Why do we say "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"?

Meaning:

We can accomplish great things if we look at problems face on rather than being held back by doubt and fear.

Background:

Franklin D. Roosevelt made this expression famous in his 1933 inaugural address:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

Most of Roosevelt's speech was written by Columbia University Professor Raymond Moly but it is believed that this part of the speech was not in the original, or at least not in this form. Some say that the writing of Henry David Thoreau inspired Roosevelt to add the "fear itself" line. An anthology of Thoreau's writing was apparently in Roosevelt's hotel room including a journal entry by Thoreau from 1851: “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear."

However, Professor Moly pointed to Louis Howe as the source of the expression, but doubted that Howe (a reporter for the New York Herald, who favored detective novels and was an early political advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt) had been reading Thoreau. Instead he believed that Howe probably saw it in a department store's newspaper ad some months before. It is possible that the ad was for Wanamaker's department store which ran a campaign in the New York Times during that period with each ad footnoted by an inspirational platitude - but no Wanamaker ad using Thoreau's phrase has been found to confirm if this is the case.

Thoreau, in turn, was most likely inspired by earlier writers including French philosopher Michel de Montaigne who wrote, "Nothing is terrible except fear itself" in 1580; and Francis Bacon and The Duke of Wellington who are both on record as saying "The only thing I am afraid of is fear," Bacon in 1623 and Wellington in c.1832.

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