A - Z of Phobias
"The only thing we have to fear is fear it'self - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
---- FDR - First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
"One of the things which danger does to you after a time is -, well, to kill emotion. I don't think I shall ever feel anything again except fear. None of us can hate anymore - or love."
---- Graham Greene - The Confidential Agent (1939)
"What are fears but voices airy?
Whispering harm where harm is not.
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!"
---- Wordsworth
"Fear - jealousy - money - revenge - and protecting someone you love."
---- Frederick Knott - Max Halliday, listing the five important motives for murder, Dial M for Murder (1952)
"What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!"
---- Will - Sonnets
"Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the snake."
---- Edgar Wallace - The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916)
"- Tush! Tush! Fear little boys with bugs."
---- Will - The Taming of the Shrew
"All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required."
---- Dave Barry
"Am I afraid of high notes? Of course I am afraid. What sane man is not?"
---- Luciano Pavarotti
"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is."
---- German Proverb
Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it."
---- Lt. John B. Putnam Jr. (1921-1944)
"A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice."
---- Edgar Watson Howe - Country Town Sayings (1911)
A
Achluophobia - Fear of darkness.
Acrophobia - Fear of heights.
Agliophobia - Fear of pain.
Agoraphobia - Fear of open spaces or crowds.
Aichmophobia - Fear of needles or pointed objects.
Amaxophobia - Fear of riding in a car.
Androphobia - Fear of men.
Anginophobia - Fear of angina or choking.
Anthrophobia - Fear of flowers.
Anthropophobia - Fear of people or society.
Aphenphosmphobia - Fear of being touched.
Arachnophobia - Fear of spiders.
Arithmophobia - Fear of numbers.
Astraphobia - Fear of thunder and lightening.
Ataxophobia - Fear of disorder or untidiness.
Atelophobia - Fear of imperfection.
Atychiphobia - Fear of failure.
Autophobia - Fear of being alone.
B
Bacteriophobia - Fear of bacteria.
Barophobia - Fear of gravity.
Bathmophobia - Fear of stairs or steep slopes.
Batrachophobia - Fear of amphibians.
Belonephobia - Fear of pins and needles.
Bibliophobia - Fear of books.
Botanophobia - Fear of plants.
C
Cacophobia - Fear of ugliness.
Catagelophobia - Fear of being ridiculed.
Catoptrophobia - Fear of mirrors.
Chionophobia - Fear of snow.
Chromophobia - Fear of colors.
Chronomentrophobia - Fear of clocks.
Claustrophobia - Fear of confined spaces.
Coulrophobia - Fear of clowns.
Cyberphobia - Fear of computers.
Cynophobia - Fear of dogs.
D
Dendrophobia - Fear of trees.
Dentophobia - Fear of dentists.
Domatophobia - Fear of houses.
Dystychiphobia - Fear of accidents.
E
Ecophobia - Fear of the home.
Elurophobia - Fear of cats.
Entomophobia - Fear of insects.
Ephebiphobia - Fear of teenagers.
Equinophobia - Fear of horses.
G
Gamophobia - Fear of marriage.
Genuphobia - Fear of knees.
Glossophobia - Fear of speaking in public.
Gynophobia - Fear of women.
H
Heliophobia - Fear of the sun.
Hemophobia - Fear of blood.
Herpetophobia - Fear of reptiles.
Hydrophobia - Fear of water.
I
Iatrophobia - Fear of doctors.
Insectophobia - Fear of insects.
K
Koinoniphobia - Fear of rooms.
L
Leukophobia - Fear of the color white.
Lilapsophobia - Fear of tornadoes and hurricanes.
Lockiophobia - Fear of childbirth.
M
Mageirocophobia - Fear of cooking.
Megalophobia - Fear of large things.
Melanophobia - Fear of the color black.
Microphobia - Fear of small things.
Mysophobia - Fear of dirt and germs.
N
Necrophobia - Fear of death or dead things.
Noctiphobia - Fear of the night.
Nosocomephobia - Fear of hospitals.
O
Obesophobia - Fear of gaining weight.
Octophobia - Fear of the figure 8.
Ombrophobia - Fear of rain.
Ophidiophobia - Fear of snakes.
Ornithophobia - Fear of birds.
P
Papyrophobia - Fear of paper.
Pathophobia - Fear of disease.
Pedophobia - Fear of children.
Philophobia - Fear of love.
Phobophobia - Fear of phobias.
Podophobia - Fear of feet.
Porphyrophobia - Fear of the color purple.
Pteridophobia - Fear of ferns.
Pteromerhanophobia - Fear of flying.
Pyrophobia - Fear of fire.
S
Scolionophobia - Fear of school.
Selenophobia - Fear of the moon.
Sociophobia - Fear of social evaluation.
Somniphobia - Fear of sleep.
T
Tachophobia - Fear of speed.
Technophobia - Fear of technology.
Tonitrophobia - Fear of thunder.
Trypanophobia - Fear of injections.
V-Z
Venustraphobia - Fear of beautiful women.
Verminophobia - Fear of germs.
Wiccaphobia - Fear of witches and witchcraft.
Xenophobia - Fear of strangers or foreigners.
Zoophobia - Fear of animals.
"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark."
---- Francis Bacon
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear."
--- H.P. Lovecraft
"In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly."
---- Coleridge
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
--- Frank Herbert, Dune - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
"A man who has been in danger,
When he comes out of it forgets his fears,
And sometimes he forgets his promises."
---- Euripides - Iphigenia in Tauris (414-12 BC)
"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all"
---- James Graham - Marquis of Montrose
"I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me."
---- Will - Macbeth
"Being frightened is an experience you can't buy."
---- Anthony Price - Sion Crossing (1984)
"What we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope."
---- Publilius Syrus - Moral Sayings (1st C B.C.)
"Solitude scares me. It makes me think about love, death, and war. I need distraction from anxious, black thoughts."
---- Brigitte Bardot
"Why are we scared to die? Do any of us remember being scared when we were born?"
---- Trevor Kay
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