Fear

Via In the Agora:

“Do you think America wants hope right now? Because fear seems to be winning.”

— Stephen Colbert, April 24, 2008

Other quotes about fear. The big one:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

—FDR, 1933

For my fellow geeks out there, we have the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear:

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.

(Which, of course, brings to mind the Litany of Beer: Beer is the mind-killer. Beer is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my beer. 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 it’s path. When the beer has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.)

There is the instant-classic (if momentarily inconvenient) statement by Bill Clinton:

Now one of Clinton’s Laws of Politics is this: If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think; if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That’s the best.

There is Bertrand Russell:

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

Dorothy Thompson:

Fear grows in darkness; if you think there’s a bogeyman around, turn on the light.

James Bymes:

Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death

Marcus Aurelius:

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

Thomas Jefferson:

I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail, but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy.

Helen Keller:

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Eric Hoffer:

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Unknown:

It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength.

Edward R. Murrow:

We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.

(And, who could forget Blue Oyster Cult: Don’t fear the reaper; baby, I’m your man; La, la la, la la, La, la la, la la.)

I’m not really a hippy-granola type who believes every challenge is simply a new opportunity and every stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. I know there is hell to pay for misplaced hope. But there is also hell to pay for fearing needlessly. Reject fear and those who peddle it.