Fear That I Am Not Good Quotes & Sayings

I thought about the people I had met who were in pain but were pretending that everything was fine. And I thought, this is what books can do for us: they can acknowledge our experience and take the lid off our isolation and make us feel less alone. To me, books have always been a great source of comfort
not because they allow for escapism (though that's certainly one of their benefits) but because they offer recognition. Face to face with other people, we might give in to the impulse to pretend that everything is "fine"; but when we open the cover of a book
I'm talking mostly about novels here
there is no shame and no need to pretend. Good fiction has never lied to me. When I immerse myself in a book I feel recognized and therefore relieved. I turn the pages and think, yes, I have felt that too
that loneliness and joy and anxiety and confusion and fear. When I read, what once seemed meaningless gains meaning, and I am not alone. — Julie Schumacher

I never get tired of talking about 'Galaxy Quest.' I am so proud of that movie. Our only fear was that we were having so much fun making the movie we got concerned it might not be as good as we thought it was going to be. — Enrico Colantoni

But what I am beginning to suspect is that most guilty people reject the possibility of forgiveness not because it is too good to believe, but because they fear the responsibility forgiveness entails. It's hell to be guilty, but its worse to be responsible. — William Sloane Coffin

I know I am flaky, I accept that - and I know, as well, that I can mangle the good king's English like no one else in my or the next ten governesses' acquaintances, but that will not prevent me from speaking! I may not be as wise as you in the ways of the world, I may not have wounds that run as deeply or scars to wear upon my chest like medals of valor, but at least I don't retreat and hide the moment a soul comes within reach of my fingers! — V.S. Carnes

5. Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society. — Thich Nhat Hanh

So, why do I have so much fear in my life?"
"Because you don't believe. You don't know that we love you. The person who lives by his fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe that I am good not know deep in your heart that I love you. You sing about it, you talk about it, but you don't know it. — Wm. Paul Young

Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help - not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. — Plato

The voice of grief is rather convincing, isn't it? It tells you you're "too old," "not good enough," or "not worthy enough" for another chance at life, that starting over is impossible. This voice in your head is the first thing you hear in the morning and the last thing you hear at night. It drives with you to work. It stays with you at lunch. Its message is so consistent that because of its repetitive power, you may be inclined to believe it. But, as persuasive as the voice of grief is, everything it says is a lie.
It's all a pack of lies.
Do you want the truth? If you do, then start listening to life calling to you inside your grief.
How? Every time you are yearning to be held and loved, to laugh again, listen to your yearning. Do not listen to your fear . . . Listen to life calling you, "I am here, come on over. Take a chance on me. I am your life, and you're all that I've got. — Christina Rasmussen

You know, one of the things that made me come here, was that I am frightfully afraid of being alone. The fear of the dark is only part of it. I wanted to break that fear in the middle, because I am afraid much of my existance is going to be more or less alone, and I might as well go into training for it. It comes on me at night mostly, in little waves of panic, that constrict something in my stomach. But don;t you think it is good to fight these things? Last night, some quite large animal came and sniffed under the door. I presume it was a coyote, though I do not know. The moon had not come up, and when I run outside there was nothing to be seen. But the main thing was that I was frightened, even though I knew it could be nothing but a coyote. Don't tell anyone I am afraid. I do not like to be suspected of being afraid. — John Steinbeck

And if the child feels loved, the body is relaxed, the eyes are bright, there is a smile on the face; in some way the flesh becomes "transparent." A child that is loved is beautiful. But what happens when children feel they are not loved? There is tension, fear, loneliness and terrible anguish, which we can call "inner pain," the opposite of "inner peace." Children are too small and weak to be able to fend for themselves; they have no defense mechanisms. If a child feels unloved and unwanted, he or she will develop a broken self-image. I have never heard any of the men or women whom we have welcomed into our community criticize their parents, even though many of them have suffered a great deal from rejection or abandonment in their families. Rather than blaming their parents, they blame themselves. "If I am not loved, it is because I am not lovable, I am no good. I am evil. — Jean Vanier

I can't stay the way I am. I don't remember what it's like to be free. To be wide open without fear. I need something to break me. Just enough so that I have new pieces to work with - make them into something else. I don't want to give anyone the right to treat me like a loser. I don't want to be fat, I don't want to live in the Bone, I don't want to be without knowledge. I won't be the girl who people laugh at. Not anymore. Good thing I memorized their license plate. Just in case. — Tarryn Fisher

For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men, - that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. — Socrates

Is this a case of "Do as I say, not as I do?" The reader has a perfect right to ask the question, and I have a duty to provide an honest answer. Yes. It is. You need only look back through some of my own fiction to know that I'm just another ordinary sinner. I've been pretty good about avoiding the passive tense, but I've spilled out my share of adverbs in my time, including some (it shames me to say it) in dialogue attribution. (I have never fallen so low as "he grated" or "Bill jerked out," though.) When I do it, it's usually for the same reason any writer does it: because I am afraid the reader won't understand me if I don't. I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. — Stephen King

There are two godheads: the world and my independent I. I am either happy or unhappy, that is all. It can be said: good or evil do not exist. A man who is happy must have no fear. Not even in the face of death. Only a man who lives not in time but in the present is happy. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The fox speaks with the hurricane and says, "I need to travel far and fast. Can you take me?" The hurricane regards the puny fox with its huge, calm eye and asks, "What can you do for me?" "Why, I will let you whisper your dreams to me." "But I must kill whatever I carry. You are a living thing and do not wish to die." "If you do not kill me, I will listen to your inmost self, and tell all the animals, that they may feel sympathy for you." "What do I care for sympathy? I am all-powerful." "Yes, but someday, your winds will die, and my kits will tell this tale even when you are gone, of the time great-great-great-grandfather fox was carried by the winds and lived and learned their secrets." "But then they will not be afraid of me, and what good am I if I do not inspire fear?" "Oh, no living thing could ever be so strong they would not fear you. I give you something more. I give you a voice throughout time that is more than a wordless bellow of rage. — Greg Bear

I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it's just terrified. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more that a deep existential angst the says, again and again, 'I am not good enough and I will never be good enough. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Some years ago a writer not much older than I am now told me (not bitterly, but matter-of-factly) that it was a good thing that I, as a young writer, did not have to face the darkness that he faced every day, the knowledge that his best work was behind him. And another, in his eighties, told me that what kept him going every day was the knowledge that his best work was still out there, the great work that he would one day do.
I aspire to the condition of the second of my friends, I like the idea that one day I'll do something that really works, even if I fear that I've been saying the same things for over thirty years. As we get older, each thing we do, each thing we write reminds us of something else we've done. Events rhyme. Nothing quite happens for the first time anymore. — Neil Gaiman

Why do this to yourself? How does it make anything better?"
"It does not make anything worse."
"It makes you worse. Why can't you just ... do good things with it?"
Winter laughed against the strain of the delusion. "They all believe they are doing good." Her head fell to the side and she watched Scarlet with her bleary eyes. "My stepmother is not only powerful because the people fear her, she is powerful because she can make them love her when she needs them to. We think that if we choose to do only good, then we are only good. We can make people happy. We can offer tranquility or contentment or love, and that must be good. We do not see the falsehood becoming its own brand of cruelty ... who am I to presume what is good for others? — Marissa Meyer

When we ask for anything, we're almost always asking for help, in some form; help with money, permission, acceptance, advancement, help with our hearts ...
Brene Brown has found through her research that women tend to feel shame around the idea of being 'never enough' ... at home, at work, in bed, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never thin enough, never good enough ...
Men tend to feel shame around the fear of being perceived as weak, or more academically, 'fear of being called a pussy'.
Both sexes get trapped in the same box for different reasons.
If I ask for help ...
I am not enough.
If I ask for help ...
I'm weak.
It's no wonder so many of us don't bother to ask, it's too painful. — Amanda Palmer

I am always hearing ... the sound of a far off song. I do not exactly know where it is, or what it means; and I don't hear much of it, only the odour of its music, as it were, flitting across the great billows of the ocean outside this air in which I make such a storm; but what I do hear, is quite enough to make me able to bear the cry from the drowning ship. So it would you if you could hear it.'
'No it wouldn't,' returned Diamond stoutly. 'For they wouldn't hear the music of the far-away song; and if they did, it wouldn't do them any good. You see you and I are not going to be drowned, and so we might enjoy it.'
'But you have never heard the psalm, and you don't know what it is like. Somehow, I can't say how, it tells me that all is right; that it is coming to swallow up all the cries ... It wouldn't be the song it seems if it did not swallow up all their fear and pain too, and set them singing it themselves with all the rest. — George MacDonald

I do not understand exactly what you mean by fear," said Tarzan. "Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt."
"Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of beasts," laughed the other good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.
"And a piece of rope," added Tarzan. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

A: So you intend to return to your desert?
B: I am not quick moving. I have to wait for myself - it is always late before the water comes to light out of the well of my self, and I often have to endure thirst for longer than I have patience. That is why I go into solitude - so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think as I really think; after a time it always seems as though they want to banish me from myself and rob me of my soul - and I grow angry with everybody and fear everybody. I then require the desert, so as to grow good again. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am - for just an example - self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I'm not one of the good ones; but then I countenance the fact that here at least I am worrying about it; so then I feel better about myself (I mean, at least this stuff is on my mind, at least I'm dissatisfied with my level of integrity and commitment); but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to (imagined) Others ... It has to do with God and gods and a basic sense of trust in the universe v. fear that the universe must be held at bay and micromanaged into giving me some smidgen of some gratification I feel I simply can't live without. It's all very confusing. I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am - so where does that put me. — D.T. Max

I laugh triumphantly. "I've still got it. This beach is not cursed. We are free to have life changing conversations on here whenever we want without the fear that I'll turn witless. Life is good. I am once again the Lord of Words."
He smiles pityingly at me. "Walk don't run babe. You did use the words gigantic twat in your wedding proposal."
"Well, shit! — Lily Morton

All my life I have been trained by that siren. Before I could walk I knew the siren meant death. It meant somehow the fences had been breached and the Unconsecrated were shuffling among us. It meant grab weapons, move to the platforms and pull up the ladders - even if it necessitated leaving the living behind.
Growing up, my mother used to tell me about how in the beginning, when her own great-great-great-grandmother was a child, that siren would wail almost constantly as the village was bombarded with the Unconsecrated. But then the fences has been fortified, the Guardians had formed and time had passed with the Unconsecrated dwindling to the point that I couldn't remember a time in the past few years when that siren had wailed and it had not been a drill. I know that in my life there have been breaches but I also know that I am very good at blocking out the memories that serve me no purpose. I can fear the Unconsecrated well enough without them. — Carrie Ryan

10:13 Your situation is not unique! Every human life faces contradictions! Here is the good news: God believes in your freedom! He has made it possible for you to triumph in every situation that you will ever encounter! 10:14 My 1dearly loved friends! Escape into his image and likeness in you where the 2distorted image (2idolatry) loses its attraction! (Dearly loved friends, translated as 1agapetos; to know the agape love of God is to know our true identity! The word, agape, comes from agoo, meaning to lead as a shepherd guides his sheep, and pao, to rest, like in Psalm 23, "he leads me beside still waters where my soul is restored; by the waters of reflection my soul remembers who I am! Now I can face the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil!") — Francois Du Toit

Being with a friend in great pain is not easy. It makes us uncomfortable. We do not know what to do or what to say, and we worry about how to respond to what we hear. Our temptation is to say things that come more out of our own fear than out of our care for the person in pain. Sometimes we say things like 'Well, you're doing a lot better than yesterday,' or 'You will soon be your old self again,' or 'I'm sure you will get over this.' But often we know that what we're saying is not true, and our friends know it too.
We do not have to play games with each other. We can simply say: 'I am your friend, I am happy to be with you.' We can say that in words or with touch or with loving silence. Sometimes it is good to say: 'You don't have to talk. Just close your eyes. I am here with you, thinking of you, praying for you, loving you. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

None of us makes it through this life without problems and challenges - and sometimes tragedies and misfortunes. After all, in large part we are here to learn and grow from such events in our lives. We know that there are times when we will suffer, when we will grieve, and when we will be saddened. However, we are told, "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." How might we have joy in our lives, despite all that we may face? Again from the scriptures: "Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you. — Thomas S. Monson

No, no. You shall make no such confession, Stephen. I am sure that if he is still alive now, if Father Joseph rejoices, he is also full of terror. He is a man, Stephen, just as you are. Listen, he told me some years ago that he reads St. John's account of Gethsemane every day. It reminds him that our Lord himself desired not to suffer, not even for his Father's will. Never deny your own humanity, lest you deny the same humanity of our Lord." He saw that Stephen struggled with this admonition. "Hold your fear close to your heart, even cherish it, for that is where you share our Savior's Cross - not in his divinity, but in his humanity, in his Gethsemane." He was relieved to learn that the young man was no zealot, that he had the good sense to be frightened - it would make him cautious. — Dena Hunt

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.
The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted. — Rabindranath Tagore

I went into the experience with the notion that I was merely going to get a taste of a deviant lifestyle. The Dom was charismatic and the kinky sex might be good if I could get past the whipping part, because there was no way I would ever think that was fun. I believed I could never be truly submissive or enjoy pain. I was so very wrong

My life changed forever. The connection between Dom and sub is one of the closest relationships two people can have. Give and take became more than words. They became the basis of my existence. My body is no longer my own. He has access to everything I am - privacy does not exist, but when he looks at me it's with love. There is no fear and no shame because I am safe. I will always be safe with him.

As my Master will be safe with me. — Debra Varva