Weakness

“ We are at once about to take to our legs, when, turning round, we see something under a middle-sized man, looking over our head. On this we feel our safety, and triumph in the glory of five feet one. Something must always be allowed for weakness—something for vanity; which, indeed, philosophers denominate the greatest weakness. ”

“ Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible. ”

“ How could she be, when I was so weak and ignorant of my weakness, feeling myself strong because my strength was untried, and such a life as human life is, such temptations as beset the young, before me. ”

“ I hear you say, reminding me of my own words, "there is no beauty in weakness, and this is weakness indeed!—a sensible man, past the heyday and folly of youth, growing maudlin and sentimental over a bunch of violets!" ”

“ Either I see all the hidden weakness that's in men's natures, and bring it to the surface in their figures, or else I put my own weakness into them. Either way, it's a drawback to their presenting a truly manly appearance. ”

“ The weakness of your body communicated itself to your soul. I do not know what infinite yearning possesses you, so that you are driven to a perilous, lonely search for some goal where you expect to find a final release from the spirit that torments you. ”

“ strength is life, weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery: weakness is death. ”

“ When conscious of our own weakness, and tempted to think of our task as heavy, or when complacent in our own power, and tempted to regard our task as easy, let us think of His ever-present work in and for His people, till it braces us for all duty, and rebukes our easy-going idleness. ”

“ "Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness!
O'er the sons of wrong and strife,
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life? ”

“ To require of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a wish to overpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish to become master, a thirst for enemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require of weakness that it should express itself as strength. ”

“ The weak must bear in weakness, as well as the strong in strength; and the light burden rests as painfully on the back that bends in feebleness, as does the heavy one on Atlas-shoulders. We are too apt to regard those who serve us as mere working machines. Rarely do we consider them as possessing like wants and weaknesses, like sympathies and yearnings with ourselves. ”

“ For weakness in the body is not like that in the Soul: the word weakness, which covers the incapacity for work and the lack of resistance in the body, is applied to the Soul merely by analogy—unless, indeed, in the one case as in the other, the cause of the weakness is Matter. ”

“ The physical weakness which enables us to realize the uncertain tenure by which we are connected with this world is gradually changed into strength, and the power to act brings with it the desire;—and who shall easily set bounds to this desire? ”

“ Few are they who know how to choose between these two extremes—to go or to stay; heaven or the muck-heap. All hesitate. Weakness leads to wandering, passion to evil ways, vice as a habit clogs the feet, and man makes no progress towards a better state. ”

“ At random, and not steer by rule.
Weakness! and worse, weakness bestowed in vain!
Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive;
We rush by coasts where we had lief remain:
Man cannot, though he would, live chance's fool. ”

“ But it always supposes weakness. Under the name of weakness it holds its victim with a firm grasp. While he persuades himself that he has conquered, it secretly spreads through every vein, and eventually lays him prostrate. ”

“ The weakest soul, knowing its own weakness, and believing this truth that strength can only be developed by effort and practice, will, thus believing, at once begin to exert itself, and, adding effort to effort, patience to patience, and strength to strength, will never cease to develop, and will at last grow divinely strong. ”

“ When a nation, which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant, rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease, which, in the absence of excitement, he could scarcely move; he who, under the rage of an insult, attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies, are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?" ”

“ Even that has its end; and you cannot expect to live so long as that. Let the weakness of your body make you strong in soul; be with the Apostle,—‘when I am weak, then am I strong.’ Let the affliction of your body be the gain of your soul. ”

“ Still at the best our weakness is great: 'the corruptible body,' as the wise man says, 'presses down the soul;' and I suppose it is the case with all of us occasionally, and even when we would most earnestly deplore and strive against it, that our thoughts are apt to wander and our devotions to be cold. ”

“ To trust in the strength of God in our weakness; to say, 'I am weak: so let me be: God is strong;' to seek from him who is our life, as the natural, simple cure of all that is amiss with us, power to do, and be, and live, even when we are weary,—this is the victory that overcometh the world. To believe in God our strength in the face of all seeming denial, to believe in him out of the heart of weakness and unbelief, in spite of numbness and weariness and lethargy; to believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream; ”

“ Oh, I am sick of hearing that phrase. Sick of using it about others. Weak? Do you really think, Arthur, that it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength, strength and courage, to yield to. To stake all one’s life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not—there is no weakness in that. There is a horrible, a terrible courage. I had that courage. ”

“ for there are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks, and that which bends. ”

“ Do we fear lest we succumb to a weakness? Then we must force the weakness underneath our feet because we need our strength to give strength to others. Would we say to virtue: Thou art too hard for us; take thy laurel and let us sin? ”

“ How many men are held back by one weak nerve, or organ! How many are shut in, and limited, and just fall short of supreme success because of an hereditary weakness, handed on by the fathers! How many made one mistake in youth in choosing the occupation and discovered the error when it was too late! ”

“ We all have our infirmities; but the weak are more subject to them than others—the weak in knowledge or grace, the bruised reed and the smoking flax. We must consider these; not trample upon them, but encourage them, and bear with their infirmities. If through weakness they judge and censure us, and speak evil of us, we must bear with them, pity them, and not have our affections alienated from them. ”

“ To be tame and unprovoked when injuries press hard upon you, is more than weakness; but to look up for kinder usage without one manly effort of your own, would fix your character, and show the world how richly you deserve those chains you broke. To guard against this evil, let us take a review of the ground upon which we now stand, and from thence carry our thoughts forward for a moment into the unexplored field of expedient. ”

“ I make allowances for weakness, because weakness is the rule and strength the exception. The world gets weaker-willed and more neurotic every day. That’s why one hears so much talk of ‘individuality,’ ‘independence,’ et cetera. ”

“ When it appears that our fate may be determined by a single word which we feel the power of uttering, we can scarcely help thinking that upon our own heads must be all the consequences which may follow; and thinking thus, we must realize our weakness and insufficiency. ”

“ What a profound consciousness of inward weakness and of outward antagonism there breathes in that humble and modest hope, as being the loftiest result of the presence of Omnipotence for our aid: 'I shall not be moved'! When we think of our inner weakness, when we remember the fluctuations of our feelings and emotions, when we compare the ups and downs of our daily life, or when we think of the larger changes covering years, which affect all our outlooks, our thoughts, our plans ”

“ We confess our weakness to any [64] one because that permits us to indulge in it—but when we see in another goodness, strength, virtue, we worship it. You may bind us to you with bands of iron by your virtues—never, as all foreigners think, by your vices. ”

“ And it will be desirable to produce that effect by common topics, such as those by which the power of fortune over all men is shown, and the weakness of men too is displayed, and if such an argument is argued with dignity and with impressive language, then the minds of men are greatly softened, and prepared to feel pity, while they consider their own weakness in the contemplation of the misfortunes of another. ”

“ What would they think—those three hundred speech-tired boys—if some man who had been held before them as exemplary were to rise and lay bare his own life—its weaknesses, its faults, perhaps its crimes—and tell them there was weakness and there was strength in every human being, and that the world-old struggle of life was to overcome one's weakness with one's strength. ”

“ if weakness may excuse, What Murtherer, what Traytor, Parricide, Incestuous, Sacrilegious, but may plead it? All wickedness is weakness: that plea therefore With God or Man will gain thee no remission. ”

“ From my childhood everyone around me taught weakness; I have been told ever since I was born that I was a weak thing. It is very difficult for me now to realise my own strength, but by analysis and reasoning I gain knowledge of my own strength, I realise it. ”

“ In the weakness then of baby limbs, not in its will, lies its innocence. ”

“ It would have been so much in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality; all that makes against our efficiency—the memory of our failures, the hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. ”

“ Yet in process of time, as I have been told, he came to some recovery and confessed this error; an evident proof of human weakness, and a notorious instance of our frailty, when we assume to ourselves the doing of any thing to which Heaven alone can enable us. ”

“ That intangible tendency to weakness, to unhealth, so indefinable, so delicate, so inappreciable to our senses, is yet the mightiest factor in our being, and measures the amount of our physical pains and sufferings with a greater delicacy than we have been wont to think. ”

“ Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels. ”

“ Let our Weakness be what it will, Mankind will still be weaker; and whilst there is a World, 'tis Woman that will govern it. ”

“ On the other hand I should say, if reason be so weak, a body of priests would be weaker, and I am not going to accept their verdict, but I will abide by my reason, because with all its weakness there is some chance of my getting at truth through it; ”

“ I rejoice in weakness, because it makes it easier for me [82] to cling, and, clinging, I am strong, and conquer evil.' Far better is it that the sting of our sorrow should be taken away, by our having learned what it is for, and having bowed to it, than that it should be taken away by the external removal which we sometimes long for. ”