Difficult Emotions: Anxiety Quotes

Welcome to a thoughtful collection of quotes that speak to the experience of anxiety within difficult emotions. These selections offer gentle perspective, practical coping reminders, and moments of reassurance. Find words that validate worry while encouraging steady breathing, self-compassion, and mindful pauses. Whether you seek clarity, comfort, or motivation, these voices highlight resilience, acceptance, and the possibility of calm amid uncertainty.

Similar topics:Anger Betrayal Fear Loneliness Sadness

"How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened"

Thomas Jefferson, President

Thomas Jefferson

"Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere"

Glenn Turner, Athlete

Glenn Turner

"My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened"

Michel de Montaigne, Philosopher

Michel de Montaigne

"Dread of night. Dread of not-night"

Franz Kafka, Novelist

Franz Kafka

"There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it"

Ovid, Poet

Ovid

"Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due"

Will Rogers, Actor

Will Rogers

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom"

Søren Kierkegaard, Philosopher

Søren Kierkegaard

"The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear"

Josh Billings, Comedian

Josh Billings

"No good work is ever done while the heart is hot and anxious and fretted"

Olive Schreiner, Writer

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength"

Corrie Ten Boom, Celebrity

Corrie Ten Boom

"I don't really like to play live. I don't like to be on stage. I feel very self-conscious"

Peter Steele, Musician

Peter Steele

"What worries you, masters you"

John Locke, Philosopher

John Locke

"When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat?"

Chuck Palahniuk, Novelist

Chuck Palahniuk

"I was so worried about winning, it was as if I was caught up in my own web"

Michelle Kwan, Athlete

"Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day"

Samuel Butler, Poet

Samuel Butler

"I'm so nervous. I've always been nervous, ever since I was a kid"

Elvis Presley, Musician

Elvis Presley

"A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow"

Charlotte Bronte, Novelist

Charlotte Bronte

"Most things I worry about never happen anyway"

Tom Petty, Musician

"When I was a young man, I was overly sensitive to things, and I found it difficult to eat when I was nervous"

Robert Barnes, Celebrity

"The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work"

Robert Frost, Poet

Robert Frost

"Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength"

Corrie Ten Boom, Celebrity

Corrie Ten Boom

"It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized"

Wayne Dyer, Psychologist

Wayne Dyer

"I never like being touched, ever. People used to say I held my breath when they were hugging me. I still do"

Angelina Jolie, Actress

Angelina Jolie

"I exist in a state of almost perpetual hysteria"

Sting, Musician

Sting

"I'm tired and nervous and I'm in America. Here you don't know that you live"

Greta Garbo, Actress

Greta Garbo

"Anxiety is the beginning of conscience, which is the parent of the soul but is not compatible with innocence"

Angela Carter, Novelist

Angela Carter

"There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction, but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation"

Umberto Eco, Novelist

"I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack"

Carly Simon, Musician

"I'd like to go back to standup. I don't like to think I've done my last gig. At the moment it terrifies me, I get really nervous. It's a great buzz when it goes well"

Mackenzie Crook, Actor

"For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art"

Edvard Munch, Painter

Edvard Munch

"I used to hate being recognised"

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Actress

"What I absolutely can't do is just sit around, that drives me crazy. I go nuts! I'm far too nervous, too high strung to sit around. It's not my thing; I can't deal with it!"

Jonathan Davis, Musician

"I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin, especially when people start questioning me"

Skeet Ulrich, Actor

"I am certainly suffering from a modicum of performance anxiety"

George Murray, Poet

"I don't want to be Kato, the trial guy. It's like everything I do is under a microscope"

Kato Kaelin, Celebrity

"People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching cold"

John Jay Chapman, Poet

"Well, I think again, the worst part of it was just leading up to it, before we got on set, at least for me... dreading this idea that I was just going to suck and I really had strong feelings about that. I just didn't want to be that weak link"

Tea Leoni, Actress

"A little bit of stage fright, then I'm ready"

Faith Hill, Musician

"I cannot give a single concert at which I do not play one piece after the other in an agony of terror because my memory threatens to fail me. This fear torments me for days beforehand"

Clara Schumann, Musician

"Oh the nerves, the nerves; the mysteries of this machine called man! Oh the little that unhinges it, poor creatures that we are!"

Charles Dickens, Novelist

Charles Dickens

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