This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"To live with fear and not be afraid is the final test of maturity." - Edward Weeks
"The only thing I am afraid of is fear." - Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, sometimes called "The Iron Duke"
"I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today." - William Allen White
"The first sign of love to God is not to be afraid of death, and to be always waiting for it. For death unites the friend to his friend - the seeker to the object which he seeks." - Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali
"Come to the edge, He said. They said: we are afraid. Come to the edge, He said. They came. He pushed them, and they flew." - Guillaume Apollinaire, fully Wilhelm Albert Wodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki
"Idolatry is the denial of all hope for the future. The idols of the past were worshipped by people who were afraid of change, who wanted things to remain the same, who did not want a future that was different, who found their security in the status quo. The same is true today." - Center of Concern NULL
"Any man who says he is not afraid of death is a liar." - Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
"Never be afraid to doubt, if only you have the disposition to believe, and doubt in order than you may end in believing the truth." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Without faith man becomes sterile, hopeless and afraid to the very core of his being." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"Don't be afraid to take one large step because you can't cross a chasm in two small leaps." - Lloyd George, fully David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
"People are afraid of the future, of the unknown. If a person faces up to it, and takes the dare of the future, they can have some control over their destiny." - John Glenn, fully John Herschel Glenn, Jr.
"The more complete one's life is, the more one's creative capacities are fulfilled, the less one fears death. People are not afraid of death per se, but of the incompleteness of their lives." - Lisa Marburg Goodman
"Sufficient time must be devoted to the process of “being” rather than “doing.” This is perhaps life’s greatest lesson of all. It is not only true that mindless materialism leaves us empty; materiality alone means that we do not know the value of time. We are actually afraid of time, as well as meaning and value; and this is why we turn to materialism." - Kenneth Hanson, aka Ken Hanson
"We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition. We have lost the power even of imagining what the ancient idealization of poverty could have meant: the liberation from material attachments, the unbribed soul." - William James
"I discovered that people are not really afraid of dying; they’re afraid of not ever having lived, not every having deeply considered their life’s higher purpose, and not ever having stepped into that purpose and at least tried to make a difference in this world." - Joseph Jaworski
"The quality of a person’s life is directly proportional to the degree of responsibility he takes for his own life and the commitment he makes to change for the better. Don’t be afraid of pains and sufferings. They are divine gifts for our growth." - Bibhuti Mazumder
"We are all afraid... Unless we have something greater than ourselves to believe in, we are lost. We are prey to fears unless we can pray our fears away." - Fulton Oursler, fully Charles Fulton Oursler, pseudonym Anthony Abbot
"Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work." - Beatrix Potter
"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared." - Eddie Rickenbacker, formally Edward Vernon "Eddie" Rickenbacker
"Most souls are afraid of God precisely because of His Goodness... Our greatest fear is not that God may not love us enough but that He may love us too much." - Fulton Sheen, fully Archbishop Fulton John Sheen
"We are afraid of religion because it interprets rather than just observes. Religion does not confirm that there are hungry people in the world; it interprets the hungry to be our brethren whom we allow to starve." - Dorothee Söelle
"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will hold onto. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools chances are that you'll cut your hands." -
"He who accuses another of being an evil person says so because he is afraid of him." - Muhammed al-Taqī or Muhammad al-Jawād, given name Muhammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Mūsā
"Courage? It is not being fearless, it is finding the strength from God to do what you have to do - whether you are afraid or not." - Gene Tunney
"Show me a guy who's afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time." - René Auberjonois, fully René Murat Auberjonois
"Have you ever noticed or thought about how little eye contact most of us have with strangers? Why? Are we afraid of them? What keeps us from opening our hearts to people we don't know?" - Richard Carlson
"The worst atrocities are probably committed by those who are most afraid." - Lord D’Abernon, fully Edgar Vincent, 1st Viscount D'Abernon
"The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it." - Debbi Fields
"I’ve never been afraid to fail." - Michael Jordan, fully Michael Jeffrey Jordon, aka MJ, Air Jordan and His Airness
"As a professional educator, I have long been troubled by the many students who enter university without ever having been educationally challenged to engage in critical thinking - in fact, they seem afraid to do so." - Gerald Alexander Larue
"I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things." - William John Locke
"You can't be a winner and be afraid to lose." - Charles Lynch
"When you love a person all fear disappears. And when you are afraid all love disappears." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
"Never be afraid of throwing away what you have; if you can throw it away, it is not really yours." - R. H. Tawney, fully Richard Henry Tawney
"Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, fully Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
"Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing." -
"We are prudent people. We are afraid to let go of our petty reality in order to grasp at a great shadow." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry." - Anton Chekhov, fully Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
"If men think that a ruler is religious and has a reverence for the God, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands." - Aristotle NULL
"Moral courage – not afraid to say or do what you believe to be right." - Bernard Law "Monty" Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
"Moral courage: not afraid to say or do what you believe to be right." - Bernard Law "Monty" Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
"When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not and which know not me, I am afraid ..." - Blaise Pascal
"Only life can satisfy the demands of life... Don’t be afraid of yourself, live your individuality to the full - but for the good of others. Don’t copy others in order to buy fellowship, or make convention your law instead of living the righteousness." - Dag Hammarskjöld
"He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning." - Danish Proverbs
"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps." - David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor