mantid chewing down her lover; dragonflies making love at thirty miles an hour - all the flagships of entomology. But ~ Anthony Doerr

On the Night of the Halloween, I have never seen any evil apparition or fearsome ghost but politicians on TV! They are the real goblins and specters! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The word of God is the only light in the darkness of this life, a word of life, consolation, and supreme blessedness. Where this precious and saving word is absent, nothing remains but a fearsome and terrifying darkness, error and faction, death and every calamity, and the tyranny of the devil himself, as we can see with our own eyes every day. ~ Timothy F. Lull

Giants isn't eating each other either, the BFG said. Nor is giants killing each other. Giants is not very lovely, but they is not killing each other. Nor is crockadowndillies killing other crockadowndillies. Nor is pussy-cats killing pussy-cats.

'They kill mice,' Sophie said.

'Ah, but they is not killing their own kind,' the BFG said. 'Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.'

'Don't poisonous snakes kill each other?' Sophie asked. She was searching desperately for another creature that behaved as badly as the human.

'Even poisnowse snakes is never killing each other,' the BFG said. 'Nor is the most fearsome creatures like tigers and rhinostossterisses. None of them is ever killing their own kind. Has you ever thought about that?'

Sophie kept silent.

'I is not understanding human beans at all,' the BFG said.' You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans. Right or left?'

'Right,' Sophie said.

'But human beans is squishing each other all the time,' the BFG said. 'They is shootling guns and going up in
aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.'

He was right. Of course he was right and Sophie knew it. She was beginning to wonder whether humans were actually any better than giants. 'Even so,' she said, defending her own race, ~ Roald Dahl

My other hand?' Lopen said. 'The one that was cut off long ago, eaten by a fearsome beast? It is making a rude gesture toward you right now. I thought you would want to know, so you can prepare to be insulted. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Once you reject fear, you will become the perfect candidate to receive and reflect Truth. ~ Suzy Kassem

Alpha of the Vltava Pack. Been around since the Middle fucking Ages. Apparently a baker-of all the sodding things for a fearsome Alpha to be. We are glad we don't have to tell people our Alpha is a motherehumping baker. ~ Patricia Briggs

I did not recognise the man at the door and, in split-second time, I pointed the barrel of the fearsome looking weapon to the downstairs living room window, blew that out and then levelled it at the bedroom window above, and blew that out. The owner of the property literally shit his pants and slammed the door. ~ Stephen Richards

Their characteristics are well-known. They're beautiful
when they're not astoundingly ugly. They're both goddesses for men to worship, and demons for them to flee. They adore children, sometimes to the point of unhealthy obsession. They have a strong association with nature, from which they're often assumed to draw magical power. Their anger is a terrible thing to behold, and all the more fearsome because anything can spark it; the rules by which these creatures operate are not those of rational men. They are creatures of fanciful whim, and they never, ever, can be understood.
I'm talking, of course, about women. ~ Marie Brennan

There's nothing so fearsome as the revolt of a sheep, said de Marsay. ~ Honore De Balzac

Certain kinds of people, and a fortiori certain kinds of writers, have always experienced the world around them in the Gothic manner, I'm almost positive. Perhaps there was even some little stump of an apeman who witnessed prehistoric lightning as it parried with prehistoric blackness in a night without rain, and felt his soul rise and fall at the same time to behold this sublime and terrifying conflict. Perhaps such displays provided inspiration for those very first imaginings that were not born of our daily life of crude survival, who knows? Could this be why all our primal mythologies are Gothic - that is, fearsome, fantastical, and inhuman? ~ Thomas Ligotti

In Sri Lanka, the people you lived amongst, the people you went to school with, the people in whose houses you ate, whose jokes you shared: these were not the people you married. Quite possibly they were not your religion. More to the point they were probably not your caste. This word with its fearsome connotations was never, hardly ever used. But it was ever present: it muddied the waters of Sri Lanka's politics, it perfumed the air of her bed-chambers; it lurked, like a particularly noxious relative, behind the poruwa of every wedding ceremony. It was the c-word. People used its synonym, its acronym, its antonym-indeed any other nym that came to mind - in the vain hope its meaning would somehow go away. It didn't. But if the people you chose to associate with were the very ones you could not marry, then the ones you did marry were quite often people you wouldn't dream of associating with if you had any choice in the matter. ~ Ashok Ferrey

..there was much to amuse her. Secretly she gloated upon her power over this most fearsome monarch.... ~ Bernard Evslin

The same drug that had been considered fearsome twenty years earlier, when associated with African Americans and Latinos, was refashioned as a relatively harmless drug when associated with whites. ~ Michelle Alexander

Change is fearsome, but stagnation is lethal. ~ Debasish Mridha

From the social cognitive perspective, it is mainly perceived inefficacy to cope with potentially aversive events that makes them fearsome. To the extent that people believe they can prevent, terminate, or lessen the severity of aversive events, they have little reason to be perturbed by them. But if they believe they are unable to manage threats safely, they have much cause for apprehension ~ Albert Bandura

Maturity entails a readiness, painful and wrenching though it may be, to look squarely into the long dark places, into the fearsome shadows. ~ Carl Sagan

Although the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome. ~ Terry Pratchett

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves. ~ Abraham Maslow

My point here is that the grieving are very dangerous, Richard said. They are like injured animals with fearsome claws, bloodied and pushed into a corner.

Okay, said Clare.

They are deranged, he continued. They shouldn't be let out of the house. Immediately after the funeral some sort of waiting period should be instituted, a period of confinement. It is a matter of public safety. ~ Laura Van Den Berg

PERCY MISSED BOB. He'd gotten used to having the Titan on his side, lighting their way with his silver hair and his fearsome war broom. Now their only guide was an emaciated corpse lady with serious self-esteem issues. ~ Rick Riordan

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly that the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are more wonderous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it. ~ J.K. Rowling

Patience is as fearsome a weapon as rage. More so, in fact, 'cause fewer men have it. ~ Joe Abercrombie

An indisputable event, my gallant Ned. Accordingly, people have proposed naming this devil fish Bouguer's Squid.

And how long was it? the Canadian asked. Didn't it measure about six metres? said Conseil, who was stationed at the window and examining anew the crevices in the cliff.

Precisely, I replied

Wasn't its head, Conseil went on, crowned by eight tentacles that quivered in the water like a nest of snakes?

Precisely.

Weren't its eyes prominently placed and considerably enlarged?

Yes, Conseil.

And wasn't its mouth a real parrot's beak but of fearsome size?

Correct, Conseil.

Well, with all due respect to master, Conseil replied serenely, if this isn't Bouguers Squid, it's at least one of his close relatives! ~ Jules Verne

It is hard to describe to you but I swear it was a fearsome sight. There were not eyes to speak of, but chasms that saw into its dark depths. A shade of a mouth full with phantom teeth. There seemed to be a skull shifting in and out of form beneath the black. Bound together by an unspeakable evil. ~ Solange Nicole

Fearsome Beasts and Strange Creatures Wonders in Paper and Mist ~ Erin Morgenstern

A properly trained lybrarian is one of the most fearless and fearsome beings in the world! ~ Jen Swann Downey

I didn't for a moment doubt the choice, but if life is ever fearsome, it is truly fearsome then. ~ John C. Hawkes

See the BEAR of fearsome size! All the WORLD'S within his eyes. TIME grows thin, the past is a riddle; The TOWER awaits you in the middle. ~ Stephen King

Can fearsome Ayo, who is herself a warrior, not understand their suffering? Can she not see what fire and inundation have done to the Wakadan heart?" "Tetu, I am a woman . I saw more suffering, more of the human heart, in my first five years than you will see in five lifetimes. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

The most fearsome monsters of all may inhabit the dark corners of our mind waiting for us to release them through our believes and gullibility. the phenomenon feeds on fear and believe. Sometimes it destroys us altogether other times it leads us upwards into the labyrinth of electromagnetic frequencies that form a curtain in the area we call windows and stalk us to drink our blood and create all kinds of mischievous beliefs and misconceptions in our feeble little terrestrial minds. ~ John A. Keel

You may be some fearsome creature, but I'm her daddy. You hurt her, there aren't enough stone walls to keep me away from you and prevent me from mounting your head on a pike. You think you're a mean sonovabitch? Next to a father who's listening to his little girl cry, you're nothing more than pottery. ~ Danielle Monsch

There's a fearsome creature that no man can ever hope to vanquish: the neurotic Bridezilla. ~ Loretta Lost

Humanity badly needs things that are big and fearsome and homicidally wild. Counterintuitive as it may seem, we need to preserve those few remaining beasts, places, and forces of nature capable of murdering us with sublime indifference. ~ David Quammen

Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Americans have ever been a relentless, questioning, hopeful people. ~ William J. Clinton

She comes by night, in fearsome flight, in garments black as pitch, the queen of doom upon her broom, the wild and wicked witch. ~ Jack Prelutsky

Rockwood didn't have a movie theater or an IHOP or a strip mall. But it did have two churches, a ramshackle bar, and last (but certainly not least) Wacky Willie's Deluxe Goofy Golf, a barren landscape of wilted ferns and plastic flamingos with peeling paint. Wacky Willie had added the 'Deluxe' when finally ridding the thirteenth hole windmill of a stubborn family of bats after a great and terrible struggle that would forever be known as 'The Fearsome Bat War of Rockwood County' by Willie, but was usually referred to as 'That Time Willie Had to Get Rabies Shots' by everyone else. ~ A. Lee Martinez

Anti-Americanism may indeed have grown fiercer than it was during the cold war. It is a common phenomenon that when the angels fail to deliver, the demons become more fearsome. ~ Ian Buruma

The maester had taught him all the banners: the mailed fist of the Glovers, silver on scarlet; Lady Mormont's black bear; the hideous flayed man that went before Roose Bolton of the Dreadfort; a bull moose for the Hornwoods; a battle-axe for the Cerwyns; three sentinel trees for the Tallharts; and the fearsome sigil of House Umber, a roaring giant in shattered chains. ~ George R R Martin

But I think that so many of the rest of us do what we can to avoid this math because if we do the subtraction, do the addition, our own personal sum will be unbearable sorrow, terror, and a feeling of being entirely out of control. I think many of us do what we can to avoid this math because we know that if we do the subtraction, do the addition, our psyches and our consciences and our lives will forever be changed; and we know that no matter how fierce the momentum that leads to this subtraction and addition, no matter our fears that we may be crushed (or perhaps more fearsome, ridiculed), that we will be led in some way to oppose the subtraction of life and the addition of toxics to this planet that is our only home. ~ Derrick Jensen

Philosophy is a bitter medicine with many fearsome side effects, but if you are able to stomach it, it can cure your soul of the many ills and infirmities of ignorance. Given the choice, most men prefer not to take it, and many of those who do soon find that they cannot carry on with it. In the end, they choose what is more pleasant over what is more wholesome, and prefer the society of those who encourage them in their follies to that of those who admonish and improve them. You, on the other hand, appear to be minded otherwise, for when a young men sets for himself the highest standards of education and conduct, he naturally shuns the company of mindless nobodies and boldly seeks out that of the singular men who are prepared to teach him and challenge him and exhort him to virtue. In time, by his strivings, he will come to realize that it is from the hardest toil and noblest deeds that the purest and most persisting pleasures are to be had, and, taking pity on other men, and thinking also of the gods, he will do everything in his power to share this precious secret. ~ Neel Burton

Leela: "There are many implements here that would make excellent weapons. See, over there! With a few modifications, that could be an effective tank!"

The Doctor: "It's a ride-on lawnmower."

Leela: "It's churning blades would be a fearsome sight as we rode into battle!"

The Doctor: "I'm not sure we'd be such a fearsome sight riding into battle at three miles an hour. ~ Eddie Robson

She felt his hands move to the fastening of his breeches, and then he swore under his breath as he was forced to roll off her in order to (in his words), "get the bloody things off." She couldn't help but chuckle at his profanity; he seemed to be having a much rougher time of it than she imagined was usual.
"You're laughing?" he asked, his brows rising into a daring arch.
"You should be glad I was already out of my gown," she told him. "Thirty-six cloth-covered buttons down the back."
He gave her a fearsome look. "It would not have survived. ~ Julia Quinn