Fear
Fear is an emotion induced by a perceived threat that causes animals to move quickly away from the location of the perceived threat, and sometimes hide. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. In short, fear is the ability to recognize danger leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it (also known as the fight-or-flight response) but in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) a freeze or paralysis response is possible. Some psychologists such as John B. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that there is only a small set of basic or innate emotions and that fear is one of them. This hypothesized set includes such emotions as joy, sadness, and anger. Fear should be distinguished from the emotion anxiety, which typically occurs without any certain or immediate external threat.
Read more about Fear.
Famous quotes containing the word fear:
“I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weights, and tears no bitterness;”
—Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847)
“the child unlucky in his little State,
Some hearth where freedom is excluded,
A hive whose honey is fear and worry,
Feels calmer now and somehow assured of escape;”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“They are free, but not entirely free. For Law is despot over them, and they fear him much more than your men fear you.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)