Fear of the Unknown_ (Tavistock Publications, London, 1956), p. 29.
p. 14 'The fear of the unknown is a natural fear.'
p. 14 'An individual becomes afraid when the source of the threat cannot be directly attributed to himself.'
p. 15 'You see people going through a park on a summer afternoon with no thought of fear.'
p. 15 'The basic problem in dealing with the Unknown [is]... that your own reactions to what you see will always be of paramount importance.'
p. 15 'The real test comes when an experimenter tries to condition a dog not to react to a loud noise and nothing happens.'
p. 15 'The real fear resides in the individual. It is the basic emotion that one experiences when fear sets in.'
p. 16 'People have an almost infinite capacity to take on the characteristics of those around them.'
p. 17 'If man really knew himself, he would be in a constant fright.'
p. 17 'If man knew that he came from a source that was infinitely great and powerful, he would go to such extremes that he would literally live on the brink of insanity.'
p. 17 'God, man would say, is not benevolent. Rather he is utterly ruthless and destructive.'
p. 18 'In the face of the Unknown, people turn away in either of two extremes. Either they will accept all responsibility for the consequences of their actions, or they will assume that the Unknown does not exist, or that it can be controlled by the power of the human intellect.'
p. 18 'The man who assumes ultimate control over every situation will always be in a more frightening position than one who accepts and admits to being in control of no thing.'
p. 18 'There are those who can look at a painting of a beautiful woman or a piece of pure music and think of it with dispassionate feelings. These are the men who have the gift of being able to step back and see without being seen.'
p. 18 'There is a tendency to think that the most important qualities are those associated with the physical body. But there are other qualities that can change the inner state of man so much that he has to be classified as a different type.'
p. 19 'The man who believes he is in control of the total situation is one who can look upon the face of the Unknown and laugh.'
p. 19 'Once you have looked upon the face of the Unknown, it is too late. You can never unsee what you have seen.'
p. 19 'The person who knows how to use the Unknown for his own benefit can never be in the same position as the person who feels he has been tricked.'
p. 20 'The most important ingredient in having faith in God is faith in yourself.'
p. 20 'No matter how fearful it may seem, it is the man who can stare at the thing that frightens him and laugh who can master it.'
p. 21 'The ability to see the meaning behind any picture or statue must come from the individual himself.'
p. 21 'It may be that man would be more interested in nature if he could take it all in all at once. It has been shown by some that when one sees a sunset or a sunrise, for example, one receives more insight than if one views the entire picture gradually.'
p. 21 'The great question is the answer to which of these two extremes is of greater value: the man who sees the physical body in the face of the Unknown or the man who sees it in terms of all that it represents in the form of a sunset, a statue, or a picture?'
p. 22 'If man is really free to act and think as he wants to, he can, and will, make any situation work out to his advantage.'
p. 22 'The fear of the Unknown can be expressed in two ways. Either one becomes afraid of the Unknown or one goes out to conquer it.'
p. 22 'Those who see the pictures of a sunrise or the sunset are using the picture to illustrate their feelings.'
p. 23 'In the modern age, the man of faith is likely to be viewed as a neurotic in contrast to the atheist who is viewed as an enlightened person.'
p. 24 'The man who believes in God must find faith in himself and know he is good.'
p. 24 'In order to get on, one must feel secure within oneself.'
p. 25 'One person can go through life and make so many poor decisions, while another makes few poor decisions but can be extremely good.'
p. 25 'If one allows himself to be pushed, he is likely to act in a rash way.'
p. 25 'It is the person who can keep both his mind and his emotions under control, who is most likely to be accepted.'
p. 26 'Many fear the Unknown because it makes them feel insecure.'
p. 27 'The person who has come to know himself is not threatened by the Unknown, but he knows that he cannot keep his emotions under control. He is not threatened by the Unknown, but he knows that he can be used by it.'
p. 28 'If man really knew himself, he would be in a constant fright.'
p. 29 'People feel safe when they believe they can control the events that are going on around them.'
p. 29 'There are certain people who know how to control their own feelings, and these men come into their own in times of crisis and are viewed as heroic because they have controlled their own fears.'
p. 29 'To believe that your own decisions control what happens to you means that you must believe that you are in control of your emotions, and this will not be true if you are a very insecure individual.'
p. 30 'If the world seems like a pleasant place to live in, it is for only a short time. Sooner or later something has to happen to get the wheels turning.'
p. 30 'The man who is in love with God is one who can see the face of the Unknown and feel that it is a good one to have on the face.'
p. 31 'The fact that man may not have direct evidence for the existence of God is irrelevant.'
p. 32 'In all cases, a man's emotions about a particular situation are far more important than the facts as they seem at any given time.'
p. 32 'In almost every case, a man's emotions are the real criterion upon which he bases his judgment of any event.'
p. 32 'The man who is in touch with the higher emotions of life can always sense what is really going on.'
p. 33 'If he feels he is in control of a thing, it will be so; if he believes he is not in control, it will be otherwise.'
p. 33 'The more that one accepts something, the less is his ability to accept his reaction to it.'
p. 33 'It is the man who is comfortable with himself who feels that he knows what is going on around him, and it is the man who thinks he is going to die tomorrow who has no control.'
p. 34 'It is the person who thinks he can go out and conquer the Unknown, conquer anything, that can face death with the proper courage.'
p. 34 'The man who has faith in God has come to grips with the Unknown and will therefore know how to control it. It is man who wants to control what he believes in himself that comes to a bad end.'
p. 34 'The man who feels he is in control of a thing is usually not; he just wants to seem to be in control because his real reason for wanting to control it is fear.'
p. 34 'There is a tendency to think that the most important qualities are those associated with the physical body. But there are other qualities that can change the inner state of man so much that he has to be classified as a different type.'
p. 35 'It is easy to know one's strengths and weaknesses if one is aware of oneself.'
p. 35 'One can determine one's attitude toward any situation through the analysis of what one does with himself.'
p. 36 'It is this control of the situations which make one feel secure about himself which gives him the knowledge to know what he is really like and the experience which may guide him in his future decisions.'
p. 36 'The man who finds himself in a dangerous situation but still finds a way out can easily be seen as courageous, whereas the man who cannot extricate himself often is viewed as a coward.'
p. 37 'The one thing that we can depend on is that things always change for the better or for the worse and, therefore, it is the man who can get the best of a situation that is likely to benefit more from it.'
p. 37 'The more one depends upon oneself, the less is he dependent on anything else.'
p. 38 'To be alone with one's emotions is bad, but being alone with oneself is much worse.'
p. 38 'Forgetting one's past is easy. But one has to be more careful with the past of others and the past of one's own family.'
p. 38 'A man who really has faith in God should always
