“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
The Book of Psalms, 1611 · Psalm 23:4, King James Version
Chapter 2
On Fear
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee.”
The Book of Isaiah, 1611 · Isaiah 41:10, King James Version
“Fear is a strange passion, and such a one that the physicians say there is no other whatever that sooner dethrones our judgment from its proper seat.”
Michel de Montaigne, 1580 · French essayist, in the essay Of Fear
“He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”
Michel de Montaigne, 1588 · French essayist, in the essay Of Experience
“There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
Seneca, c. 64 AD · Roman Stoic philosopher, in a letter to his friend Lucilius
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of things.”
Epictetus, c. 125 AD · Stoic teacher, born enslaved in Phrygia
“He is miserable once who feels it, but twice who fears it before it comes.”
Eastern proverb, 1859 · recorded in a Victorian survey of proverbs from many nations
“Our worst misfortunes are those that never befall us.”
English proverb, 1859 · recorded in a Victorian survey of proverbs from many nations
“Let nothing disturb thee, nothing affright thee; all things are passing; God never changeth.”
Teresa of Avila, 1577 · Spanish nun and reformer, lines she kept in her breviary
“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.”
Rabindranath Tagore, 1916 · Bengali poet, first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
Asked what they would do differently, the oldest Americans interviewed for the Cornell Legacy Project answered the same way again and again: worry less. Almost none of them said the worrying had ever helped.
Cornell Legacy Project, 2011 · lessons gathered from more than 1,200 Americans aged 70 to 100 and over
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