At the root of the shy temperament is a deep fear of social judgment, one so severe it can sometimes be crippling. Introverted people don’t worry unduly about whether they’ll be found wanting, they just find too much socializing exhausting and would prefer either to be alone or in the company of a select few people. 646
I’m not at the point where I’d feel safe in a house alone. I would be really scared. I’m the kind of person that when I get up to go use the bathroom I have this big long hallway, and I just know someone’s going to jump out and get me. 594
Fear of error which everything recalls to me at every moment of the flight of my ideas, this mania for control, makes men prefer reason’s imagination to the imagination of the senses. And yet it is always the imagination alone which is at work. 657
I’ve always had a huge fear of dying or becoming ill. The thing I’m most afraid of, though, is being alone, which I think a lot of performers fear. It’s why we seek the limelight – so we’re not alone, were adored. We’re loved, so people want to be around us. The fear of being alone drives my life. 1.95K
It is a great mystery that though the human heart longs for Truth, in which alone it finds liberation and delight, the first reaction of human beings to Truth is one of hostility and fear! 2.09K
Unfortunately, unless we’re focused on building up our courage, which gives us our self-confidence and all that we need to make quantum change in our lives, the voice of fear will always take the lead inside our minds. 2.32K
Because at bottom, I’m interested in fear, and in courage and cowardice and these are easier to get at through fiction, where you can enter people’s heads. 621
I fear some of our leaders today have lost the courage to stand up. What we have now are politicians. They won’t offer real plans, and only stand up when they want to blame someone else. 2.41K
You live with the fear people might find out. Then you actually have the courage to tell people and they go, I don’t think you are gay. It’s enough to drive you crazy. 592
Courage is… the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared. 2.57K
We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty. 644
Courage is a special kind of knowledge: the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared. 705
