Daily Inspiration Quote by George Matthew Adams

Adams writes like a man trying to get ahead of the twentieth century’s anxiety curve: don’t wrestle your fears, outlast them with mood and muscle control. The phrasing is deliberately clinical - “medicine” - but the prescription is emotional. By calling fear “ghosts,” he shrinks it into something spectral: noisy, persuasive, and ultimately unreal if you stop feeding it. Then he gives the reader a surprisingly modern behavioral hack: “relaxation” isn’t a vibe, it’s reinforcement. Cheerfulness is the mindset, relaxation is the mechanism.

The intent is less philosophical than tactical. Adams isn’t arguing that fear has no rational basis; he’s arguing that fear’s power depends on bodily arousal and mental framing. The subtext is Protestant-era self-management dressed up as wellness: if you cultivate the right internal posture, you can govern your fate. That’s encouraging, but it also smuggles in a moral edge. If fear persists, the implication goes, you haven’t taken your medicine.

Context matters. Adams came up during a period when “positive thinking” was hardening into an American creed, alongside new popular psychologies and productivity culture. His language bridges pulpit, pharmacy, and self-help pamphlet, promising emotional sovereignty in an age of mechanization, world war tremors, and mass media dread. The line works because it offers agency without complexity: fear is a haunting, not a verdict. The reader gets a chase scene, not a diagnosis - and that’s the seduction.