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No one likes fear.

Fear is one of the most powerful emotions that our minds can create. It’s so powerful that can hinder your ability to think, cause your voice to quiver when you speak and even force a physical reaction such as shaking or immobility.

On the most basic level, fear is good. It’s your body alerting you that you’re in danger. Unfortunately, our minds confuse physical danger (such as being chased by a lion) with social dangers (such as giving a speech).

Hold on to your physical dangers; they’re good. If you’re being chased by a lion, you damn well better be scared.

On the hand, do everything you can to overcome your social fears. How does fear help you give a better speech? It doesn’t, social fears have no purpose.

Find strength in these fear quotes. Use them to help you overcome your fears and to conquer them.

100 Fear Quotes for Unwavering Courage

I’ve broken down these fear quotes in three different sections: general fear quotes, quotes about overcoming fear, and quotes to give you courage.

General Fear Quotes: These will help you better understand your fear.

Quotes about Overcoming Fear: Use these if you feel fear in anticipation of something (feeling fear weeks before your public speaking event or skydiving trip)

Fear Quotes (37 Quotes)

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? ~Vincent van Gogh

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do. ~Henry Ford

Fear is 100% dependent on your for its survival. ~Steve Maraboli

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

You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind. ~Dale Carnegie

Fear is a liar. ~Anonymous

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality. ~Seneca

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows. ~Japanese Proverb

He who has overcome his fears will truly be free. ~Aristotle

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise. ~Anonymous

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire. ~Dale Carnegie

To overcome fear, here’s all you have to do: realize the fear is there, and do the action you fear anyway. ~Peter McWilliamsmatt

Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind. ~Dale Carnegie

The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is fear. ~Gandhi

Fear is the enemy of logic. ~Frank Sinatra

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil. ~Aristotle

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. ~Steve Jobs

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. ~Edmund Burke

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. ~Mark Twain

Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. ~Louis E. Boone

Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is. ~H. Jackson Browne

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. ~Marie Curie

Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. ~Bill Cosby

If you’re not willing to risk, you cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot be your best. If you cannot be your best, you cannot be happy. If you cannot be happy, what else is there? ~Les Brown

Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be. ~Lacantius

Fear is the most subtle and destructive of all human diseases. ~Dr. Smiley Blanton

Fear is the prison of the heart. ~Anonymous

Worry gives a small thing a big shadow. ~Swedish Proverb

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. ~H.P. Lovecraft

Fear of self is the greatest of all terrors, the deepest of all dread, the commonest of all mistakes. From it grows failure. Because of it, life is a mockery. Out of it comes despair. ~David Seasbury

Fears are stories we tell ourselves. ~Anonymous

Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real but fear is a choice. ~Cypher Raige (Will Smith from the film After Earth)

Where fear is, happiness is not. ~Seneca

Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed. ~Michael Pritchard

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret to life. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotes about Overcoming Fear (26 Quotes)

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. ~Dale Carnegie

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them. ~André Gide

Fear has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours. ~Zig Ziglar

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one. ~John C. Maxwell

The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground. ~Anonymous

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself. ~Samuel Butler

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. ~Mark Twain

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. ~Les Brown

Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears. ~Rudyard Kipling

Fear breeds fear. ~Byron Janis

Fear is a habit; so is self-pity, defeat, anxiety, despair, hopelessness and resignation. You can eliminate all of these negative habits with two simple resolves: I can. I will. ~Anonymous

Fall seven times, stand up eight. ~Japanese Proverb

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. ~Marcus Aurelius

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. ~Nelson Mandela

The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free. ~Oprah Winfrey

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst. ~Dale Carnegie

Listen to what you know instead of what you fear. ~Richard Bach

Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it. ~Judy Blume

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. ~Marcus Aurelius

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. ~Henry James

We are taught to understand, correctly, that courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity for action despite our fears. ~John McCain

Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the conquest of it. ~Anonymous

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

For it is not death or hardship that is a fearful thing, but the fear of death and hardship. ~Epictetus

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. ~Orison Swett Margen

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. You playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~Timo Cruz (Rick Gonzalez from the film Coach Carter)

Quotes about Courage (37 Quotes)

An ugly sight, a man who is afraid. ~Jean Anouilh

Everything you want is on the other side of fear. ~Jack Canfield

Your mind will quit a thousand times before your body does. Feel the fear and do it anyway. ~Anonymous

He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear. ~Proverb

We are held back by fears not limitations. ~Anonymous

Without fear there cannot be courage. ~Christopher Paolini

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. ~Wayne Gretzky

The fear of facing your fears is harder to overcome than the fear itself. ~Anonymous

Fear is met and destroyed with courage. ~James F. Bell

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live. ~Dorothy Thompson

To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around. ~Richard Norton

There is no illusion greater than fear. ~Lau Tzu

Thinking will not overcome fear but action will. ~W. Clement Stone

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom. ~Marilyn Ferguson

Fears are nothing more than states of mind. ~Napolean Hill

You can believe you can or you can believe you can’t. Either way you are right. ~Henry Ford

Courage is the power of the mind to overcome fear. ~Martin Luther King

Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat (Fortune Favors the Brave). ~Terence

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon

Courage is knowing what not to fear. ~Plato

Are you a mouse or a man. ~Anonymous

A person’s fears are lighter when the danger is at hand. ~Seneca

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat. ~Napolean Bonaparte

Panic at the thought of doing a thing is a challenge to do it. ~Henry S. Haskins

Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. ~Brendan Francis

Fear is never a reason for quitting; it is only an excuse. ~Norman Vincent Peale

What’s the worst that could happen? ~Anonymous

Do not take counsel of your fears. ~George Patton

Do not let your fears choose your destiny. ~Anonymous

Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real. ~Les Brown

Valor grows by daring, fear by holding back. ~Publilis Syrus

People die of fright and live of confidence. ~Henry David Thoreau

Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasures. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

The scariest moment, is always just before you start. ~Stephen King

Life shrinks and expands in proportion to one’s courage. ~Anais Nin

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. ~Robert Lewis Stevenson

In Conclusion

You were born with only two innate fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises.

This means that over the course of your life, your mind has created and cultivated the rest of your fears. Without you, your fear does not exist. Always remember this.

Next time you’re afraid, recite these fear quotes to find the courage to conquer your fears.