Martha Nussbaum Quotes

It's one of the terrors of old age that your body is not your friend. Or to be out on the street and be frightened of someone because you're not in good shape and can't do anything about it.

I think that's still the most primal fear of all humans: to be eaten.

This is who I am: a flyspeck of human vanity in a trillion miles of stone-dead interstellar space; a graceless lump of flesh and fear in a remote desert where nearly everything that I can see or touch is designed to hurt me.

Fear is ubiquitous in human life. It starts in infancy with our primal state of helplessness, where we can see what's going on but we can't move to get it. As we grow older we become a little more able to get what we want but then we're going to die so that gives fear another boost.

For the first time I could remember, I felt weak, woozy and stupid— like a human-being. Like a very small and helpless human-being.

Why should I? No one would wish to hurt me.

Because I am basically so insecure and anxious and afraid, I never, ever in my life learned to reach out for help, ever.

Life is a dangerous thing. Insecurity is the price of living.

For a long time, I had this constant feeling that I just wanted to look behind me. The hairs on my neck were standing up all the time, I didn't know where was safe.

I know what it is like to feel vulnerable and fearful during a difficult time.

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I'm not much of a fighter.

We have our moments of emotional vulnerabilities as any other human being, and my greatest fear gnawing away at me is losing my loved ones.

My biggest fears I can't talk about. And my biggest fear is that those fears happen, and I can't stop it.

When bombing is going on, you see a lot of people screaming around you and you can't do anything if you're small. You just want to break out of that and be strong.

It's inevitable that you feel scared when you don't have control of a situation.

After the tragic events of Manchester, with the senseless loss of life and the fear that came from knowing my family was unsafe and that I was completely powerless to protect them, I went to a very dark place with no tools to handle the feelings that came along with the devastation of the attack.

Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small.

Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.

Through the damp fabric of my coverall, bundled in my blanket, I feel naked. Raw. He sees more than I want, more than I can bear. It’s like standing before him ... while he stares at my scars, pitiless and unmoved.

That's the thing about being a victim; you start to think it'll happen to you on a regular basis. It's living with the reality of your own vulnerability, and it sucks.

She wept with shame for her lack of will and with fear for a love she couldn't control.

I guess we're all one phone call from our knees

Poor strangers, they have so much to be afraid of.

Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand.

I say you are a coward and you are; I think you hunt only to reassure yourself that you are not what you are: the weakest thing to ever walk the Earth. He will come for me and then we will be gone, and you will be helpless for all your hunting, because Westley and I are joined by the bond of love and you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.