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Fragility Quotes

Browse 172 quotes about Fragility.

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Fragility Quotes

“They sit here in the darkness, trusting. That the coffee will be hot and unpoisoned. That no raging madman will come in with a gun or bomb. It leaves him breathless at times, how much faith people put in one another. So fragile, the social contract: we will all stand by the rules, move with care and gentleness, invest in the infrastructure, agree with the penalties of failure. That this man driving his truck down the street won't, on a whim, angle into the plate glass and end things. That the president won't let his hand hover over the red button and, in moment of rage or weakness, explode the world. The invisible tissue of civilization: so thin, so easily rendable. It's a miracle that it exists at all.”

PeopleHumanityTrustCivilizationRulesLawsFragilitySocial Contract
Book:Arcadia
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“Envy and respect are not the same things... Before I endow you with respect, I should find out whether your curiosity is intellectual or merely morbid. Not that those who gawk at train derailments are so different from those who conduct autopsies; both want, at some level, to know what has happened, and, by extension, what will happen. Did the liver fail because of the decedent's alcoholism or was some toxin administered? If the deliverer is found, he or she may be imprisoned or, in more honest times, hanged, and thus pose no further threat. Or for the gawker at the accident, espying loose parts not unlike his or her own parts strewn amid wreckage may lead to a sense of awe at death's power, or horror at life's fragility, either of which may be instructive in any number of ways.”

WantLifeBodyDeathDarkTeachPowerHonestFutureHorrorIntellectualRespectMurderTrainEnvyCuriousVampireFragileLearnDifferenceKillDiscoverMorbidFragilityAccidentWreckageCuriousityAutopsyPartsInstructDerailGawkAutopsiesInstructive
Book:The Lesser Dead
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“Human sanity was a poor, fragile thing at best, she thought. Hatred stupidity devotion greed the four horsemen of the new apocalypse. Yet she loved these wrecked people and wanted to save them from the dark jinn who fed, watered and made manifest the darkness within themselves. To love one human being was to begin to love them all. To love two was to be hooked forever, helpless in the grip of love.”

PeopleLoveHumansHuman BeingsAffectionSanityFragility
Book:Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
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“Youth brought invulnerability, immortality, the unshakeable conviction that for you, things would be different, the laws of physics would cut you a break. The missiles would never hit...Maybe for other people...But not for you. And when youth was lucky enough to survive its optimism, all Miller had left was a little fear, a little envy, and the overwhelming sense of life's fragility.”

LifeWisdomAgeFearYouthFragility
Book:Leviathan Wakes
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“I have a certain amazing genius; worthy of a Nobel Prize I’m sure, and that’s making mistakes. Yes, of course, all of us make mistakes, that’s part of being human, we’re all imperfect. We all make mistakes, and regret things in our past. But we are not only our mistakes, but we are also what we learn from them. Maybe we have to repeat that mistake a few times to really get it. Sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. Sometimes we think we can hide those mistakes by being our own defense lawyers and somehow justifying them, instead of just admitting we fucked up. Sometimes we hurt those we love the most in the worst way. It does not mean we are bad people and cannot ever earn back the trust of those we hold dear. Every mistake we make brings us closer to our own fragility and if we open our eyes, they also illuminate us. Realizing those mistakes might give us a map that opens up a whole new world and shines a light on our journey. Learning something new every day is an ability we as humans have and should take advantage of every day in this lifetime.”

HumanImperfectionIlluminationRegretsFragilityMistakes We MakeConsequences Life Lessons
Author:Riitta Klint
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“[Agribusiness Conglomerates'] growth relies on ripping down circuit breaking, back-up systems, and modularity, and streamlining a system whose major nodes are already too big and whose links are already too strong. It's an accelerating cycle that inexorably destabilizes the system.”

GrowthResilienceEfficiencyFragilityAgribusiness
Book:Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet
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“One may justify the existence of men in power in many different ways. Yet power remains a pernicious thing for what justifies it is inexpiable. Fragility, which belongs to the realm of appearances, is to be preferred to the fractal which is merely the quality of a mathematical object. It is exciting to hear one of your fondest ideas formulated in one fell swoop, better than you could have done it yourself. You feel no intellectual jealousy at seeing yourself outstripped in this way. You only feel jealous when you are overtaken by your shadow.”

PowerJealousyFragilityVoluntary ServitudeLikemindedness
Book:Cool memories
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“Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. They thrive on servility and shrink before independence. They feed upon worship as kings do upon flattery. That is why the cry of gods at all times is “Worship us or we perish.” A dethroned monarch may retain some of his human dignity while driving a taxi for a living. But a god without his thunderbolt is a poor object.”

ReasonScienceAtheismGodsPettyFragilityTheism
Author:Chapman Cohen
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“[...] A diet of constant, stimulating activity is the best prescription for our troubles. It keeps the brain in a state of constant change, flow, confirmation, and anticipation, thereby reducing the noise, fragility, self-doubt, and stagnation with which we all have to contend.”

BrainConfirmationFragilitySelf DoubtA Users Guide To The BrainJohn J RateyConstant Change
Book:A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain
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