Fear Of Darkness Quotes & Sayings

Oh, we can populate the dark with horrors, even we who think ourselves informed and sure, believing nothing we cannot measure or weigh. I knew beyond all doubt that the dark things crowding in on me either did not exist or were not dangerous to me, and still I was afraid. I thought how terrible the nights must have been in a time when men knew the things were there and were deadly. But no, that's wrong. If I knew they were there, I would have weapons against them, charms, prayers, some kind of alliance with forces equally strong but on my side. Knowing they were not there made me defenseless against them and perhaps more afraid. — John Steinbeck

There is so much garbage being said about the mark of the beast. A lot of it is based on what I call the 'sky bus' rapture theory, and is not about the Kingdom. It is a kingdom of fear because it is not about the returning power of the sons of God. You do not find anyone who teaches the rapture theory talking about the resurrection in the life of every believer, or of the glory of the Son of God. I do not find the manifestation of the Kingdom in their lives: the power to raise the dead today and for us to live forever in that glory. I do not hear them talking about the coming glory. When darkness rises, the glory must come in a greater measure (Isaiah 60:1-2). I do not see them talking about the coming glory, all the rapture theory does is create a generation of fearful people - a people who will not sow into the future with their words to make their children believe that there is a hope for them to live for today. — Ian Clayton

I could not understand what these sixty-five thousand people lived for, what they read the gospel for, why they prayed, why they read books and magazines. What good had they gained from all that had been said and written hitherto if they were still possessed by the same spiritual darkness and hatred of liberty, as they were a hundred and three hundred years ago?
So these sixty-five thousand people have been reading and hearing of truth, of justice, of mercy, of freedom for generations, and yet from morning till night, till the day of their death, they are lying, and tormenting each other, and they fear liberty and hate it as a deadly foe. — Anton Chekhov

Fear gripped her like hands around the neck, the way it could only happen in an unfamiliar room in the pitch black of night. — Elin Hilderbrand

We do not take democracy for granted. We feel it grow in our working together - many millions of us working toward a common purpose. If it took us several decades of sacrifice to arrive at this faith, it is because it took us that long to know what part of America is ours.
Our faith has been shaken many times, and now it is put to question. Our faith is a living thing, and it can be crippled or chained. It can be killed by denying us enough food or clothing, by blasting away our personalities and keeping us in constant fear. Unless we are properly prepared the powers of darkness will have good reason to catch us unaware and trample our lives. — Carlos Bulosan

It is yin and yang. Light is the left hand of darkness ... how did it go? Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male. It is yourself ... both and one. A shadow on snow. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted [Nwoye's] young soul
the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. — Chinua Achebe

White
There was a moment in the darkness when the fear lifted.
A moment where white surrounded me.
Hope.
Lily, and someone else, and a sprinkling of water.
"Holy water, Jenna."
"You can let go if you need to."
"Forgiveness, Jenna."
But I couldn't let go.
It wasn't in my power.
I was already swirling, flying, falling.
To someplace deep I didn't understand.
Where all the sounds buy my own voice disappeared.
Only me.
For so long.
I don't want to be alone anymore. (120) — Mary E. Pearson

Instead of showing compassion, or good sense, or care, many people regarded the clinic with hate and disgust. Every age thought they were so enlightened, and every age was stumbling around in much the same darkness of ignorance and fear. — Cassandra Clare

You are so full of light," I say after a moment. "You align with joy, and I with fear and fury. If you could see into my thoughts, you would surely turn away. So why would you stay with me, even if return to Kenettra and resume our lives?"

"You paint me as a saint," he murmurs. "But I aligned with greed solely to prevent that."

Even now, he can make my lips twitch with a smile. "I'm serious, Magiano."

"As am I. None of us are saints. I have seen your darkness, yes, and know your struggle. I won't deny it." He touches my chin with one hand. At this gesture, the whispers seem to settle, pushed away where I can't hear them. "But you are also passionate and ambitious and loyal. You are a thousand things, mi Adelinetta, not just one. Do not reduce yourself to that. — Marie Lu

Fear of darkness reinforces darkness. Acceptance and kindness magnify brightness. — Doobie Shemer

Personal growth can be painful, because it can make us feel ashamed and humiliated to face our own darkness. But our spiritual goal is the journey out of fear-based, painful mental habit patterns, to those of love and peace. — Marianne Williamson

Am I doomed? Flashing darkness is pretty much the same as flashing light really. Fear isn't at all the same as courage but after a certain point perhaps being afraid of everything is the same as being afraid of nothing. — Russell Hoban

Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences. It may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of terrible things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally ... to say nothing of projection. The damage of the fear, shame, guilt and self-loathing that exist inside a closet are often reflected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty, openness, secrecy and deception for themselves. Coming out, for most of us, is like an exorcism that releases us of the darkness we have lived in for years and caused us to believe awful things about ourselves. On the other side of the looking glass are freedom, light and life. — Anthony Venn-Brown

O Lord, refresh our sensibilities. Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in, and sauces which are never the same twice. Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with, and casseroles that put starch and substance in our limp modernity. Take away our fear of fat and make us glad of the oil which ran upon Aaron's beard. Give us pasta with a hundred fillings, and rice in a thousand variations. Above all, give us grace to live as true men - to fast till we come to a refreshed sense of what we have and then to dine gratefully on all that comes to hand. Drive far from us, O Most Bountiful, all creatures of air and darkness; cast out the demons that possess us; deliver us from the fear of calories and the bondage of nutrition; and set us free once more in our own land, where we shall serve Thee as Thou hast blessed us - with the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Amen. — Robert Farrar Capon

The things that kept them awake in the middle of the night, the things they did underneath the cover of darkness, both dreadful and beautiful, both attractive and repulsive, were revealed in stark clarity to their minds. A harsh reality that intensified sensations with each gust of wind. They shrank from it with frightened whimpers. The setting in each house would have fit perfectly into a post-apocalyptic tale of nuclear holocausts. Shell-shocked expressions gazed into the nothingness. Blankets over faces, silent prayers to the heavens. No curious eyes at the windows, or storm watchers dared to partake. The mere thought of looking out was too much to be borne. — Jaime Allison Parker

CLOWN. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well. — William Shakespeare

If I have any expertise, it is in the realm of spiritual darkness: fear of the unknown, familiarity with divine absence, mistrust of conventional wisdom, suspicion of religious comforters, keen awareness of the limits of all language about God and at the same time shame over my inability to speak of God without a thousand qualifiers, doubt about the health of my soul, and barely suppressed contempt for those who have no such qualms. These are the areas of my proficiency. — Barbara Brown Taylor

The start of sin and destruction, discouragement and darkness, always happened with single thought. He couldn't stop that. Wrong thoughts were like the billboard signs on the highway of life. They were bound to come. Victory or defeat depended on how he handled the thought. "Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." The scripture from 2 Corinthians 10:5 came back to him now, the way it had countless other times. He grabbed the wayward thought and pushed it from his heart and mind. He wouldn't be afraid. Whatever happened ... God was in control. He had nothing to fear. The Lord had worked a miracle to this point. He wasn't finished yet. — Karen Kingsbury

There's a psychological mechanism, I've come to believe, that prevents most of us from imagining the moment of our own death. For if it were possible to imagine fully that instant of passing from consciousness to nonexistence, with all the attendant fear and humiliation of absolute helplessness, it would be very hard to live. It would be unbearably obvious that death is inscribed in everything that constitutes life, that any moment of your existence may be only a breath away from being the last. We would be continuously devastated by the magnitude of that inescapable fact. Still, as we mature into our mortality, we begin to gingerly dip our horror-tingling toes into the void, hoping that our mind will somehow ease itself into dying, that God or some other soothing opiate will remain available as we venture into the darkness of non-being. — Aleksandar Hemon

And then, just as I begin to raise my sword to cleave a path to Arthur's side, there comes a sound like a tempest wind - the blast of a mighty sea gale. Men fall back, suddenly afraid. They cover their heads with their arms and peer into the darkness above. What is it? Is the roof falling? The sky?
The strange sound subsides and they glance at one another in fear and awe. Merlin is there. The Emrys is standing calmly beside Arthur. His hands are empty and upraised, his face stern in the unnatural silence he has created ... — Stephen R. Lawhead

For she was really too lovely
too formidably lovely. I was used by now to mere unadjectived loveliness, the kind that youth and spirits hang like a rosy veil over commonplace features, an average outline and a pointless merriment. But this was something calculated, accomplished, finished
and just a little worn. It frightened me with my first glimpse of the infinity of beauty and the multiplicity of her pit-falls. What! There were women who need not fear crow's-feet, were more beautiful for being pale, could let a silver hair or two show among the dark, and their eyes brood inwardly while they smiled and chatted? but then no young man was safe for a moment! But then the world I had hitherto known had been only a warm pink nursery, while this new one was a place of darkness, perils and enchantments ... — Edith Wharton

I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can. — Erin Morgenstern

But I know too that if we ever make a world without shadow, if the chemists and scientists and psychologists succeed in abolishing fear, pain, loneliness, death, some of us will find life so intolerable we will probably blow out our brains out of sheer boredom. — MacDonald Harris

Love is a commitment to cherish another's heart as if it were your own, it is an adventure to seek into all that creates them, it is laying under the stars and dreaming far and wide, it is seeing fear and grabbing each others to face it anyway, it is allowing another to be themselves with out your consent, it is knowing when darkness fills them you don't carry their burden; you just lighten their load. And if your love isn't as beautiful as this, why have you been loving the wrong one for so long? — Nikki Rowe

I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised. — Rene Descartes

The depths of winter longing are ice within my heart
The shards of broken covenants lie sharp against my soul
The wraiths of long-lost ecstasy still keep us two apart
The amen winds of bitterness sill keen from turn to pole.
The scares are twisted tendons, the stumps of struck-off limbs,
The aching pit of hunger and throb of unset bone,
My sanded burning eyeballs, as might within them dims,
Add nothin to the torment of lying here alone ...
The shimmering flames of fever trace out your blessed face
My broken eardrums echo yet your voice inside my head
I do not fear the darkness that comes to me apace
I only dread the loss of you thy comes when I am dead. — Robert A. Heinlein

The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know,
he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact
he drives you from the realm of reason
he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture
into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Darkness is the absence of light. Happiness is the absence of pain. Anger is the absence of joy. Jealousy is the absence of confidence. Love is the absence of doubt. Hate is the absence of peace. Fear is the absence of faith. Life is the absence of death. — Jess Bowen

Garraty wondered how it would be, to lie in the biggest, dustiest library silence of all, dreaming endless, thoughtless dreams behind your gummed-down eyelids, dressed forever in your Sunday suit. No worries about money, success, fear, joy, pain, sorrow, sex, or love. Absolute zero. No father, mother, girlfriend, lover. The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death.
How would that be? Just how would that be? — Stephen King

Darkness cannot cast out darkness. You need a light for that. Fear cannot cast out fear. You're gonna need hope for that death warrants more death. But I believe life wants more life and I'm convinced that the greatest weapon we've got is LOVE! And maybe, in a world full of fighters, in a world imploding with hate, maybe to be a lover, you gotta be a fighter. Maybe that's the biggest fight, the only fight worth fighting, the fight you're gonna be in for the rest of your life. — Jon Foreman

Desert strategies are useful: In times of drought, pull your resources inward; when water is scarce, find moisture in seeds; to stay strong and supple, send a taproot down deep; run when required, hide when necessary; when hot go underground; do not fear darkness, it's where one comes alive. — Terry Tempest Williams

As darkness descended, fear continued hammering on the cracks of her rational mind. Even the critters had decided to ratchet up the volume. Great. A creepy nature soundtrack for my own personal nightmare. How about some Tomb Raider music, people! — Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

One of the greatest gifts science has brought to the world is continuing elimination of the supernatural, and it was a lesson that my father passed on to me, that knowledge liberates mankind from superstition. We can live our lives without the constant fear that we have offended this or that deity who must be placated by incantation or sacrifice, or that we are at the mercy of devils or the Fates. With increasing knowledge, the intellectual darkness that surrounds us is illuminated and we learn more of the beauty and wonder of the natural world. — James D. Watson

All her violence had drained away, replaced by a fear older and deeper than anything she'd ever experienced. An old, old recognition. Something inside her knew him from a time when girls took skin bags to the river to get water, a time when panthers walked in the darkness outside mud huts. From a time before electric lights, before candles, when darkness was fended off with stone lamps. When darkness was the greatest danger of all. — L.J.Smith

Darkness always causes fear and chaos inside us. We are always scared of losing ourselves somewhere inside there. But some of us get so much used to it that we start feeling peaceful in there and we start spending more time in it. One weird thing about darkness is, we meet ourselves there. Who are very different from what we are. And once we start speaking with them we become addicted to that kind of conversations. We fall in love with the same thing that we tried to run away from out whole life. — Akshay Vasu

As each layer of shadow is mined from the darkness, as each fear is faced and each projection reclaimed, the gold shines through. — Connie Zweig

Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate. — Jean Vanier

Aubade with a Broken Neck The first night you don't come home summer rains shake the clematis. I bury the dead moth I found in our bed, scratch up a rutabaga and eat it rough with dirt. The dog finds me and presents between his gentle teeth a twitching nightjar. In her panic, she sings in his mouth. He gives me her pain like a gift, and I take it. I hear the cries of her young, greedy with need, expecting her return, but I don't let her go until I get into the house. I read the auspices - the way she flutters against the wallpaper's moldy roses means all can be lost. How she skims the ceiling means a storm approaches. You should see her in the beginnings of her fear, rushing at the starless window, her body a dart, her body the arrow of longing, aimed, as all desperate things are, to crash not into the object of desire, but into the darkness behind it. — Traci Brimhall

They came out into the open, and it was the grimy backwaters of Jersey City now. Tall factory stacks, and fires burning, and spreads of stagnant stinking water.
On and on the ride went. On and on and on.
They turned north soon and left the big city and all its little satellites behind them, and after a while even the rusty glow on the horizon died down and was gone. Then trees began, and little lumpy hills, and there was nothing but the darkness and the night and the fear. ("The Number's Up") — Cornell Woolrich

We do not fear the flame, though it burns us,
We do not fear the fire, though it consumes us,
And we do not fear its light,
Though it reveals the darkness of our souls,
For therein lies our power.
-- Blood Oath of the Iron Elves — Chris Evans

The fortunate, she thought, and she counted herself fortunate, should not insulate themselves in their good fortune. If they could do nothing else they could pray, and she prayed as she was able, grieving over the childishness of her prayer but trying to make it real to herself by letting the travail of her mind bring forth one concrete fact at a time to pray about; one child in danger, some particular man in darkness, some particular prisoner facing the world again with fear and shame; God knew who they were even if she did not. — Elizabeth Goudge

Fear not, nor be dismayed at the appearance that is darkness, at the disguise that is evil, at the empty cloak that is death, for you have picked these for your challenges. They are stones on which you choose to whet the keen edge of your spirit. — Richard Bach

Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our lives. It seems that there is no such thing as a clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations. In every success, there is the fear of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is a tear. In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness ... But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence. It can do so by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no one shall take away from us. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Are you in pain, Frodo?' said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo's side.
'Well, yes I am,' said Frodo. 'It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.'
'Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,' said Gandalf.
'I fear it may be so with mine,' said Frodo. 'There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?'
Gandalf did not answer. — J.R.R. Tolkien

The Ocean's Song

We walked amongst the ruins famed in story
Of Rozel-Tower,
And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory
And heave in power.

O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder,
Whilst waves marked time.
"Appear, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder,
"And shine sublime!

"The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles,
To despots sold.
Souls of deep thinkers, soar like mighty eagles!
The Right uphold.

"Be born! arise! o'er the earth and wild waves bounding,
Peoples and suns!
Let darkness vanish; tocsins be resounding,
And flash, ye guns!

"And you who love no pomps of fog or glamour,
Who fear no shocks,
Brave foam and lightning, hurricane and clamour,--
Exiles: the rocks! — Victor Hugo

Your spirit does not shine when the sun shines and your life is comfortable. It shines when darkness swallows you and you cannot breathe for the strangle of fear. That's when what was invisible becomes undeniable. — Toni Sorenson

Midnight
The hours glide
Like drops of water on a window pane
Midnight silence
Fear unrolls in the air
And the wind
hides at the bottom of the well
OH
It's a leaf
We think the earth is going to end
Time
stirs in the shadow
Everyone is asleep
A SIGH
Inside the house someone has just died — Vicente Huidobro

The courage to continue before the face of despair is the recognition in those eyes of darkness we find our own night vision. Women blessed with death-eyes are fearless. — Terry Tempest Williams

Love is making friends with fear because fear is the constant companion of intimacy ~ and when you bring fear out of the darkness and into the light, you realize it was an illusion based on our own insecurities. — Allen L. Roland

Do you know why people make art? It comes from uncertainty, fear, doubt, that voice in the darkness that might conquer you. Those who are content with their existence do not make art. It is made by those who aren't. That's what it is; that's all it is. A way to prove your existence, in case you are uncertain of it. — M.U. Riyadad

I cover his hand with my own: "The Champion must not waver," he says in my ear. "Yea, though SHE pass through the shadow of darkness, SHE shall not fear, for God's righteous right hand shall sustain her and give her new life triumphant. — Rae Carson

Take down the walls.
Otherwise you must live closely, in fear, building barricades against the unknown, saying prayers against the darkness, speaking verse of terror and tightness.
Otherwise you may never know hell, but you will not find heaven, either. You will not know fresh air and flying. — Lauren Oliver

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. — Plato

We fear monsters because we fear the dark parts of ourselves ... — John Geddes

Alice in Darkness

Forget tears. Chasing
white animals with timepieces
in this drug-trip landscape
can only lead to more of same.
Hedgehogs, playing cards, paintbrushes:
full of undisclosed danger.
Didn't your mother tell you
not to kiss strangers?
That Cheshire smile shouldn't fool you.
Pull your skirt down.
Your nails are growing so fast
you're hardly human.
Alice, fight your version of Bedlam
as long as you can.
Sleep the sweet dream away
from that gooey looking glass, or mushrooms,
or the fear of your own body.
Forget what the night tastes like.
Stop wondering through the shadows,
holding your neck out
for the slice of the axe. — Jeannine Hall Gailey

The mind is a great and powerful thing, bisected with hallways of darkness and corners of light. Memories can alternately fill your life with joy and happiness and cloud every moment with nightmares and fear, making you second-guess all of the good things and wonder if they were ever real. — Tara Sivec

Men who demand submission and obedience through fear and force do not represent the kingdom of God. They are rather representatives of the kingdom of darkness. Marriages led by men who use force and fear do not thrive and flourish as they should. Instead, these marriages become places of bondage and oppression, and they are reminiscent of hell, the dwelling place of devil. — Khuliso Mamathoni

I think that most people would rather face the light of a real enemy than the darkness of their imagined fears. — Max Brooks

The lighthearted moments of 'Girls' are really not speckled throughout and that to me is just super exciting, to be able to delve into the darkness that you are greeted with in your early 20s and the fear and what that makes you do, the places that you can potentially go with that. — Zosia Mamet

Truth

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years -
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder? -
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes. — Gwendolyn Brooks

Well, when the fear of death seizes you - when the dark thoughts come - you stare the darkness right back, and you tell it, 'I will not listen to you, for I am infinite Batmans. — Brandon Sanderson

Forth, and fear no darkness! Arise! Arise, Riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken,swords shall be splintered! A sword day ... a red day ... ere the sun rises! Ride now! ... Ride now! ... Ride! Ride to ruin and the world's ending! Death! "Death!" Death! "Death!" DEATH! "Death!" Forth, Eorlingas!! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Fear not the road before you,
The broken stones, the empty trees,
Mother will protect her child,
Wherever that roads leads.

Fear not the bear, the troll, the wolf,
Or other evil things,
Mother will protect her child,
No matter what the darkness brings.

Fear not the cloak of slumber,
When the sky has lost its sun,
Mother will protect her child,
Should any nightmares come... — S.A. Swann

I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn't find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself. — Tana French

935Join the minority that sees a clear path out of present darkness, that never submits to fear and despair, and that does its part to lead everyone out of crisis into a future full of light. — Deepak Chopra

He was praying the Psalms, as he'd done in times past, with the enemies of King David translated into his own enemies of fear and remorse and self-loathing, which, in their legions, had become as armies of darkness. — Jan Karon

At the very least i should fear you. some would say that I should hate you."
"Many would say that."
"Yet i neither fear nor hate you."
"You-you are comforting me. Giving me sanctuary. Why, Grandma?" Aurox asked.
"Because I believe in the power of love. I believe in chosing Light over Darkness-happiness over hatred-trust over skeptism, — P.C. Cast

What did I fear, and why? - I, to whom the night had been
a more familiar face
than that of man
I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from which none of us is altogether free had given to solitude and darkness and silence only a more alluring interest and charm! — Ambrose Bierce

The fear that you come to a show called 'American Horror Story' with is yours. That being said, I'm glad people are afraid, and I hope that I'm contributing to their fear. I'm really not afraid of my own darkness anymore. I'm not afraid of what I'm capable of. — John Carroll Lynch

91 He who dwells in a the shelter of the Most High will abide in b the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say [1] to the LORD, "My c refuge and my d fortress, my God, in whom I e trust." 3 For he will deliver you from f the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. 4 He will g cover you with his pinions, and under his h wings you will i find refuge; his j faithfulness is k a shield and buckler. 5 l You will not fear m the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, 6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. 8 You will only look with your eyes and n see the recompense of the wicked. 9 Because you have made the LORD your o dwelling place - the Most High, who is my c refuge — Anonymous

Now and then we hear the wilder voices of the wilderness, from animals that in the hours of darkness do not fear the neighborhood of man: the coyotes wail like dismal ventriloquists, or the silence may be broken by the snorting and stamping of a deer. — Theodore Roosevelt

In a World where people are surrounded by darkness, ignorance and fear, it is a sign of hope to be celebrating Islam's message of peace and light, and the last great Messenger, born and chosen to deliver them to all mankind. — Cat Stevens

Although I have lived through much darkness, I have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young ... Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son. — Pope John Paul II

All right, beautiful. You've got me tied down to this stone table, and there's a knife in your hand that says you get to rule Narnia for another hundred years. So maybe I die, and winter goes on. Maybe the hunger and the darkness and the fear never end. But as long as the children believe in me, I know that Aslan will live again. I, the Great Lion, Son of The Emperor Over The Sea, will live again and
aaaaauugh!! — C.S. Lewis

On the blank leaf glued to the inner back cover I drew the double curve within the circle, and blacked the yin half of the symbol, then pushed it back to my companion. 'Do you know that sign?'
He looked at it a long time with a strange look, but he said, 'No.'
'It's found on Earth, and on Hain-Davenant, and on Chiffewar. It is yin and yang. Light is the left hand of darkness ... how did it go? Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male. It is yourself, Therem. Both and one. A shadow on snow.' — Ursula K. Le Guin

And as for the vague something
was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?
that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver, and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare
to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature. — Charlotte Bronte

Isn't it important for your friends close by and far away to know the high cost of these insights? Wouldn't they find it a source of consolation to see that light and darkness, hope and despair, love and fear are never very far from each other, and that spiritual freedom often requires a fierce spiritual battle? — Henri J.M. Nouwen

She had always suffered from a curious fear of what was going to happen round the next corner. Even when life went smoothly and nothing occurred to justify her vague apprehensions, they did not altogether disperse. She had tried to face these fears and conquer them, but she could never do so entirely, she could only strain forward into the darkness of the future, expecting and fearing the unknown. She was brave in the face of dangers she could see, but she could not arm herself against shadows. These fears were her weakness. — D.E. Stevenson

You are a creature of the darkness, the same as myself and Mr. Dowling. Like us, I fear that you will end up destined to play a cruel, vicious part in the shaping of the future. Some of us cannot escape the damnable reach of fate. — Darren Shan

The light in the darkness, as Stephen explained it, did not chase away the shadows of fear and regret: It merely illuminated the fears worth fighting. It lit the paths dictated by fate and choice, rather than casting a celestial glow on the way to a better and more perfect world. Although — Christopher Rice

But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep? — James Thurber

Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the world in which you live! — Ambrose Bierce

Darkness is but a door, scary not because it opens, but out of fear that it will never close — Johnathan Jena

The colour of fear is never dark or black; it has the colour of thunderbolt; usually white, but can appear in different hues depending on how the fear travels through to get inside your heart — Munia Khan

Most of us are imprisoned by something. We're living in darkness until something flips on the switch. — Wynonna Judd

Darkness might seem to obscure what's happening, but I find it's always pretty revelatory: it brings out the awe in us, the fear in us, the excitement of exploring the hidden or unknown. It seems to conceal, but it really shines a light on what we want, what we need, and what we'll do to get it. Especially when we think no one can see us. — Kathe Koja

I look down past the stars to a terrifying darkness. I seem to recognize the place, but it's impossible. "Accident," I whisper. I will fall. I seem to desire the fall, and though I fight it with all my will I know in advance I can't win. Standing baffled, quaking with fear, three feet from the edge of a nightmare cliff, I find myself, incredibly, moving towards it. I look down, down, into bottomless blackness, feeling the dark power moving in me like an ocean current, some monster inside me, deep sea wonder, dread night monarch astir in his cave, moving me slowly to my voluntary tumble into death. — John Gardner

Now for many years we have suckled on fear and fear alone, and there is no good product of fear. Its children are cruelty and deceit and suspicion germinating in our darkness. And just as surely as we are poisoning the air with our test bombs, so are we poisoned in our souls by fear, faceless, stupid sarcomic terror. — John Steinbeck

Chance; pure chance. But chance was a dull explanation because it denied the possibility of the paranormal, and people were often disappointed by dull explanations. Mystery and the unknown were far more exciting because they suggested that our world was not quite as prosaic as we feared it might be. Yet we had to adjure those temptations because they lead to a world of darkness and fear. — Alexander McCall Smith

With every fall of the sun and rise of the moon, I can hear it. The Prophecy. It echoes through the halls of time. It is written on the surface of every star. Even the sun and moon cannot withhold the news of the second coming. I hear it. And I fear it. — Brian A. McBride

I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you. — Yann Martel

of yourself and of other people. If you wish to attain to lasting happiness you must be ready to hate father, mother, even your own life and to take leave of all your possessions. How? Not by renouncing them or giving them up because what you give up violently you are forever bound to. But rather by seeing them for the nightmare they are; and then, whether you keep them or not, they will have lost their grip over you, their power to hurt you, and you will be out of your dream at last, out of your darkness, your fear, your unhappiness. So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other. — Anthony De Mello

Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear. Through meditation, we're able to see clearly what's going on with our thoughts and emotions, and we can also let them go. What's encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we're closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance. We're able to see how we run and hide and keep ourselves busy so that we never have to let our hearts be penetrated. And we're also able to see how we could open and relax. — Pema Chodron

Hope replaced fear. Light subsumed darkness. Strength, born of the power of this presence, mingled with Kathryn's own determination and reordered the last of her mangled body and soul, realigning them into all that she had once been.
What she would now be was once again an open question. — Kirsten Beyer

We, and I mean humans, are meaning makers. We do not discover the meanings of mysterious things, we invent them. We make meanings because meaninglessness terrifies us above all things. More than snakes, even. More than falling, or the dark. We trick ourselves into seeing meanings in things, when in fact all we are doing is grafting our meanings onto the universe to comfort ourselves. We gild the chaos of the universe with our symbols. To admit that something is meaningless is just like falling backward into darkness. (p184) — Benjamin Hale

But there are others of my kind ... those who see themselves as lions among sheep. As kings
superior to man in every way. Why, then, should they be confined to darkness? Why should they fear man? — Seth Grahame-Smith

Your eyes,' Asha grunted as he looked at him briefly. 'Turn them off.' He clicked his fingers and Blitzen's eyes blinked and when they opened only the whites of his eyes were visible, all he could see was darkness. — Keisha Keenleyside

Oh, this faithless world! Someone must deliver them. You. If not you, who? You have been saved for a reason. Show them the old demons. Remind them of their fear. Apathy is death. Without darkness, there is no light. Without evil, there is no good. Make them choose. Dark or light. Where is the fear? Where are the heroes? If not now, when? — Dan Brown

Suddenly she felt strong and happy. She was not afraid of the darkness or the fog and she knew with a singing in her heart that she would never fear them again. No matter what mists might curl around her in the future, she knew her refuge. She started briskly up the street toward home and the blocks seemed very long. Far, far too long. She caught up her skirts to her knees and began to run lightly. But this time she was not running from fear. She was running because Rhett's arms were at the end of the street. — Margaret Mitchell