William Shakespeare on Fear
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“Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings.”
“His flight was madness: when our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.”
“Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frightened out of fear.”
“Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.”
“Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.”
“I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life.”
“To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe.”
“You can behold such sights, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine is blanch'd with fear.”
“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; When little fears grow great, great love grows there.”
“Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly.”
“They spake not a word; But, like dumb statues or breathing stones, Gazed each on other, and look'd deadly pale.”
“Truly the souls of men are full of dread: Ye cannot reason almost with a man That looks not heavily and full of fear.”
“It is the part of men to fear and tremble, When the most mighty gods by tokens send Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.”
“Things done well, And with a care, exempt themselves from fear; Things done without example, in their issue Are to be feared.”
“The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death.”
“For I am sick and capable of fears, Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears, A widow, husbandless, subject to fears, A woman, naturally born to fears.”