Frail Quotes - Page 3

I am empty of everything. I am empty of everything but the thin, frail ghosts in my room.

Jean Rhys

Rooms, Ghost, Empty

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Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting, and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age. To my own surprise I burst out with hot conviction. Only a few years ago I enjoyed my tranquility; now I am so disturbed by the outer world and by human quality in general that I want to put things right, as though I still owed a debt to life. I must calm down. I am far too frail to indulge in moral fervor.

Florida Scott-Maxwell

Years, Indulge In, Interesting

Florida Scott-Maxwell (2013). “Measure of My Days”, p.11, Knopf

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No bit of the natural world is more valuable or more vulnerable than the tree bit. Nothing is more like ourselves, standing upright, caught between heaven and earth, frail at the extremities, yet strong at the central trunk, and nothing is closer to us at the beginning and at the end, providing the timber boards that frame both the cradle and the coffin.

Seamus Heaney

Strong, Tree, Heaven

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Those were the Rommely women: Mary, the mother, Evy, Sissy, and Katie, her daughters, and Francie, who would grow up to be a Rommely woman even though her name was Nolan. They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel.

Betty Smith

Daughter, Mother, Growing Up

BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

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Women were the very devil, at the mercy of their frail strength.

Margaret Way

Devil, Mercy

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Clay can be a metaphor for many things. I made it a metaphor for flesh and earth, and these are two kinds of generic givens of life, if you look at it poetically, biblically, the idea of the life of beings, of man, being transitory, the earth abides-ashes to ashes, dust to dust-man returns to earth, grows out of earth like a flower, wilts, goes back to the earth... We are frail, transitory creatures with aspirations of immortality, conscious of our inevitable death, and we have to deal with it somehow.

Stephen De Staebler

Flower, Men, Dust

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Prayer is the force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength.

Alexis Carrel

Strength, Prayer, Real

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Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.

Charles Caleb Colton

Mean, Men, Light

Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.480

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No matter how healthy, intelligent or affluent we may be, if our minds are weak, then our happiness will also be frail and brittle. Our minds of faith, moreover, enable us to bring out the full potential in all things and situations, so it is crucial that we strive to forge our minds of faith.

Daisaku Ikeda

Intelligent, Healthy, Mind

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The loveliest, sweetest flower that bloomed in paradise, and the first that died, has rarely blossomed since on mortal soil. It is so frail, so delicate, a thing, it is gone if it but look upon itself; and she who ventures to esteem it hers proves by that single thought she has it not.

Elizabeth Fry

Flower, Looks, Gone

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... a gaggle of old ladies is glued to the window at the end of the hall like children or jailbirds. They're spidery and frail, their hair as fine as mist. Most of them are a good decade younger than me, and this astounds me. Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.--There are five of them now, white headed old things huddled together and pointing crooked fingers at the glass.

Sara Gruen

Children, Glasses, Hair

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The memory of benefits is a frail defence against ingratitude.

Leonardo da Vinci

Memories, Intelligent, Benefits

Leonardo Da Vinci “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci”, Lulu.com

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I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world. Y'know, I'm a very strong person and I think that's why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature'.

Kate Bush

Strong, Thinking, People

"'I'm Not Some Weirdo Recluse'". Interview with Tom Doyle, www.theguardian.com. October 28, 2005.

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No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity.

Edith Wharton

Vanity, Weight, Nests

Edith Wharton (2015). “The House of Mirth”, p.112, Xist Publishing

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Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind, and spirit which gives the frail human reed its unshakable strength.

Alexis Carrel

Prayer, Giving, Mind

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It's not just about life, of course; it's about healthy life. Getting frail and miserable and dependent is no fun, whether or not dying may be fun.

Aubrey de Grey

Fun, Motivation, Inspiration

"A roadmap to end aging". TED conference, www.ted.com. July 2005.

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Who to a woman trusts his peace of mind, Trusts a frail bark, with a tempestuous wind.

George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne

Peace, Wind, Mind

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Do you really think a man must be strong, masculine, dominating, and the woman frail, obedient and sensitive? This is a conventional idea. Reality is quite different.

Michelangelo Antonioni

Strong, Reality, Men

Source: scrapsfromtheloft.com

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Freedom is a double-edged ideal, because true freedom comes without the protection of laws that also enslave us by defining us--female, male; Christian, Islamic; good, evil. All at the whim of a frail minority.

Ellen Hopkins

Christian, Islamic, Law

Ellen Hopkins (2008). “Impulse”, p.230, Simon and Schuster

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Say what you want to say about the rest of his presidency, including his tone-deaf response to Katrina and a war waged in Iraq on false pretenses, Bush connected with Americans in the aftermath of 9/11 because he looked as frail and unforgiving as we felt.

Ron Fournier

War, Iraq, Aftermath

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O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now, Be all – worlds dissolve into your stainless endless radiance, Frail living leaves burn with your brighter than cold stares – Make me your servant, your breath, your core.

Rumi

Love Is, Deep Love, Radiance

Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, “O Love”

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My memories of them had rubbed thin with overuse, worn to frail color transparencies flickering on the walls of my mind...

Tana French

Wall, Memories, Color

"In the Woods". Book by Tana French, January 30, 2007.

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Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.

P. G. Wodehouse

Cat, Egypt, Class

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Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream.

Aristophanes

Dream, Race, Darkness

Aristophanes (2012). “The Birds”, p.21, Courier Corporation

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In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Children, Heart, Dark

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