Quotes About Vulnerability

Tears of tenderness and affection are no disparagement at all, even to great and wise men.

The most devastating form of loneliness is not to be without friends; rather, it is to be surrounded by friends and never to be truly known.

When we pretend to be somoene other than who we are, our true self hides in fear and shame; the fear of being discovered and the shame of not being enough.

It's uncomfortable to look at ourselves, assess our selfishness and sinfulness, and tell another human being about it.

I am broken. Pretending otherwise is exhuasting.

We hide because we think people will love us less if they truly know us, but the opposite is true in most cases. If we are willing to take the risk and reveal ourselves for who we are, we discover that most people are relieved to know that we are human. Why? Because they are human, too, and are filled with the same fear as you. In most cases, you will find that the things you thought would cause people to stop loving you actually lead them to love you more.

You may think you know just about everything there is to know about your partner, but you will be amazed at what you are missing out on if you open yourself up to taking another look. So, from time to time, it may help to approach each other as if for the first time. In this way you will experience the joy of rediscovery. Intimacy is not always about seeing new things. Sometimes it is about seeing what has always been before you, but in a different light or from a new perspective.

Intimacy is a risk. It should not be taken lightly, but we must take it. No man or woman can live a full life without being known by at least one person. Intimacy is a prerequisite for all those who wish to live the abundant life. The only true reason to delay the adventurous and risky pursuit of real intimacy is the absence of a confidant freely chosen and worthy of our trust.

We're all damaged. Every single beautiful, stupid, precious one of us. Damaged, damaged, damaged.

In so many ways, Ascham thought, she was beyond her years—but in the presence of her father she became a little girl again. So confident and assured in private, now she moved with the stilted awkwardness of every twelve-year-old girl. Ascham's heart went out to her.

He threw all his affection at them and hoped that some of it would stick, maybe even come back to him, though if it didn't he gave it anyway; he gave it more, even, because everyone had something that needed to come out.

Ce sont donc les gens dotés d'un ego surdimensionné et qui se sentent vulnérables qui sont les plus dangereux

Growing up is like taking down the walls of your house and letting strangers in.

Shame and doubt, the two great cripplers... [Édouard Manet]

How not to search that space where, for a time span lasting from dusk to dawn, two beings have no other reason to exist than to expose themselves totally to each other- totally, integrally, absolutely- so that their common solitude may appear not in front of their own eyes but in front of ours, yes, how not to look there and how not to rediscover "the negative community, the community of those who have no community"?

Why not admit that it is not our paramount duty to weep with all those who are weeping, to suffer with all who are sad, to expose our heart to the passer-by for him to caress or stab? Tears and suffering and wounds are helpful to us only when they do not discourage our life.

Love is clairvoyant; it addresses us precisely to what is able to tear us apart.

I mean, being a child was being a child, was being a creature without power, without pocket money, without escape routes of any kind. So I didn't want to be a child.

My life in Brooklyn was in constant danger because of my bad health.

I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it. Because if one thing goes wrong or anything goes wrong, and usually something goes wrong, then you are compromised as a human being. You're going to trip over that for a good part of your life.

Inside my head, I shit my pants.

I don't think you've been in love. Not recently, anyway. I'm not sure you remember what it's like. It compromises you. It takes over your body. Like a bareword. I think love is a bareword.

And so we exchange privacy for intimacy. We gamble with it, hoping that by exposing ourselves, someone will find a way in. This is why the human animal will always be vulnerable: because it wants to be.'

Everyone's broken, one way or another.