Quotes about Fragility

All those hopes placed in such a precarious vessel.

The mind is the only thing about human beings that's worth anything. Why does it have to be tied to a bag of skin, blood, hair, meat, bones and tubes? No wonder people can't get anything done, stuck for life with a parasite that has to be stuffed with food and protected from weather and germs all the time. And the fool thing wears out anyway—no matter how much you stuff and protect it! —Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

Blossoming flowers look beautiful before they're cut or picked, but without soil or water they wither more quickly than grass.

Contingent faith is the faith of sidewalk chalk: it's beautiful when the sun shines, but washes away when the rain falls.

We have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

it is likely that each one of us has experienced God's miraculous healing any number of times without knowing it—every day that our fragile tents of flesh hold together.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. ISAIAH 40:8

First poems! They must be written on casual scraps of faded paper, interspersed here and there with withered flowers, or a lock of blond hair, or a discolored piece of ribbon, and the trace of a tear must still be visible in several places ... But first poems that are printed, in livid black and white, on dreadfully smooth paper are poems that have lost the finest points of their sweet, virginal charm, and now arouse a ghastly feeling of distaste in the author.

Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

In the human heart there is a built-in obsolescence factor. It does not matter how powerful and influential you are, how much education you have, how selfcontrolled or holy you consider yourself—your heart, if you do not guard it, will break down.

All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a "distant country.