Worry
To feel uneasy or concerned about something; be troubled.
To cause to feel anxious, distressed, or troubled.
To bother or annoy, as with petty complaints.
The act of worrying or the condition of being worried; persistent mental uneasiness.
A source of nagging concern or uneasiness.
WORD HISTORY Worrying may shorten one’s life, but not as quickly as it once did. The ancestor of our word, Old English wyrgan, meant “to strangle.” Its Middle English descendant, worien, kept this sense and developed the new sense “to grasp by the throat with the teeth and lacerate” or “to kill or injure by biting and shaking.” This is the way wolves or dogs might attack sheep, for example. In the 16th century worry began to be used in the sense “to harass, as by rough treatment or attack,” or “to assault verbally,” and in the 17th century the word took on the sense “to bother, distress, or persecute.” It was a small step from this sense to the main modern senses “to cause to feel anxious or distressed” and “to feel troubled or uneasy,” first recorded in the 19th century.
Quotes
If I had my life to live over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I’d have fewer imaginary ones. ~Don Herold
Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. ~Mark Twain
Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday. ~Author Unknown
Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which will never happen. ~James Russel Lowell
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy. ~Leo Buscaglia
Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. ~Benjamin Franklin
If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep. ~Dale Carnegie
I’ve developed a new philosophy… I only dread one day at a time. ~Charlie Brown (Charles Schulz)
Troubles are a lot like people – they grow bigger if you nurse them. ~Author Unknown
If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today. ~E. Joseph Cossman
<!–, quoted in The Times, 9 Oct 1999; CDC–>People gather bundles of sticks to build bridges they never cross. ~Author Unknown
You can’t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time. ~Pat Schroeder
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book, 1927
Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. ~Glenn Turner
People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them. ~George Bernard Shaw, “Family Affection,” Parents and Children, 1914
Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination. ~Christian Nevell Bovee
Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face. ~Nelson DeMille
For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe. ~Author Unknown
A hundredload of worry will not pay an ounce of debt. ~George Herbert
Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. ~Swedish Proverb
Never bear more than one kind of trouble at a time. Some people bear three – all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have. ~Edward Everett Hale
That the birds of worry and care fly over you head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent. ~Chinese Proverb
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it. ~John Newton
Worry bankrupts the spirit. ~Berri Clove
Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die. ~Attributed to Douglas MacArthur
Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is to small to be made into a burden. ~Corrie ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook
There are two days in the week about which and upon which I never worry… Yesterday and Tomorrow. ~Robert Jones Burdette
A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work. ~John Lubbock
As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men’s minds more seriously than what they see. ~Julius Caesar
If worrying were an Olympic sport, you’d get the gold for sure. ~Stephenie Geist
Worry is rust upon the blade. ~Henry Ward Hughes
Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies; when the soul is oppressed so is the body. ~Martin Luther
I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow. It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us. ~Dorothy Day
It is not the cares of today, but the cares of tomorrow, that weigh a man down. ~George MacDonald
Some patients I see are actually draining into their bodies the diseased thoughts of their minds. ~Zacharty Bercovitz
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. ~Mark Twain
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. ~Michel de Montaigne
If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you. ~Calvin Coolidge
When one has too great a dread of what is impending, one feels some relief when the trouble has come. ~Joseph Joubert
Some men storm imaginary Alps all their lives, and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist. ~Edgar Watson Howe
How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. ~Thomas Jefferson
There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them. ~Josh Billings
Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due. ~William Ralph Inge
There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than injure us, and we suffer more in imagination than in reality. ~Seneca
We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us. ~John Lancaster Spalding
We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives. ~Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail, 1979
Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night. ~Author Unknown
Do not be afraid of tomorrow; for God is already there. ~Author Unknown
Real difficulties can be overcome, it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. ~Theodore N. Vail
No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow’s burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear. ~George MacDonald
Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff. ~Robert Eliot
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~Montaigne, Essays, 1588
Fear can keep us up all night long, but faith makes one fine pillow. ~Philip Gulley
Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He’s going to be up all night anyway. ~Mary C. Crowley