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But nobody can account for the possession of fear when it takes hold of the mind.
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“But nobody can account for the possession of fear when it takes hold of the mind.”

Daniel Defoe

Source
A Journal of the Plague Year
Date
1722
Meaning

Meaning of “But nobody can account for the possession of…”

Defoe’s narrator observes how fear can persist and spread beyond what the immediate facts justify, especially during collective crisis and rumor.

Source context

Where does it come from?

A Journal of the Plague Year, Project Gutenberg #376. The remark follows a false rumor that meat in Newgate Market was infected. It is historical-literary plague narration, not modern psychological or medical guidance.

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FearMindShortThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionAnxietySelf-Awareness
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I neither know nor think that I know.
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“I neither know nor think that I know.”

Plato · Apology · c. 399 BCE setting
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Meaning & context

Socrates locates a small advantage in recognizing the boundary of his own knowledge: uncertainty is intellectually healthier than possessing the same ignorance while mistaking it for wisdom.

Source details

Plato, Apology, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1656. Socrates says this after examining a politician whom others considered wise; the wording is dialogue speech attributed to Socrates within Plato’s work, not a claim that Socrates knew literally nothing.

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The unexamined life is not worth living.
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“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Plato · Apology · c. 399 BCE
Voice: Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Meaning & context

Socrates links a worthwhile human life with reflection on beliefs, conduct, and reasons rather than unexamined routine.

Source details

Apology 38a; wording varies by translation.

Source identified
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
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“To be, or not to be: that is the question.”

William Shakespeare · Hamlet · c. 1600
Voice: Fictional character · Hamlet
Meaning & context

The line condenses an existential dilemma into a question about endurance, action, fear, and the unknown consequences of death.

Source details

Act 3, Scene 1; Hamlet weighs existence against suffering and uncertainty.

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We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
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“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Seneca · Letters to Lucilius · c. 65
Meaning & context

The line distinguishes anticipated suffering from what is actually happening, challenging imagination when it magnifies uncertainty.

Source details

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 4, Richard M. Gummere translation. 'We suffer more often in imagination than in reality' occurs in 'On Groundless Fears' as Seneca distinguishes feared possibilities from harms that have actually arrived. It remains Roman Stoic moral counsel rather than modern anxiety-treatment or clinical evidence.

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And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.
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“And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us.”

Henrik Ibsen · Ghosts · 1881
Voice: Fictional character · Mrs. Alving
Meaning & context

Mrs. Alving uses light as a metaphor for confronting inherited beliefs, arguing that people can remain frightened of examining ideas that continue to govern them.

Source details

Ghosts, Act II, R. Farquharson Sharp public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #2467. Mrs. Alving says “And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us” immediately after describing inherited “old dead ideas” and beliefs as ghosts. The light is a dramatic metaphor within a conflict over family, duty and conventional belief, not a clinical claim.

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Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.
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“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”

E. M. Forster · A Room with a View · 1908
Meaning & context

Forster’s narrator contrasts the clarity of describing another person’s life from outside with the confusion of recognizing one’s own desires while actually living them.

Source details

A Room with a View, Chapter XIV, Project Gutenberg #2641. The frozen catalog wording is a clause extract from the narrator’s longer sentence: “Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome ‘nerves’ or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire.” The passage concerns Lucy Honeychurch’s self-deception in fiction, not modern psychological evidence.