A Summer Evening’s Tale
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
“Frail the white rose and frail are
Her hands that gave”
A Flower Given To My Daughter, p. 11
Pomes Penyeach (1927)
“Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail.”
“Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.”
The World (1629)
Source: "The House of Mirth" http://books.google.com/books?id=plFdLlYHwZ8C&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=No+insect+hangs+its+nest+on+threads+as+frail+as+those+which+will+sustain+the+weight+of+human+vanity.&source=bl&ots=j0EPPhjIZW&sig=MQMjyNy5yKK97Ok4bGqRWfC3obE&hl=en&ei=T5F0TMqyMIuisAOczpyMBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=No%20insect%20hangs%20its%20nest%20on%20threads%20as%20frail%20as%20those%20which%20will%20sustain%20the%20weight%20of%20human%20vanity.&f=false (1905), ch. X, pg. 69
“How frail the human heart must be —
a mirrored pool of thought.”
Source: "I Thought I Could Not Be Hurt," quoted in the introduction to Letters Home: Correspondence 1950–1963 (1975) as Plath's first poem, written at age 14
Vol. 1, Ch 8 "The Philosopher King"
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
Context: What a monument of human smallness is this idea of the philosopher king. What a contrast between it and the simplicity of humaneness of Socrates, who warned the statesmen against the danger of being dazzled by his own power, excellence, and wisdom, and who tried to teach him what matters most — that we are all frail human beings. What a decline from this world of irony and reason and truthfulness down to Plato's kingdom of the sage whose magical powers raise him high above ordinary men; although not quite high enough to forgo the use of lies, or to neglect the sorry trade of every shaman — the selling of spells, of breeding spells, in exchange for power over his fellow-men.
Canto I, XIII
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)
