Worry

What? Me worry?

Worry is one of two components of anxiety (the other being emotionality). Worry refers to negative self-talk that often detracts the mind from focusing on the problem at hand. Emotionality refers to physiological symptoms such as sweating, increased heart beat and raised blood pressure.

Sourced

• Don't worry, be happy!
  • Meher Baba, in Lord Meher, Volume 20, page 6742; Sometimes attributed in the form: "Do your best, then don't worry, be happy."

• What? Me worry?
  • Alfred E. Neuman, in MAD # 24 (July 1955); later altered to "What, me worry?"

• What's the use of worrying?
  It never was worth while,
  So, pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
  And smile, smile, smile.
  • George Asaf [George H. Powell], 1st World War song: Pack up Your troubles in Your Old Kit-bag.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Anxious care rests upon a basis of heathen worldly-mindedness and of heathen misunderstanding of the character of God.
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 42.

• Despatch necessities; life hath a load
  Which must be carried on — and safely may;
  Yet keep these cares without thee; let the heart
  Be God's alone; and choose the better part.
  • Henry Vaughan, p. 43.

• He that taketh his own cares upon himself loads himself in vain with an uneasy burden. I will cast all my cares on God; He hath bidden me; they cannot burden Him.
  • Bishop Hall, p. 43.

• He who climbs above the cares of this world, and turns his face to his God, has found the sunny side of life. The world's side of the hill is chill and freezing to a spiritual mind; but the Lord's presence gives a warmth of joy which turns winter into summer.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 43.

• I met a brother who, describing a friend of his, said he was like a man who had dropped a bottle, and broken it, and put all the pieces in his bosom, where they were cutting him perpetually.
  • Henry Ward Beecher, p. 43.

• Why art thou troubled and anxious about many things? One thing is needful — to love Him and to sit attentively at His feet.
  • François Fénelon, p. 43.

• I have no cares, O blessed Will!
  For all my cares are Thine;
  I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou
  Hast made Thy triumph mine.
  • Frederick William Faber, p. 44.

• Most men call fretting a minor fault, a foible, and not a vice. There is no vice except drunkenness which can so utterly destroy the peace, the happiness of a home.
  • Mrs. H. F. Jackson, p. 254.

• However nervous, depressed, and despairing may be the tone of any one, the Lord leaves. him no excuse for fretting; for there is enough in God's promise to overbalance all these natural difficulties. In the measure in which the Christian enjoys his privileges, rises above the things that are seen, hides himself in the refuge provided for him, will he be able to voice the confession of Paul, and say, "None of these things move me."
  • S. H. Tyng, Jr., p. 254.

Unsourced

• The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
  • Robert Frost

• You have nothing to lose. All that you can lose is your tension and your worry, your little-mindedness, fear, and anxiety. And fear and anxiety, tension and worry in the small, little mind will keep the mind from being free, will keep the mind from experiencing its infinite potential, will keep the mind from becoming more powerful on this planet.
  • Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

• I can't tell you how much time is spent worrying about decisions that don't matter. To just be able to make a decision and see what happens is tremendously empowering, but that means you have to set up the situation such that when something does go wrong, you can fix it.
  • Ward Cunningham

• Wer die Wahl hat, hat die Qual.
  • Translation: He who has a choice has a worry.
  • German proverb

• The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That’s the warrior’s way.
  • Carlos Castaneda

• Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere.
  • English proverb

• It is worms which destroy a tree, it is worry which destroys a man.
  • Turkish proverb

• As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can.
  • Julius Caesar

• If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn't ask me, I'd still have to say it.
  • George Burns

• Decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.
  • Amelia Earhart

• Worry retards reaction and makes clear-cut decisions impossible.
  • Amelia Earhart

• Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.
  • Charles Schulz

• Sure as night will follow day, most things I worry about never happen anyway.
  • Tom Petty

• Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
  • Dale Carnegie

• Why should I worry? Why should I care? I may not have a dime but I got street savoir faire.
  • Billy Joel, in "Why Should I Worry", on Oliver and Company

• Worry is the misguided use of imagination.
  • Craig R. Scott

• If I knew what I was so anxious about, I wouldn't be so anxious.
  • Mignon McLaughlin

• A person must try to worry about things that aren't important so he won't worry too much about things that are.
  • Jack Smith