Frail Quotes - Page 6

• Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

  Norman Mailer

  Opportunity, Power Of Words, Khomeini

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• Cheat me not with time,
  with the dull ache of flesh,
  for all flesh turns,
  even the loveliest
  ankle and frail thigh,
  to bitterest dust.

  Hilda Doolittle

  Time, Dust, Ankles

  Hilda Doolittle, Louis L. Martz (1986). “Collected Poems 1912-1944”, p.287, New Directions Publishing

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• But angels come to lead frail minds to rest in chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; you stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak.

  Edmund Spenser

  Fashion, Heart, Angel

  Edmund Spenser (1859). “Poetical Works”, p.218

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• Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
  Who came sure from a sea of light?
  Or since those drops are all sent back
  So sure to thee, that none doth lack,
  Why should frail flesh doubt any more
  That what God takes, He'll not restore?

  Henry Vaughan

  Fear, Night, Light

  Henry Vaughan, Henry Francis Lyte (1871). “The Poetical Works of Herbert and Vaughan: With a Memoir”, p.266

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• Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason: Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties, even in subjects of common life and practice.... When these topics are displayed in their full light, as they are by some philosophers and almost all divines; who can retain such confidence in this frail faculty of reason as to pay any regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so abstruse, so remote from common life and experience?

  David Hume

  Determination, Practice, Light

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.4014, Delphi Classics

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• Public infrastructure around the world is facing unprecedented stress, with hurricanes, cyclones, floods and forest fires all increasing in frequency and intensity. It's easy to imagine a future in which growing numbers of cities have their frail and long-neglected infrastructures knocked out by disasters and then are left to rot, their core services never repaired or rehabilitated.

  Naomi Klein

  Stress, Cities, Numbers

  Naomi Klein (2014). “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, p.436, Penguin UK

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• Some virtuous women are too liberal in their insults to a frail sister; but virtue can support itself without borrowing any assistance from the vices of other women.

  Henry Fielding

  Support, Vices, Insult

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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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• I grabbed Aunt Prue's tiny hand, her fingers as small as bare twigs in winter. I closed my eyes and took her other hand, twisting my strong fingers together with her frail ones. I rested my forehead against our hands and closed my eyes. I imagined lifting my head up and seeing her smiling, the tape and tubes gone. I wondered if wishing was the same thing as praying. If hoping for something badly enough could make it happen.

  Kami Garcia

  Strong, Eye, Winter

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• What will die with me the day I die? What pathetic or frail image will be lost to the world? The voice of Macedonio Fernandez, the image of a bay horse in a vacant lot on the corner of Sarrano and Charcas, a bar of sulfur in the drawer of a mahogany desk?

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Horse, Voice, Bars

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• When you grow up", I said, "do you ever stop feeling little and weak?" "No," she says. "There's always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.

  David Almond

  Growing Up, Feelings, Tiny Things

  David Almond (2013). “My Name is Mina”, p.151, Hachette UK

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• I’m cold,' Snowden said softly, 'I’m cold.' 'You’re going to be all right, kid,' Yossarian reassured him with a grin. 'You’re going to be all right.' 'I’m cold,' Snowden said again in a frail, childlike voice. 'I’m cold.' 'There, there,' Yossarian said, because he did not know what else to say. 'There, there.' 'I’m cold,' Snowden whimpered. 'I’m cold.' 'There, there. There, there.

  Joseph Heller

  Kids, Voice, Cold

  Joseph Heller (2010). “Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.563, Simon and Schuster

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• What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow. What are brief? today and tomorrow. What are frail? spring blossoms and youth. What are deep? the ocean and truth.

  Christina Rossetti

  Spring, Ocean, Sea

  Christina Rossetti (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Christina Rossetti (Illustrated)”, p.319, Delphi Classics

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• IAGO: She that was ever fair and never proud, Had tongue at will and yet was never loud, Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay, Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,' She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly, She that in wisdom never was so frail To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail; She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind, See suitors following and not look behind, She was a wight, if ever such wight were,-- DESDEMONA: To do what? IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

  William Shakespeare

  Revenge, Beer, Gay

  'Othello' (1602-4) act 2, sc. 1, l. 148

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• How come we've got these bodies? They are frail supports for what we feel. There are times I get so hemmed in by my arms and legs I look forward to getting past them. As though death will set me free like a traveling cloud... I'll be out there as a piece of the endless body of the world feeling pleasures so much larger than skin and bones and blood.

  Louise Erdrich

  Past, Clouds, Blood

  Louise Erdrich (2010). “Love Medicine”, p.218, Odyssey Editions

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• The things that I loved were very frail. Very fragile. I didn't know that. I thought they were indestructible. They weren't.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Knows, Indestructible, Fragile

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• I like the strings. I always have. Because that's how it feels. But the strings make pain seem more fatal than it is, I think. We're not as frail as the strings would make us believe. And I like the grass, too. The grass got me to you, helped me to imagine you as an actual person. But we're not different sprouts from the same plant. I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well – but never quite perfectly, you know?

  John Green

  Pain, Believe, Thinking

  John Green (2013). “Paper Towns”, p.301, A&C Black

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• She was disappearing a little more each day, so thin, so frail, a wisp of smoke. One day she would surely vanish altogether, and there was no way to stop her.

  Alice Hoffman

  One Day, Each Day, Littles

  Alice Hoffman (2010). “Green Angel”, p.39, Scholastic Inc.

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• There is a balance, a kind of standoff between the time continuum and the human entity, our frail bundle of soma and psyche. We eventually succumb to time, it's true, but time depends on us. We carry it in our muscles and genes, pass it on to the next set of time-factoring creatures, our brown-eyed daughters and jug-eared sons, or how would the world keep going. Never mind the time theorists, the cesium devices that measure the life and death of the smallest silvery trillionth of a second.... We were the only crucial clocks, our minds and bodies, way stations for the distribution of time.

  Don DeLillo

  Daughter, Time, Son

  Don DeLillo (2015). “Underworld: Picador Classic”, p.232, Pan Macmillan

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• We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.

  Mairead Corrigan

  Time, Struggle, Knowledge

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• The heart is the place where we live our passions. It is frail and easily broken, but wonderfully resilient. There is no point in trying to deceive the heart. It depends upon our honesty for its survival.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Love, Romantic, Honesty

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• The counsels and decrees of God do not truckle to the frail and fickle will of man.

  Matthew Henry

  Men, Fickle, Free Will

  Matthew Henry, J.B Williams (1828). “Exposition of the Old and New Testament”, p.966

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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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• Nature does require her time of preservation, which perforce, I her frail son amongst my brethren mortal, must give my attendance to.

  William Shakespeare

  Health, Son, Giving

  William Shakespeare (2008). “The Oxford Shakespeare: King Henry VIII: or All is True”, p.154, OUP Oxford

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