Quotes About Fragility

The Earth is littered with the ruins of empires that once belived they were eternal.

I was tired in ways that had nothing to do with sleep. It occurred to me, sitting in the car with her, that I had been trying to hold too many things together that were meant to fall apart.

His broken heart was unfeeling, like shattered glass in an acid bath.

We can turn our earth into a barren, lifeless minor star spinning in space, waterless, with little or no atmosphere, with not even cockroaches left on it. To face this possibility and still behave with decency; to still create beautiful things as though they will last forever; to still make music and poetry and paint pictures; to still consciously cultivate the gentler, tender side of ourselves is to aspire to a grace which makes us more than the animals we surely are.

Once again I felt light-headed, but this time it wasn't from the scent of lilacs; it was from the scent of my own death.

Before the mind snaps, or the heart breaks, it gather itself like a clock about to strike. It might even be said one pulls himself together to disintegrate.

Civilization was a blessing you never truly appreciated until it threatened to collapse around you.

She was transparent, like a watercolor. As if she were about to dissolve in sound, in tones not yet created.

For my part, I never talk to the child about time. We talk about other things -- though not about anything much -- and never about tomorrow. For me that is impossible. Tomorrow we could all be wiped out. You think back upon all the promises you did not manage to keep. Talk about time and you will always end up making promises. Then it is better to say nothing at all, no matter what.

The factor that made him so powerful was also his greatest liability.

These eggs are broken. Cracked." "Yes, ma'am. That happens sometimes." "Does it?" "Yes, it's the unfortunate part of being an egg.

She collapsed. I stepped forward and caught her. I thought of two trees nearly unrooted and leaning against each other.

Remember me," whispers the dust.

But Jacob replied, “My lord knows that the children are frail, and I must care for sheep and cattle that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard for even a day, all the animals will die.

Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are like plants in the field, tender green shoots, grass on the rooftops, scorched before it is grown.

how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!

His confidence is fragile; his security is in a spiderís web.

Your maxims are proverbs of ashes; your defenses are defenses of clay.

For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.

For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.

It will break in pieces like a potterís jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”

Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are like plants in the field, tender green shoots, grass on the rooftops, scorched before it is grown.

its legs were iron, and its feet were part iron and part clay.

And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle.