The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
Interpretation
Fear of potential danger can be worse than the actual danger itself.
This quote by Saul Alinsky highlights the idea that our fears and anxieties often exaggerate the realities we face. The anticipation of a threat can cause more distress than the actual confrontation with that threat, emphasizing the psychological nature of fear and how it can paralyze us more than the actual conditions we worry about.
In practice
When giving a motivational speech about overcoming fears.
Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer.
The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat.
The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.
The threat is generally more terrifying than the thing itself.
Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth - truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up - you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.
I got into therapy in the fifth grade because I said in a sarcastic way that I was going to kill myself, and they didn't get it then. Nothing's changed.
The people who did this act on America, and who may be planning further acts, are evil people. They don't represent an ideology, they don't represent a legitimate political group of people. They're flat evil. That's all they can think about, is evil. And as a nation of good folks, we're going to hunt them down, and we're going to find them, and we will bring them to justice.
He was in his chair in the corner, resting a second before he came out for the next round -- in a long line of next rounds. The thing he was fighting, you couldn't whip it for good. All you could do was keep on whipping it, till you couldn't come out anymore and somebody else had to take your place.
Martial arts is for defense. It's not for attacking. So when people are fighting, always, always, defend.
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