#anxiety

[L]ife is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively anxious or desirous, and of losing ourselves to vanity and error. Surreptitiously and beguilingly, then, with humour or gravity, works of art--novels, poems, plays, paintings or films--can function as vehicles to explain our condition to us. They may act as guides to a truer, more judicious, more intelligent understanding of the world. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#art #criticism #desire #films #gravity

To hear the phrase "our only hope" always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn't work, there is nothing left. ↗

— Lemony Snicket

#hope #work

Bringing people into the here-and-now. The real universe. That's the present moment. The past is no good to us. The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real--the here-and-now. Seize the day. ↗

— Saul Bellow

#anxiety

I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth. ↗

— Daphne du Maurier

#social-anxiety #truth #socialism

Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#mankind

How can a person deal with anxiety? You might try what one fellow did. He worried so much that he decided to hire someone to do his worrying for him. He found a man who agreed to be his hired worrier for a salary of $200,000 per year. After the man accepted the job, his first question to his boss was, "Where are you going to get $200,000 per year?" To which the man responded, "That's your worry. ↗

— Max Lucado

#humor #story #worry #humor

The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#regret #anxiety

The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder. ↗

— Augustine of Hippo

#peace-of-mind #anxiety

I lay on my floor crying again… shaking. Searching for inner strength and coming up empty. My eyes burned and my mouth was dry as I sucked on air that seemed to keep getting thicker and harder to breathe. I tried to leave again, but ended up leaning my forehead against the door, feeling defeated and wishing the Grim Reaper would come for me in all his silky, black glory. ↗

— Nathan Daniels

#anxiety #non-fiction #self-harm #suicide #anxiety

The way of the superior person is threefold; virtuous, they are free from anxieties; wise they are free from perplexities; and bold they are free from fear. ↗

— Confucius

#virtue #wise #anxiety