A Quote by Thucydides

speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Thucydides

Quote Topics

Action Carried Causes Failure Fear Safety Speculation

Quote Author

Thucydides
Greek - Historian
460 BC - 395 BC

For if many ill-conceived plans have succeeded through the still greater lack of judgment of an opponent, many more, apparently well laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace. The confidence with which we form our schemes is never completely justified in their execution; speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Thucydides

Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life.

Eckhart Tolle

We can’t save ourselves from fear by seeking safety, because safety always means there’s something to be safe from-in other words, something to fear. The way out of fear isn’t safety. It’s freedom.

Martha Beck

The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become most acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with vigour and ethical meaning.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

The power of fear of failure, with will to win, is an incredible force. I don't think we should be worried about having a fear of failure; I think it's quite natural. If you surveyed any top businessman or any top athlete, I bet if they were truthful, they would all say they've got a fear of losing and a fear of failure.

John Caudwell

Don't permit fear of failure to prevent effort. We are all imperfect and will fail on occasions, but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.

John Wooden

Praise leads to weakness. Getting it causes fear, losing it causes fear.

Laozi

Studies by Medical Corps psychiatrists of combat fatigue cases... found that fear of killing, rather than fear of being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure, and that fear of failure ran a strong second.

Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

Barack Obama

Fear is at the root of so many of the barriers that women face. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.

Sheryl Sandberg

Fear of failure is the reason most often cited to explain why so many aspiring writers never realize their dreams. But I think it’s that same fear of failure that absolutely invigorates those who do push through-that is, the fear of not being heard.

Betsy Lerner

Since I was a kid, I have always froze when I saw an action star perform a stunt defying the parameters of safety and fear.

Mukul Dev

In taking stock of ourselves, we should not forget that fear plays a large part in the drama of failure. That is the first thing to be dropped. Fear is a mental deficiency susceptible of correction, if taken in hand before it gains an ascendency over us. Fear comes with the thought of failure.

Douglas Fairbanks

Truly compassionate action arises spontaneously without thought and is carried out in real action with no anticipation of reward and, indeed, no concept of a doer of that action.