Quotes About Weakness

Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?

You can't make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak

How weak and fruitless must be any word of mine.

Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from.

For obstinacy standing alone is the weakest of all things in one whose mind is not possessed by wisdom.

United you will be more than a match for your enemies. But if you quarrel and separate, your weakness will put you at the mercy of those who attack you.

Your words, O Hares! are good; but they lack both claws and teeth such as we have.

The weak will sometimes find ways to avenge an insult, even upon the strong.

A mouse is too weak to fight a lion but too strong for the cords that can holds a lion.

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but Do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test. Do you love me stripped of everything that might be lost, for only the things I will have for ever?

Powerlessness became 'goodness', baseness 'humility', submission to people one hated 'obedience' and, in Nietzsche's phrase, not-being-able to-take-revenge' turned into 'forgiveness'. Every feeling of weakness was overlaid with a sanctifying name, and made to seem 'a voluntary achievement. something wanted. chosen. a deed, an accomplishment.

Alas, Madame Straus, there are no certainties, even grammatical ones.… [O]nly that which bears the imprint of our choice, our taste, our uncertainty, our desire and our weakness can be beautiful.

By connecting to nowhere you must in turn connect to everywhere, in the course of which becoming wise.  Nothing is permanent, but anything is possible.  Everything dies, yet beauty and joy endure. We are incredibly powerful and infinitely weak. Again and again these paradoxes repeat, like colors of yarn in an elaborate woven rug. There

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

The need of those with narcissistic pathology to cling to ideal images of self and others means they do not have access to the dependent aspects of self, and cannot tolerate dependency in others, which is seen as a sign of weakness.

I feel ill," [Howl] announced. "I'm going to bed, where I may die.

It was me—the weak-willed, easily seduced, insecure girl I'd become. I was the obstacle I'd be carrying around with me for the rest of my life.

For no matter how weak she felt, Betsy could wield words as a weapon. When an acquaintance insisted it was impossible to acquire a knowledge of the world without being deeply infected with its vices, she retorted that knowledge was a precaution rather than a trap, "for as soon as [we] have found out where [we] are mostly likely to be overcome, there let [us] place [our] strongest guard.

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.

The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34).[...] Before God and with him we live without God. God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us.

I always have the feeling we are merely fearfully trying to save room for God; I would rather speak of God at the center than at the limits, in strength rather than weakness, and thus in human life and goodness rather than in death and guilt.

They wander on earth and live in heaven, and although they are weak, they protect the world; they taste of peace in the midst of turmoil; they are poor, and yet they have all they want. They stand in suffering and remain in joy, they appear dead to all outward sense and lead a life of faith within.

If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if, on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.