Quotes About Weakness

I know. I'm sorry." Adolin grimaced. "I'm not explaining it well. I just … I don't think Shallan is as weak as you say. Weakness doesn't make someone weak, you see. It's the opposite.

It's a common mistake to assume that someone is weak because they are accommodating. If you think this, you might be the type who has no idea how much effort—how much strength—it takes to put up with your nonsense.

Frailty, thy name is Alcatraz

Our weakness makes us strong. For we had to carry it all these years.

Epics are weak because they are fools. They will destroy this world. Give men power, and they abuse it. That is all one needs to know.

I'm not strong enough, I've never been strong enough. You know better than I what your limits are, Wit said. It's not such a terrible thing, to be too weak. Makes us need one another.

You are not a weak man, Dalinar,' Navani said. 'I am. But weakness can imitate strength if bound properly, just as cowardice can imitate heroism if given nowhere to flee.

Despair, hate, loss, frustration, horror. How could any man live this way? To be a surgeon, to live knowing that you would be too weak to save some? When other men failed, a field of crops got worms in them. When a surgeon failed, someone died.

Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.

The profound danger is that, as noted above, we start to think of feeling as weakness. With the exception of anger (which is a secondary emotion, one that only serves as a socially acceptable mask for many of the more difficult underlying emotions we feel), we're losing our tolerance for emotion and hence for vulnerability.

Emotional stoicism and self-control are rewarded, and displays of emotion are punished. Vulnerability is now weakness. Anger becomes an acceptable substitute for fear, which is forbidden.

Most of the time we approach life with an armored front for two reasons: 1) We're not comfortable with emotions and equate vulnerability with weakness, and/or 2) Our experiences of trauma have taught us that vulnerability is actually dangerous. Violence and oppression have made our soft front a liability, and we struggle to find a place emotionally and physically safe enough to be vulnerable.

vulnerability is derived from the Latin word vulnerare, meaning "to wound." The definition includes "capable of being wounded" and "open to attack or damage." Merriam-Webster defines weakness as the inability to withstand attack or wounding. Just from a linguistic perspective, it's clear that these are very different concepts, and in fact, one could argue that weakness often stems from a lack of vulnerability

We know that vulnerability is the cornerstone of courage-building, but we often fail to realize that without vulnerability there is no creativity or innovation. Why? Because there is nothing more uncertain than the creative process, and there is absolutely no innovation without failure. Show me a culture in which vulnerability is framed as weakness and I'll show you a culture struggling to come up with fresh ideas and new perspectives.

There we were, both of us completely engulfed in our shame stories. I was stuck in appearance and body-image fear—the most common shame trigger for women. He was afraid I would think he was weak—the most common shame trigger for men.

Secret, smug believers! God never gives you more than you can bear, they like to say, as if the strong should be punished for their strength: We can bear it. So we got it. But what about my baby? How weak does a newborn have to be to escape God's burdens?

We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions. Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.

Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.

It deserves neither God's mercy nor men's trust. The church must constantly be aware that its faith is weak, its knowledge dim, its profession of faith halting, that there is not a single sin or failing which it has not in one way or another been guilty of.

Jesus comes in the way of weakness, giving us the chance to love him and making us feel that we have something to give him.

Preoccupation with our past sins, present weaknesses, and character defects gets our emotions churning in self-destructive ways, closes us within the mighty citadel of self, and preempts the presence of a compassionate God.

Once the fervor has passed, weakness and infidelity appear. We discover our inability to add even a single inch to our spiritual stature. There begins a long winter of discontent that eventually flowers into gloom, pessimism, and a subtle despair—subtle because it goes unrecognized, unnoticed, and therefore unchallenged. It takes the form of boredom, drudgery.

Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace. As we glance up, we are astonished to find the eyes of Jesus open with wonder, deep with understanding, and gentle with compassion.

One does not escape the fate of Nietzsche's teaching so long as one recognizes strength only as strength and weakness only as weakness.