Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Worry

"Hate burns up more energy than anything else, more than hard work, illness or justifiable worry. So when hatred is entering our hearts, let us just put it out, make room for pleasant thoughts instead, save our precious God-given energy for something worthy of it." - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey

"I know men and women can banish worry, fear and various kinds of illnesses, and can transform their lives by changing their thoughts. I know! I know! I know! I have seen such incredible transformations performed hundreds of times. I have seen them so often that I no longer wonder at them." - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey

"If we can't have all we want, let us not poison our days with worry and resentment. Let us be good to ourselves. Let us be philosophical. And philosophy, according to Epictecal, boils down to this: "The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things."" - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey

"Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment." - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey

"Worry, the interest paid by those who borrow trouble." - George Washburn Lyon

"It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy, you can hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. Fear secretes acids, but love and trust are sweet juices." - Henry Ward Beecher

"Ten Success Rules: Put success before amusement. Learn something every day. Cut free from routine. Concentrate on net profits. Make your services known. Never worry over trifles. Shape your decisions quickly. Acquire skill and technique. Deserve loyalty and co-operation. Value character above all." - Herbert Newton Casson

"By forgetting the past and by throwing myself into other interests, I forget to worry." - Jack Dempsey, fully William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey, "The Manassa Mauler"

"It is the little things that fret and worry us; we can dodge an elephant, but we can't dodge a fly." - Josh Billings, pen name for Henry Wheeler Shaw, aka Uncle Esek

"We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth's creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying unable to sit still." - Lewis Thomas

"In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words." - Mason Cooley

"Emotional tranquillity, refusal to worry, the attitude of happiness, zest for life, keeping control, having grit and courage - these are important factors in physical health and long life." - Norman Vincent Peale

"Don’t make a fuss about anything. Whenever you worry, remember, you are deepening the cosmic delusion within you." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"Indulgence in constant thoughts of fear, anger, melancholy, remorse, envy, sorrow, hatred, discontent, or worry; and lack of the necessities for normal and happy living, such as right food, proper exercise, fresh air, sunshine, agreeable work and a purpose in life, all are causes of nervous disease." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"The reason worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work." - Robert Frost

"The only certain freedom's in departure." - Robert Frost

"Worry over what has not occurred is a very serious malady." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness off the deep springs of life. Youth means the temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust. Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next, and the joy of the game of living." - Samuel Ullman

"Do not worry about tomorrow's troubles for you know not what tomorrow will bring. Tomorrow may come and you will not be, and it thus turns out you have worried about a world which is not yours." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL

"Worry distorts our thinking, disrupts our work, disquiets our soul, disturbs our body, disfigures our face, destroys our poise, depresses our friends, demoralizes our life, defeats our faith and debilitates our energy." - William A. Ward, fully William Arthur Ward

"I believe in work, hard work and long hours of work. Men do not break down from overwork, but from worry and dissipation." - Charles Evans Hughes, Sr.

"18/40/60 Rule When you're eighteen, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you. When you're forty, you don't give a damn about what anybody thinks of you. When you're sixty, you realize nobody's been thinking about you at all." - Daniel Amen

"It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized. " -

"It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory. " - Emily Post, born Emily Price

"Attention is our first duty whenever we want to know what is our second duty. There is no such cause of confusion and worry about what we ought to do, and how to do it, as our unwillingness to bear what God would tell us on that very point." - Henry Clay Trumbull

"If being wealthy is taken to mean having the means to satisfy one's every want, all but the very poor can become rich as thou at a single stroke of a magician's wand, simply by ceasing to want more than is really necessary for sustaining life. By being content with little and not giving a rap for what the neighbours think, one can attain a very large measure of freedom, shedding care and worry in a trice." - John Blofeld, fully John Eaton Calthorpe Blofeld

"I think that at some point in your life you realize you don't have to worry if you do everything you're supposed to do right. Or if not right, if you do it the best you can... what can worry do for you? You are already doing the best you can." - Joe Namath, fully Joseph William Namath, aka Willie Joe and Broadway Joe

"Don't worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward. " - Laura Schlesinger, fully Laura Catherine Schlessinger, aka Dr. Laura

"The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers." - Lewis Thomas

"Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes when networks of relationships form among people who share a common cause and vision of what's possible. This is good news for those of us intent on creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage and commitment that lead to broad-based change." - Margaret J. Wheatley, aka Meg Wheatley

"No one can pray and worry at the same time." - Max Lucado

"The poet must be free to love or hate as the spirit moves him, free to change, free to be a chameleon, free to be an enfant terrible. He must above all never worry about his effect on other people. Power requires that one do just that all the time. Power requires that the inner person never be unmasked. No, we poets have to go naked. And since this is so, it is better that we stay private people; a naked public person would be rather ridiculous, what?" - May Sarton, pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton

"There are very few things in the mind which eat up as much energy as worry. It is one of the most difficult things not to worry about anything. Worry is experienced when things go wrong, but in relation to past happenings it is idle merely to wish that they might have been otherwise. The frozen past is what it is, and no amount of worrying is going to make it other than what it has been. But the limited ego-mind identifies itself with its past, gets entangled with it and keeps alive the pangs of frustrated desires. Thus worry continues to grow into the mental life of man until the ego-mind is burdened by the past. Worry is also experienced in relation to the future when this future is expected to be disagreeable in some way. In this case it seeks to justify itself as a necessary part of the attempt to prepare for coping with the anticipated situations. But, things can never be helped merely by worrying. Besides, many of the things which are anticipated never turn up, or if they do occur, they turn out to be much more acceptable than they were expected to be. Worry is the product of feverish imagination working under the stimulus of desires. It is a living through of sufferings which are mostly our own creation. Worry has never done anyone any good, and it is very much worse than mere dissipation of psychic energy, for it substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life." - Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani

"People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works." - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

"People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works. " - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim

"Do good and don't worry to whom." - Mexican Proverbs

"One of the things I benefited from when I started this business was that I didn’t know anything. I was just instinct with no preconceived notions. This enabled me to learn and change quickly without having to worry about maintaining any kind of status quo, like some of my bigger competitors." - Michael Dell, fully Michael Saul Dell

"The basketball court for me, during a game, is the most peaceful place I can imagine. On the basketball court, I worry about nothing. When I'm out there, no one can bother me." - Michael Jordan, fully Michael Jeffrey Jordon, aka MJ, Air Jordan and His Airness

"If we can say with Seneca, "This life is only a prelude to eternity," then we need not worry so much over the fittings and furnishings of this ante-room; and more than that, it will give dignity and purpose to the fleeting days to know they are linked with the eternal things as prelude and preparation." - Minot Judson Savage

"I thought about his dilapidated church. In some ways we all have a hole in our roof, a gap through which tears fall and bad events blow like harsh wind. We feel vulnerable; we worry about what storm will strike next. But with a little faith, people can fix things, and they truly can change, because at that moment, you could not believe otherwise." - Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom

"There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever." - Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu

"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu NULL

"Abiding happiness is not simply a possibility, but a duty all may live above the troubles of life worry is a poison and happiness is a medicine." - Newell Dwight Hillis

"The man who can put himself in the place of other men, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for him." - Owen D. Young

"The more technique you have the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is the less there is. " - Pablo Picasso, fully Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso

"What is it that dies? A log of wood dies to become a few planks. The planks die to become a chair. The chair dies to become a piece of firewood, and the firewood dies to become ash. You give different names to the different shapes the wood takes, but the basic substance is there always. If we could always remember this, we would never worry about the loss of anything. We never lose anything; we never gain anything. By such discrimination we put an end to unhappiness. " - Patañjali NULL

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"Success or failure is the just result of what you have done in the past, plus what you do now... You should transfer your attention from failure to success, from worry to calmness, from mental wanderings to concentration, from restlessness to peace, from peace to the divine bliss within." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh