Frail Quotes - Page 5

• Any essayist setting out on a frail apparatus of notings and jottings is a brave person.

  Diane Johnson

  Brave Person, Persons, Settings

  4 Copy quote

• A nature wise With finding in itself the types of all, With watching from the dim verge of the time What things to be are visible in the gleams Thrown forward on them from the luminous past, Wise with the history of its own frail heart, With reverence and sorrow, and with love, Broad as the world, for freedom and for man.

  James Russell Lowell

  Wise, Heart, Character

  James Russell Lowell (1857). “Miscellaneous poems. Memorial verses. Sonnets. I-XXVII. L'Envoi. Vision of Sir Launfal”, p.81

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Though you are weak and frail, though you are poor and helpless, God does not despise you; but would glorify your being with His own, and raise you to fellowship with Himself.

  George C. Lorimer

  Doe, Fellowship, Poor

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 247), 1895.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A number of frail girls... prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Girl, Numbers, Towers

  Thomas Pynchon (2012). “The Crying of Lot 49”, p.9, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the Jewish Quarter [Judengasse] was I born and educated; until my fifteenth year, they tried to beat the Talmud into me. My teachers were inhuman beings [Unmenschen], my colleagues were bad company, inducing me to secret sin; my body was frail, my spirit raw.

  Moses Hess

  Teacher, Years, Secret

  "Hess' Diary" by Moses Hess, September 16, 1836.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I had never been able to believe that God would give us poor frail humans only one chance at making it -- that we would be assigned to some kind of hell because we failed during one experience of mortal life. ... So the concepts of karma and reincarnation made logical sense to me.

  Jane Goodall

  Karma, Believe, Giving

  8 Copy quote

• Christians, like snowflakes, are frail, but when they stick together they can stop traffic.

  Vance Havner

  Christian, Together, Sticks

  137 Copy quote

• When it comes to bombshells, there are few that can be more effective than that small, flat, frail thing, a letter.

  Margaret Deland

  Bombshells, Letters, Flats

  Margaret Deland (2010). “Around Old Chester”, p.57, Wildside Press LLC

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste
  Stream down the snows, till the air is white,
  As, myriads by myriads madly chased,
  They fling themselves from their shadowy height.
  The fair, frail creatures of middle sky,
  What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;
  Flake after flake,
  To lie in the dark and silent lake!

  William C. Bryant

  Lying, Dark, Lakes

  4 Copy quote

• It has been said that men carry on a kind of coasting trade with religion. In the voyage of life, they profess to be in search of heaven, but take care not to venture so far in their approximations to it, as entirely to lose sight of the earth; and should their frail vessel be in danger of shipwreck, they will gladly throw their darling vices overboard, as other mariners their treasures, only to fish them up again when the storm is over.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Sight, Heaven

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.97

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is vain to trust in wrong; it is like erecting a building upon a frail foundation, and which will directly be sure to topple over.

  Hosea Ballou

  Foundation, Building, Vain

  4 Copy quote

• When with care we have raised an imaginary treasure of happiness, we find at last that the materials of the structure are frail and perishing, and the foundation itself is laid in the sand.

  Samuel Rogers

  Foundation, Treasure, Care

  7 Copy quote

• The glory of riches and of beauty is frail and transitory; virtue remains bright and eternal.
  [Lat., Divitarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis; virtus clara aeternaque habetur.]

  Sallust

  Riches, Virtue, Glory

  5 Copy quote

• Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail,
  Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay;
  Though darken'd in this poor life by a veil
  Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play
  In truth's eternal sunbeams; on the way
  To heaven's high capitol our cars shall roll;
  The temple of the Power whom all obey,
  That is the mark we tend to, for the soul
  Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal.

  James Gates Percival

  Play, Goal, Car

  James Gates Percival (1821). “Poems by James G. Percival ...”, p.322

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Self, Arrogance

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• When this immediate evil power has been defeated, we shall not yet have won the long battle with the elemental barbarities. Another Hitler, it may be an invisible adversary, will attempt, again, and yet again, to destroy our frail civilization. Is it true, I wonder, that the only way to escape a war is to be in it? When one is a part of an actuality does the imagination find a release?

  Ellen Glasgow

  War, Civilization, Evil

  5 Copy quote

• What do I see in the God of that infamous sect if not an inconsistent and barbarous being, today the creator of a world of destruction he repents of tomorrow; what do I see there but a frail being forever unable to bring man to heel and force him to bend a knee. This creature, although emanated from him, dominates him, knows how to offend him and thereby merit torments eternally! What a weak fellow, this God!

  Marquis de Sade

  God, Religious, Men

  7 Copy quote

• I can relate to someone whose life is falling apart, and they are doing the best to get by, using humor to survive. Backstrom really wears his heart on his sleeve and his life is unraveling... I would much rather hang out with that person than a slick procedural detective who has all the answers... it's human, it's frail, it's interesting.

  Rainn Wilson

  Life, Fall, Heart

  "Rainn Wilson will make you cringe with ‘Backstrom’" by Leora Arnowitz, www.foxnews.com. January 21, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The fame which is based on wealth or beauty is a frail and fleeting thing; but virtue shines for ages with undiminished lustre.

  Sallust

  Beauty, Shining, Age

  11 Copy quote

• Life is a frail and transitory thing, but it has been given a higher purpose and dignity through the revelation of God's Teaching to Israel, and the resulting dedication of an entire people to God's service.

  Joseph Hertz

  Teaching, Dedication, Israel

  "The Authorised Daily Prayer Book". Book by Joseph Hertz, Morning Service: Preliminaries (p. 28),

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is nothing sooner overthrows a weak head than opinion by authority, like too strong a liquor for a frail glass.

  Philip Sidney

  Strong, Glasses, Opinion

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.2

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And behind their frail partitions Business women lie and soak, Seeing through the draughty skylight Flying clouds and railway smoke. Rest you there, poor unbelov'd ones, Lap your loneliness in heat, All too soon the tiny breakfast, Trolley-bus and windy street!

  John Betjeman

  Loneliness, Lying, Clouds

  John Betjeman, “Business Girls”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• God grant that by my persevering labours I may bring a little stone to the frail and ill-assured edifice of our knowledge of those deep mysteries of Life and Death where all our intellects have so lamentably failed.

  Louis Pasteur

  Life And Death, May, Stones

  "The Life of Pasteur" published by René Vallery-Radot, translated by Mrs. R. L. Devonshire, (p. 114), 1902.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Сrown. It may be frail - its roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter - the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter.

  William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

  Kings, Rain, Blow

  William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham's speech on the Excise Bill in the House of Commons (March 1763), as quoted in Lord Brougham "Historical Sketches of Statesmen Who Flourished in the Time of George III, Volume I" (p. 42), 1839.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wit and woman are two frail things, and both the frailer by concurring.

  Thomas Overbury

  Women, Two, Wit

  Sir Thomas Overbury (1756). “The Miscellaneous Works in Verse and Prose of Sir Thomas Overbury, with Memoirs of His Life. The Tenth Edition”, p.239

  5 Copy quote

  Show source