Terror

“ He knew the horror that had forced the appeal from her—the terror which can change a man's heart to water—the horror of those pitiless trampling feet—of those mad mob rushes under which a human body can be stamped out of recognition. ”

“ Living things!—Grand Dieu! the bats of the living Terror. They peered from holes and alcoves; they mowed and chattered; they shook their sooty locks at us and hailed Gusman in the jargon of the underworld. Thieves and rogues and cowards—here they swarmed in the warrens of despair, the very sacristans of devil-worship, the unclean acolytes of the desecrated rock-chapels, whose books of the Gospel were long since torn for fuel. ”

“ Every opposite sensation, that with violence the most ungovernable could encounter but to combat, now met in her bosom, elevating her to rapture, harrowing her with terror, menacing even her understanding. ”

“ I was out last night on a yellow drunk with Horan and Goggins.
Stephen went on:
—Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer. Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause. ”

“ His boasting shall be turned into dread, and his pride of heart into astonishment. Terror shall make him afraid on every side; he shall look on his right hand, and there shall be none to know him; and on his left hand, and lo! destruction shall be ready at his side—even the first-born of death shall open his jaws to devour him. His confidence shall pass away for ever, even until the king of terrors arrive and scatter brimstone upon his habitation. ”

“ To mention the icy chill at the back-bone, the sudden sinewless trembling of the knees, the withering dryness of throat and tongue, is to be commonplace; and terror is not commonplace. Perhaps to remember terror is to know again the helplessness and faintness it brings. ”

“ When in some horrid and frightful dream we reach the highest pitch of terror, it awakens us, scattering all the monsters of the night. The same thing happens in the dream of life, when the greatest degree of terror compels us to break it off. ”

“ We drank it in from the very atmosphere about us—a consuming passion, like that of jealousy—a haunting, exhausting spectre, which sits like a blight upon life. [172] Such a settled state of terror is one of the most awful of human phenomena. ”

“ Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock;
Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain;
Then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again.
Dared we that ravening terror; heard we its din in our ears ”

“ There came in answer the whimper of one too frightened to speak. Did you ever, as a child, Doctor, waken with the nightmare, afraid to cry out, afraid to move, tortured by the whimpers wrung out in reasonless terror? ”

“ Yet after all, because terror existed here and had written itself across the night as intensely as beauty ever wrote itself across the sky in sunset, it need not be that terror is one of the forces which dictate the plot of the universe. ”

“ Some other terror came upon him quite removed from this of being pursued, suddenly, like an electric shock, as he was creeping through the streets. Some visionary terror, unintelligible and inexplicable, associated with a trembling of the ground,—a rush and sweep of something through the air, like Death upon the wing. ”

“ All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.—All shall marvel at thy destruction; thou shall become wasted, devastated (a terror) , and never shalt thou exist any more. ”

“ NERO. No, no—we have outlived
All passions: terror now alone is left us.
I have within me great capacities
For terror: fear, the last, the greatest passion!
OTHO. Can one rely on death for something new?
Some other life perhaps.
SENECA. The gods forbid!
The Power that sent us here would lead us there. ”

“ In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold;
(What now makes them tame, is what then made them bold;)
Who crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank,
The deep grip of their claws through the vibrating plank. ”

“ Terror dominated my brain, pulsed like molten fire through my blood, until, as the desperation of my situation became more clearly defined, I tottered upon the very verge of insanity, feeling I should soon become a helpless, gibbering imbecile. ”

“ If in Paris, where Terror stalked, men were less than men and worse than brutes, because possessed by some devil soul, damned, and dancing, here they were more than men, animated by a superhuman courage and persistence. ”

“ Those who carry water dash down their ollas, and rush screaming to the houses. They climb to the roofs, drawing the ladders after them. Shouts are exchanged, and exclamations uttered in the voices of men, women, and children. Terror is on every face; terror displays itself in every movement. ”

“ Terror reigned, terror of that Deity, terror too of the devil, a base and hideous terror, which seized on man in his infancy and kept him cowering until he reached the grave after a life which was all dense night, ignorance, and falsehood. ”

“ All sounds of terror; no distinguish’d sound 210 Could reach me, now on sweeping surges tost, And then between the rising billows lost; An undefined sensation stopp’d my breath; Disorder’d views and threat’ning signs of death [Pg 339] Met in one moment, and a terror gave— I cannot paint it—to the moving grave. My thoughts were all distressing, hurried, mix’d, On all things fixing, not a moment fix’d, Vague thoughts of instant danger brought their pain, New hopes of safety banish’d them again; 220 Then the swoln billow all these hopes destroy’d, And left me sinking in the mighty void. ”

“ In that atrocious second I understood that desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual idea of hell and its horror. ”

“ Once or twice having resolutely refrained from showing your terror, you will be surprised and pleased to find the terror itself lessening.
I know persons who go through life in a sort of bondage to fear of various kinds. They tremble and turn pale, or grow hysterical and cry, when the dark clouds gather and the thunders roll. ”

“ And let me tell you this: our higher senses are so blunted, we are so drenched with materialism, that we should probably fail to recognize real wickedness if we encountered it.'
'But shouldn't we experience a certain horror—a terror such as you hinted we would experience if a rose tree sang—in the mere presence of an evil man?'
'We should if we were natural: children and women feel this horror you speak of, even animals experience it. ”

“ In their terror people are beginning to ask their Deity for things as they have never done it before. We are most of us like children waking in horror of the black night and shrieking for some one to come—some one—any one! ”

“ The Emotion of Terror.—The state of mind named Terror or Fear is described shortly as a state of extreme misery and depression, prostrating the activity and causing exaggeration of ideas in whatever is related to it, It is an addition to pain pure and simple—the pain of a present infliction. It is roused by the foretaste or prospect of evil, especially if that is great in amount, and still more if it is of uncertain nature. ”

“ She is wrapped about with Old Terrors, Ancient Tyrannies—that Terror of the Unknown which is more painful even than the Terror of the Known: those Tyrannies of Habit and of Place which so often and so ruthlessly rule the lives of the old. She clings desperately to the few people she knows (“'tis hard to die among strangers!”) ”

“ The fear and caution which must be observed in the night; the opportunity it affords for ambuscades and assassinations; depriving us of society, and cutting off many pleasing trains of ideas, which objects in the light never fail to introduce, are all circumstances of terror: and perhaps, on the whole, so much of our happiness depends upon our senses, that the deprivation of any one may be attended with a proportionate degree of horror and uneasiness. ”

“ Terror, doubt, misery, had all rushed straightway to attack her heart, while the evils of which she had never dreamed stung mind and soul into dismay and horror, when, by hastily shutting the lid of the coffer, she tried to undo the evil she had done. ”

“ It was fear, rather than anger that sounded in their voices, the deadly terror of that unconquerable enemy, free-thinking, so often beaten down but always raising its head again. Men looked at each other with dread and suspicion in their eyes. ”

“ I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. ”

“ From the mightiest of them to the gentlest, from the earthquake to the summer shower, it will be found that they are attended by certain aspects of threatening, which strike terror into the hearts of multitudes more numerous a thousandfold than those who actually suffer from the ministries of judgment; and that, besides the fearfulness of these immediately dangerous phenomena, there is an occult and subtle horror belonging to many aspects of the creation around us, calculated often to fill us with serious thought, even in our times of quietness and peace. ”

“ Fear, or terror, which is an apprehension of pain or death, exhibits exactly the same effects, approaching in violence to those just mentioned, in proportion to the nearness of the cause, and the weakness of the subject. ”

“ So complicated an event arrested the attention of the world for a long time; and, as additional and more detailed accounts of the extensive effects of this explosion came from every quarter, the minds already aroused by the misfortunes of strangers began to be more and more anxious about themselves and their friends. Perhaps the demon of terror had never so speedily and powerfully diffused his terrors over the earth. ”

“ All the rest are instantly seized with indescribable terror, some raising their hands to their heads, cast themselves in desperation to the earth, others seek safety in flight, with looks full of horror. ”

“ And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly,
But coward-like with trembling terror die. ”

“ Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhalations laden with slow death, And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence. ”

“ These sentiments occupy the mind much more than that salutary terror which the laws endeavour to inspire; but in the contemplation of continued suffering, terror is the only, or at least predominant sensation. ”

“ I have caused my terror in the land of the living. Great men have caused their terror, have studied how to make every body fear them. Oderint dum metuant—Let them hate, so that they do but fear. But now the great God has caused his terror in the land of the living; and therefore he laughs at theirs, because he sees that his day is coming, Ps. xxxvii. 13. In this day of terror Pharaoh and all his multitude shall be laid with those that are slain by the sword. ”

“ All that is indispensable for the enjoyment of the milder feeling of supernatural awe is that you should be susceptible of the slight shuddering which creeps over you when you hear a tale of terror—that well-vouched tale which the narrator, having first expressed his general disbelief of all such legendary lore, selects and produces, as having something in it which he has been always obliged to give up as inexplicable. ”

“ Let a branch crackle in the forest, or a leaf rustle, and I am all atremble with fear, and my heart flutters as though it wanted to jump out, and I fly as fast as I can. Again, let a hare run by, or a bird flap its wings, or a dry twig break off, and you think that it is a beast, and you run straight up against him. Or you run away from a dog and run into the hands of a man. Frequently you get frightened and run, not knowing whither, and at full speed rush down a steep hill, and get killed. We have no rest. All the evil comes from terror. ”

“ He clearly understood that dark terror was whipping them from within, was pushing and carrying them from side to side. They were fighting, intoxicating themselves with loud shouts, in the desire to prove to themselves that they were afraid of nothing. ”

“ No, not from rage, or from love, or from hunger does all the evil in the world come, but from terror. If it were possible not to be afraid, everything would be well. We have swift feet and much strength : against a small animal we defend ourselves with our horns, and from a large one we flee. ”

“ A shaking terror, that chased every drop of blood from his face, and struck his limbs with the feebleness of a child, was exposed by the lights that flared at intervals on his person; and every one read in these indications of fear, the evidences of his guilt. ”

“ Terror in the house does roar,
But Pity stands before the door. ”

“ These simple minds would judge from it that certain destruction must be the portion of any who should dare venture into those mysterious upper regions which to them were but a myth, a strange tradition--almost a terror. ”

“ It was useless. The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks. ”