A Quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our problem is not to be rid of fear but rather to harness and master it.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Quote Topics

Fear Harness Master Our Problem Rather Rid

Quote Author

Martin Luther King, Jr.
American - Leader
January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyses us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather to harness and master it.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

What I teach the people many times is that attitude and attention will determine the whole course of our lives. Get rid of fear and that is all you ever have to get rid of. Fear of anything at all.

Norval Morrisseau

My goal in getting rid of tax loopholes is not to raise taxes. Our problem in Washington, D.C. is not a revenue problem, it is a spending problem.

Mike Pompeo

The basic problem, actually, is how to get rid of the idea that we're going to get rid of our problems. Only then can we relate directly with the real issues of our life.

Bernie Glassman

Thank God, I have sort of a pan-European accent rather than Russian, which doesn't sound very pleasantly to Americans. For them, we speak with a rather rude pitch, and that might be our actors' problem there. Now I've begun working with language coaches in Los Angeles to get rid of the accent completely.

Yuliya Snigir

The problem is not getting rid of fear, but using it properly.

Zig Ziglar

Our wisdom is all mixed up with what we call our neurosis. Our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness, is all mixed up with our craziness and our confusion, and therefore it doesn’t do any good to try to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also get rid of our basic wonderfulness. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we’re doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we’re doing. The key is to wake up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves.

Pema Chodron

Very often, if you think about what's erotic and break it down, as we're feeling the excitement of eroticism, we're feeling fear. We want to try to dominate our fear and get rid of our fear, so we go towards it and have sex with it, basically. That's really sad.

Thandie Newton

Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!

Thomas Jefferson

We are free when we are not the slave of our impulses, but rather their master. Taking inward distance, we thus become the authors of our own dramas rather than characters in them.

Huston Smith

Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. But when praying, we come "underneath," where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.

Richard J. Foster

The emotion of fear often works overtime. Even when there is no immediate threat, our body may remain tight and on guard, our mind narrowed to focus on what might go wrong. When this happens, fear is no longer functioning to secure our survival. We are caught in the trance of fear and our moment-to-moment experience becomes bound in reactivity. We spend our time and energy defending our life rather than living it fully.

Tara Brach

Seventy-six percent of the American people say we have a spiritual problem in our country. That's great, because now they understand the root of the problem is not that we haven't passed enough laws; rather, the root of the problem is in terms of our social value system.

Charles Colson

There is no hate without fear. Hate is crystallized fear, fear's dividend, fear objectivized. We hate what we fear and so where hate is, fear is lurking. Thus we hate what threatens our person, our liberty, our privacy, our income, our popularity, our vanity and our dreams and plans for ourselves. If we can isolate this element in what we hate we may be able to cease from hating... Hate is the consequence of fear; we fear something before we hate; a child who fears noises becomes the man who hates them.

Cyril Connolly

Faith is the one power against which fear cannot stand. Day by day, as you fill your mind with faith, there will ultimately be no more room left for fear. This is the one great fact that no one should forget. Master faith and you will automatically master fear.