Great Throughts Treasury

"I think anorexia is a metaphor. It is a young woman's statement that she will become what the culture asks of its women, which is that they be thin and nonthreatening. Anorexia signifies that a young woman is so delicate that, like the women of China with their tiny broken feet, she needs a man to shelter and protect her from a world she cannot handle. Anorexic women signal with their bodies "I will take up only a small amount of space. I won't get in the way." They signal "I won't be intimidating or threatening." (Who is afraid of a seventy-pound adult?)" - Mary Pipher, aka Mary Elizabeth Pipher or Mary Bray Pipher

"Verbal noise is neither silence nor sound. It permeates silence and sound alike and it causes man to forget both silence and the world. / There has ceased to be any difference between speech and silence, since one single noise of words permeates both the speaker and the non-speaker. The silent listener has simply become a non-speaker. / Verbal noise is a pseudo-language and a pseudo-silence. That is to say, something is spoken and yet it is not real language at all. Something disappears in the noise and yet it is not real silence. When the noise suddenly stops, it is not followed by silence, but merely by a pause in which the noise accumulates in order to expand with even greater force when it is released. / It is as though the noise were afraid that it might disappear, as if it were constantly on the move, because it must always be convincing itself that it really exists. It does not believe in its own existence. / The real word, on the contrary, has no such fear, even when it is not being expressed in sound: its existence is in fact even more palpable in the silence." - Max Picard

"If it turns out that my best wasn't good enough, at least I won't look back and say that I was afraid to try; failure makes me work even harder." - Michael Jordan, fully Michael Jeffrey Jordon, aka MJ, Air Jordan and His Airness

"I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"Humanism may not be universal but may be quite relative to a certain situation. What we call humanism has been used by Marxists, liberals, Nazis, Catholics. This does not mean that we have to get rid of what we call human rights or freedom, but that we can't say that freedom or human rights has to be limited at certain frontiers. For instance, if you asked eighty years ago if feminine virtue was part of universal humanism, everyone would have answered yes. What I am afraid of about humanism is that it presents a certain form of our ethics as a universal model for any kind of freedom. I think that there are more secrets, more possible freedoms, and more inventions in our future than we can imagine in humanism as it is dogmatically represented on every side of the political rainbow: the Left, the Center, the Right." - Michel Foucault

"We lavish on animals the love we are afraid to show to people. They might not return it; or worse, they might." - Mignon McLaughlin

"I'm afraid to win, and afraid to lose; I hate a draw and can't stop competing; otherwise I'm fine." - Mignon McLaughlin

"I sometimes states that if they lose time. You do not know - or do not remember - when they started, what has unleashed such changes. And yet, so afraid of bliss sometimes emerges a word, a cry, a song or a single musical note, that you remain constantly present, without getting instability or even slightly surprised them. " - Mircea Eliade

"To be afraid of nothing means to see everything that happens in the world as a show, means that we can intervene anytime, through imaginatgion, and we can change the show as we want. " - Mircea Eliade

"Learn to detach...Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent... But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate fully. That's how you are able to leave it... Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that love entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment." - Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom

"If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even ,you experience them fully and completely You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, "Alright I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment." - Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom

"If you hold back on the emotions–if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails." - Morrie Schwartz, fully Morris "Morrie" S. Schwartz

"Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived. We should demand his blood not from the Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves. . . . Let us make our reckoning today. We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood." - Moshe Dayan

"Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood. " - Moshe Dayan

"I am not afraid of the pen, or the scaffold, or the sword. I will tell the truth wherever I please." - Mother Jones, referring to Mary Harris Jones

""Take Back the Night' isn't just about domestic violence, 'Take Back the Night' is also about being safe going back to your car safety, child's safety, women' safety, men's safety - it's just about not being afraid to be out in the evening. It's for everybody not just women and children, it's for everybody."" - Elizabeth Fry, fully Elizabeth "Betsy" Fry, née Gurney

"The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live as not to be afraid to die." - Nathaniel Cotton

"Don't be afraid to cry. It will free your mind of sorrowful thoughts. (Hopi)" -

"Don't be afraid to cry. It will free your mind of sorrowful thoughts. - Hopi" -

"The root cause of misery is fear: we are too afraid of the unknown. We remain confined in the known, and because we remain confined in the known, life becomes a repetition, a circle; one goes on moving in the same circle again and again and again. Because of this continuous, repetitive, routine life, one feels misery, boredom, futility." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"Love is the only light in life; all else is darkness. You can have money and you will live in darkness; you can have power and you will live in darkness. You can be famous, you can have much respectability, but you will live in darkness. Unless you have light, unless you have love, you will not have light at all. It is only love that makes life a light phenomenon. That is the meaning of the word ‘enlightenment’. It is love that brings enlightenment. So meditate on love, and not only meditate: act on love. Never be afraid of love, and whenever love knocks on the door don’t hesitate to open it. Go with love, take all the risks. You will never be a loser. Slow down, relax, and let these thoughts disappear. Slowly slowly they disappear. If you remain alert that they have to be dropped, you stop co-operating with them, you stop identifying with them, one day it happens: you are there, god is there, and there is no barrier of thought between you and god, no screen. And that is what is called enlightenment. Suddenly all is light and all is joy and all is eternal life." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"The first, and the most important, is prayer. Love is prayer. There is no other prayer, all other prayers are just pseudo, substitutes for’ love. The other prayers are invented by people who cannot love, who are incapable of love, who are afraid of love; who have been so badly damaged by the society that they have lost their intrinsic quality of love." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"The main thing in life is not to be afraid of being human." - Pablo Casals, fully Pau Casals i Defilló

"Death is afraid of such powerful brahmacharins who come of their own accord to his door. This stems from a very basic principle of nature. Whatever you treasure most, you love most, desire most in life, and would liike to have, would like to keep, you turn away from it a little, surrender it a little and it will remain yours. On the opposite hand, whatever you detest most in life, absolutely dislike, just turn to it a little and it will stay away from you. It is the principle of innoculation. It applies to all sciences. Poison is cured by poison. Everything is its own antidote. So life has death built into it. The only way to master death is not to run away from it, but to turn to it a little, recognize it daily." - Pandit Usharbudh Arya

"Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh

"How do you see this tree? Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? Don't be afraid to paint it as blue as possible." - Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin

"Soon I'll be old and I've done precious little in this world for lack of time. I am always afraid I'll become senile before I've finished what I've undertaken. " - Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin

"I am now going to make an admission. I confess, I agree, that all these good people who protested, who laughed, who did not perceive what we perceived, were in a quite legitimate position. Their opinion was quite in order. One must not be afraid to say that the kingdom of letters is only a province of the vast empire of entertainment. One picks up a book, one puts it aside; and even when one cannot put it down one very well understands that this interest is related to the facility of pleasure. That is to say that every effort of a creator of beauty or of fantasy should be bent, by the very essence of his work, on contriving for the public pleasure which demands no effort, or almost none. It is through the public that he should deduce what touches, moves, soothes, animates or enchants the public. " - Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry

"Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties. Every Warrior of the Light has felt afraid of going into battle… Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved. Every Warrior of the Light has said ‘yes’ when he wanted to say ‘no.’ Every Warrior of the Light has suffered for the most trivial of reasons. Every Warrior of the Light has, at least once, believed he was not a Warrior of the Light. Every Warrior of the Light has trodden a path that was not his. Every Warrior of the Light has, at some time in the past, lied or betrayed someone. " - Paulo Coelho

"I am afraid of committing myself she thought to herself she wanted to follow all possible paths and ended up following none… I am afraid of death, but what I fear more than death, is to waste my life in vain, and called love because it contains things beyond our understanding, it sheds a light of a particular kind, but what scares me is what this places the light from the shadows… Fear lasts only until the point at which it is the occurrence of the outlawed, then the fear is losing its meaning, and left us only hope that we have taken the right decision." - Paulo Coelho

"If I had to give you one piece of advice it would be this: Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people who change the world and, after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely… If I must be faithful to someone or something, I have, first of all, have to be faithful to myself… If I must fall, may it be from a high place… If it's still in your mind, it is still in your heart. " - Paulo Coelho

"If you accept such love with purity and humility, you will understand that Love is neither giving nor receiving - it is participating… If you are traveling the road of your dreams, be committed to it. Do not leave an open door to be used as an excuse such as, 'Well, this isn't exactly what I wanted.' Therein are contained the seeds of defeat. Walk your path. Even if your steps have to be uncertain, even if you know that you could be doing it better. If you accept your possibilities in the present, there is no doubt that you will improve in the future. But if you deny that you have limitations, you will never be rid of them. Confront your path with courage, and don't be afraid of the criticism of others. And, above all, don't allow yourself to become paralyzed by self-criticism. God will be with you on your sleepless nights, and will dry your tears with His love. God is for the valiant… Remember, the first road to God is prayer, the second is joy." - Paulo Coelho

"It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny... It's a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your destiny. It prepares your spirit and you will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth. " - Paulo Coelho

"People want to change everything and, at the same time, want it all to remain the same… Personal growth has its price, and she was paying it without complaint… Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won’t suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back – and at some point everyone looks back – she will hear her heart saying, ‘What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? " - Paulo Coelho

"The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and forgot about his need to go back to the oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. Even though I complain sometimes, it said, it's because I'm the heart of a person, and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly… ‎That's what the world is like: people talk as if they knew everything, but if you dare to ask a question, they don't know anything." - Paulo Coelho

"The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight… The closer one gets to realizing his destiny, the more that destiny becomes his true reason for being… The completion is always more difficult that the beginning… The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. The day is made up of 24 hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or contemplating life. " - Paulo Coelho

"The good fight is the one we run on behalf of our dreams. If they flare up with a vengeance in our youth, we do have a lot of courage, but we have not yet learned to fight. If we have learned to deal with many troubles, has left us the courage to fight. Therefore, we turn against ourselves and our worst enemies. We say that our childish dreams, were too difficult to realize or just so touched that we had from the realities of life do not know. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to take the good fight… The first symptom that we are killing our dreams is that we never have time. The most busy people I've met in my life were at the same time those who had always time for everything. Those who did nothing were always tired, did not realize how little they made, and complained constantly about the fact that the day was too short. In truth, they were afraid to fight the good fight. The second symptom that our dreams are dead, our certainties. Because we see life not as a big adventure, which it is to live, we believe in the end, that we are the few things we have asked of life, wise, just and behave properly…. The third symptom of the death of our dreams is finally peace. Life becomes one Sunday afternoon, nothing great demands of us want no more of us than we are willing to give. We then keep for ready to believe that we have overcome our childish fantasies and gain the fulfillment of personal and professional level. We are surprised when someone says, in our age, that he still expected life of this or that. But in truth, deep inside our hearts, we know that we have given it up in reality only to fight for our dreams to live the good fight. " - Paulo Coelho

"We all need love. To love is part of human nature, as they eat, drink and sleep. Sometimes when we remain absolutely alone, watching the beautiful sunset, I think, this beauty is not important because I have someone to share it. In these moments we must ask ourselves: how often they ask us to loving, and we turn to the other side? How many times we're afraid to get closer to someone cast doubts as to say that we love this person? Beware of loneliness. It resembles the dependence of the most dangerous drug. If the sun is no longer meaningful to you, become more humble and go to look for love. Know that and other spiritual blessings, the more you give, the more you get back. " - Paulo Coelho

"We always have a tendency to see those things that do not exist and to be blind to the great lessons that are right there before our eyes… We always have the necessary resources to face the storms that life throws at us, but most of the time, those resources are locked up in the depths of our heart and we waste an enormous amount of time trying to find them. By the time we've found them, we already been defeated by adversity… We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand… We are all pilgrims in search of the unknown. " - Paulo Coelho

"People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly… People learn twenty-five percent from their teacher, twenty-five percent from listening to themselves, twenty-five percent from their friends, and twenty-five percent from time… People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves… People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being. Maybe that's why they give up on it so early, too… People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want. " - Paulo Coelho

"It includes everything. If there is suffering, then it is best to accept it, because it won't go away because you pretend it is not there. If there is joy, then it is best to accept that too, even though you are afraid it might end someday. Some people can only relate to life through sacrifice and renunciation. Some people only feel part of humanity when they think they are happy… It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over. Slowly, I began to realize that I could not go back and force things to be as they once were: those two years, which up until then had seemed an endless inferno, were now beginning to show me their true meaning. " - Paulo Coelho

"It isn't what you did in the past that will affect the present. It's what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future… It isn't expectations that carry us forward; it's our desire to go on… It is not the life that matters, but the journey… Paradise is being able to say at that (second before our death) moment: I made some mistakes, but I wasn't a coward. I lived life and did what I had to do… People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly." - Paulo Coelho

"Playing the part of a charitable soul was only for those who were afraid of taking a stand in life. It is always far easier to have faith in your own goodness than to confront others and fight for your rights. It is always easier to hear an insult and not retaliate than have the courage to fight back against someone stronger than yourself; we can always say we're not hurt by the stones others throw at us, and it's only at night - when we're alone and our wife or our husband or our school friend is asleep - that we can silently grieve over our own cowardice… That's the way the human heart. People are afraid to pursue their dreams, most importantly, because they feel they are not entitled to receive it, or that they were unable to reach it. We, their hearts, to be daunted just by thinking about loved ones who would go on forever, or about the moments that should be good but it was not, or of treasures that probably should have found but buried in the ground forever. Because, when these things happen, we are suffering. " - Paulo Coelho

"There is only one difference between teacher and disciple: the former is slightly less afraid than the latter. " - Paulo Coelho

"The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into a dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. " - Paulo Freire

"The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a 'circle of certainty' within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side. " - Paulo Freire

"Successful leaders don't start out asking, What do I want to do? They ask, What needs to be done? Then they ask, ‘Of those things that would make a difference, which are right for me?’ They don't tackle things they aren't good at. They make sure other necessities get done, but not by them. Successful leaders make sure that they succeed! They are not afraid of strength in others. Andrew Carnegie wanted to put on his gravestone, ‘Here lies a man who knew how to put into his service more able men than he was himself.’" - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"I am not afraid of monopolies because they eventually collapse. Thucydides wrote years ago that hegemony kills itself. A power that has hegemony always becomes arrogant. Always becomes overweened. And always unites the rest of the world against it. A countervailing power always reacts. A hegemonous system is very self-destructive. It becomes defensive, arrogant, and a defender of yesterday. It destroys itself. Therefore no monopoly in history lives for very long." - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"I have become so accustomed to think scientifically that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him. " - P.D. Ouspensky, fully Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, also Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii, also Uspenskii or Uspensky

"Possibly the most interesting first impression of my life came from the world of dreams… Suddenly I began to find a strange meaning in old fairy-tales; woods, rivers, mountains, became living beings; mysterious life filled the night; with new interests and new expectations I began to dream again of distant travels; and I remembered many extraordinary things that I had heard about old monasteries. Ideas and feelings which had long since ceased to interest me suddenly began to assume significance and interest. A deep meaning and many subtle allegories appeared in what only yesterday had seemed to be naive popular fantasy or crude superstition. And the greatest mystery and the greatest miracle was that the thought became possible that death may not exist, that those who have gone may not have vanished altogether, but exist somewhere and somehow, and that perhaps I may see them again. I have become so accustomed to think scientifically that I am afraid even to imagine that there may be something else beyond the outer covering of life. I feel like a man condemned to death, whose companions have been hanged and who has already become reconciled to the thought that the same fate awaits him; and suddenly he hears that his companions are alive, that they have escaped and that there is hope also for him. And he fears to believe this, because it would be so terrible if it proved to be false, and nothing would remain but prison and the expectation of execution. " - P.D. Ouspensky, fully Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, also Pyotr Demianovich Ouspenskii, also Uspenskii or Uspensky