"Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear"
About this Quote
The line also exposes worries hidden vanity: the mind keeps returning to itself, orbiting a private catastrophe. Ten Boom locates the true engine not in circumstances but in "a center of fear". Thats the subtextual pivot. Fear is the nucleus; worry is just the spin it generates, the visible weather around an invisible pressure system. The quote is quietly diagnostic: if you keep treating the thoughts as the problem, you never touch the center.
Context gives the sentence its steel. Ten Boom survived Nazi imprisonment for helping Jews escape; her family paid for resistance with their lives and freedom. When she reduces worry to inefficiency, shes not scolding from comfort. Shes speaking from a world where fear was rational, even omnipresent, and still insisting that mental spiraling doesnt add protection or courage. The intent is pastoral but bracing: redirect attention from compulsive forecasting toward the moral and practical choices available right now. In a culture that often mistakes rumination for responsibility, Ten Booms blunt metaphor is a refusal to let anxiety cosplay as action.
Quote Details
| Topic | Anxiety |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Boom, Corrie Ten. (2026, January 18). Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/worry-is-a-cycle-of-inefficient-thoughts-whirling-4598/
Chicago Style
Boom, Corrie Ten. "Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/worry-is-a-cycle-of-inefficient-thoughts-whirling-4598/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/worry-is-a-cycle-of-inefficient-thoughts-whirling-4598/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.













