Your kind and respectful thoughts on this quote, please?

Question

"You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind."

-- Dale Carnegie

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Answer 1

Excellent quote Kallan, haven't thought about D. Carnegie in a while. I don't remember who said this but its along the same lines "Courage is not the absence of fear, only the the ability to act in spite of it."

Glad your back,
John

Answer 2

More than a little off base - but that is the problem - there is just enough truth to make it sound good. Obviously.. not everything is alive, the mysteries of life have a great deal to do with intelligence - What the heck does "The universe is not an intellectual process" mean? and the last sentence is just skewed - we need to think for ourselves when we see this stuff. Be very afraid.

Answer 3

I suppose that many, if not most, of us that live in relatively prosperous and peaceful lands can conquer any likely fear we may encounter.

I think that this may be a little presumptuous in reference to individuals who live in very violent parts of our society and those in extreme poverty and pain.

I am not sure at all what it means for something to only exist in the mind. Fear is a physiological response to external stimulus--so it has a clear bodily manifestation. Although treating the symptoms may not be sufficient--in some cases, where the etiology of the fear is in abnormal brain chemistry, treating the body is precisely what is needed.

We are created by our external world, and to a limited degree we can effect change in our external world.

Answer 4

Fear exists in the mind---for a reason. The intuition of fear can save us from harm, thus sometimes fear is not something to be conquered, but something to be treated with respect, and given due attention.

Answer 5

I believe that to be true. The conquering of fears does not need to be rational (for example someone could decide that they need not fear walking down the middle of a freeway) but it can be conquered. Some fears are legimate - and fear is a form of self preservation. Other fears are meaningless, and are more a form of self definition.

Answer 6

In the true nature of reality, nothing is good or bad, pleasent or fearful, etc., except as each individual chooses to veiw the same from either that one's subjective or objective point of view.
How one chooses to see any aspect of reality defines the same for that one. (In physics one notes that the observer, merely by observing interacts with the observed and so changes it from what it is to what that one "sees".)

A man from the city was once visiting a friend in the country.
In the country, some of the conveniences of the city were not available.
Late the first night, the gentleman from the city found it necessary to relieve himself, which made it necessary to go outside of the house.
This man did not wish to disturb the household so he did not light a lantern to take with him.
When he reached the porch, he saw there the largest king cobra he had every seen, coiled directly next to where he had put his foot.
There was no way to escape and, as he was terribly afraid of snakes, the man suffered a heart attack and died.
The next morning, the owner of the house found his friend on the porch, next to a coil of rope he used on the farm.

The gentleman from the city saw what he chose to see instead of what was.
Seeing reality takes away fear and all judgements as then one knows that what is simply "is".

May it be well with you.

Answer 7

The quote is fine if a little wordy. I would say Churchill is more direct "there is nothing to fear but fear itself".

You know that advice you gave me about picturing the interviewers naked when I was nervous? Well now I can't turn it off! -- paraphrase of Coupling's episode "The Giggle Loop".

Answer 8

Kallan sometimes our fears are our protection. I totally agree, fear is in the mind. Some fears I don't want to conquer because they keep me from getting hurt.

Answer 9

I love it. Dale Carnegie was/is a gifted man.

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." another great quote!

Answer 10

Somewhat true but fear resides in our physical bodies too with the biological reactions it causes and even if the mind knows it's silly - like my intense fear of hypodermic needles - what else happens in my body I cannot control. Then it is stronger than the mind.