Selected fragility quotes

1. I have occasionally had the exquisite thrill of putting my finger on a little capsule of truth, and heard it give the faint squeak of mortality under my pressure.

2. By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

3. Dreams are like paper, they tear so easily.

4. Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out.

5. You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.

6. O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted, Soft silken primrose fading timelessly.

7. A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man's brow.

8. 'We are Fragile, everyone. We all long for something more. Things are said and things are done and the pieces hit the floor. See how fragile.'

9. Nobody dast blame this man. Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back - that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.

10. These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile. Because in a split second, it's gone. These two extremes are feelings that you don't get every day. These are all things which contribute to -how can I say?- knowing yourself deeper and deeper. These are the things that keep me going.

11. What we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event-the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather.

12. I built myself a house of glass: It took me years to make it: And I was proud. But now, alas! Would God someone would break it.

13. 'Broken things are powerful.' Things about to break are stronger still. The last shot from the brittle bow is truest.

14. And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind.

15. Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages. ~ Ch. 3

16. somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence. in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you always open petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose nothing that we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

17. Please is frail like a dewdrop, while it laughs it dies. But sorrow is strong and abiding. Let sorrowful love wake in your eyes. ~ 27

18. Israel was and is breathing only with a single lung.

19. Entre nous, et l'enfer ou le ciel, il n'y a que la vie entre deux, qui est la chose du monde la plus fragile.

20. L'homme est un roseau, le plus faible de la nature, mais c'est un roseau pensant. (347)

21. This became Delacroix's theme: that the achievements of the spirit- all that a great library contained- were the result of a state of society so delicately balanced that at the least touch they would be crushed beneath an avalanche of pent-up animal forces.

22. Life is no more than a dewdrop balancing on the end of a blade of grass.

23. Wild air, world-mothering air, Nestling me everywhere, That each eyelash or hair Girdles; goes home betwixt The fleeciest, frailest-fixed Snowflake; that's fairly mixed With, riddles, and is rife In every least thing's life.

24. Take away the love and the anger, And a little piece of hope holding us together. Looking for a moment that'll never happen, Living in the gap between past and future. Take away the stone and the timber, And a little piece of rope won't hold it together.

25. 'They forget that although our economy has been doing well, it is still narrow and fragile and it will take a long time before we can compete fully with the developed nations.'

26. La passion comblee a son innocence, presque aussi fragile que toute autre.

27. 'A sparkle was in his eye, but his life was in his hand' - 'Tonights the Night'

28. She's too tough to die. No. She's so fragile right now that any blow might kill her. Not her body. Her - trust. Her hope. Don't give her any reason to think you're not with her, no matter what.

29. A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift - A Love in desolation masked; - a Power Girt round with weakness; - it can scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour; It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, A breaking billow; - even whilst we speak Is it not broken? On the withering flower The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

30. Nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum, gremioque hunc concipe molli. Hominis tibi membra sequestro, generosa et fragmina credo.

31. She was always going out on a limb for everyone. Everyone but herself. There was an ethereal quality about her. She had this thing I sometimes wished I'd had, even though I knew that eventually it might be bad for me. Do you understand? She had this kind of beauty and fragility, and you just knew she was bound to get hurt because of it. But still you couldn't help but admiring that quality in her. She was just such a special person.

32. Insanam uatem aspicies, quae rupe sub ima fata canit foliisque notas et nomina mandat. quaecumque in foliis descripsit carmina uirgo digerit in numerum atque antro seclusa relinquit: illa manent immota locis neque ab ordine cedunt. uerum eadem, uerso tenuis cum cardine uentus impulit et teneras turbauit ianua frondes, numquam deinde cauo uolitantia prendere saxo nec reuocare situs aut iungere carmina curat: inconsulti abeunt sedemque odere Sibyllae.

33. My candle burned alone in an immense valley. Beams of the huge night converged upon it, Until the wind blew. Then beams of the huge night Converged upon its image, Until the wind blew.

34. En breu brizara'l temps braus E'l biza, e'l brus e'l blancx Qui s'entresenhon trastuig De sobre claus ram de fuelha.

35. He shuddered at his own fragility. He had thought he was a stronger man than that

36. The wise man warns me that life is but a dewdrop on the lotus leaf. ~ 46

37. Treaties are like roses and young girls; they last while they last.

38. See the Soul Singer in the session band Shredded to ribbons beneath a microphone stand Felt the quickness of pity like a flash in a pan For the Soul Singer in the session band.

39. I'm beginning to feel like a microwaved egg that will explode if anybody so much as breathes onto the surface.

40. How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

41. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

42. Fortuna uitrea est: tum cum splendet frangitur.

43. We lived like that 'Happy Family' you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently.

44. First there's the children's house of make-believe, Some shattered dishes underneath a pine, The playthings in the playhouse of the children. Weep for what little things could make them glad.