Quotes about weakness

A collection of quotes on the topic of weakness, strong, use, doing.

Johnny Depp quote: “People cry, not because they are weak. It is because they've been strong for too long.”

Quotes about weakness

“People cry, not because they are weak. It is because they've been strong for too long.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

“I don't dislike adversities. What I dislike is myself being weak. I really hate it, but I think being weak means that you have the potential to become strong.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2014
Original: (ja) 逆境は嫌いじゃないので。弱くなってる自分がすごく嫌なんです。それは本当に嫌いですけど、でも弱いというのは強くなれる可能性があると思ってるんで。
Source: Excerpt from a press conference at the NHK Trophy 2014, held on 30 November 2014, aired the same day in ネオスポ (Neospo) on TV Tokyo and 15 December 2014 in News Every on NTV.

Hate, Strong, Thinking

“Only the weak will fall and give up, the strong falls 100 times and wakes up 200 times”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Time, Strong

“Life does not forgive weakness.”

Adolf Hitler book Hitler's Letters and Notes

17 February 1945.
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)
Variant: Life does not forgive weakness.
Source: Hitler's Letters and Notes

Life, Forgiveness

“I hate smiling. It makes me feel weak and powerless and small. I've always been like that; I don't smile in any pictures.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a13040159/billie-eilish-interview/

Smile, Hate, Feeling, Making love

“In other to be a successful leader you must be heartless, heart makes you weak”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Success, Heart

“Sometimes you don't realize your own strength
Until you come face to face with
Your greatest weaknesses.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“My greatest strength is the love for my people, my greatest weakness is that I love them too much.”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

Interview with Sir David Frost on the BBC, 1972.
Quote, Other

Love, People

“Teachers have to be learners. They have to treat each new group of students as a different group, fresh and unknown. Teachers often perceive new students as being the same as those in the previous group and apply the same practice to them. If teachers are learners, they will study the new group of students in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses, then teach them accordingly.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Teacher

Study, Teachers

“The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Source: No Longer Human

Fear, Happiness

“Life is suffering, and suffering can make you resentful, murderous, and then genocidal, if you take it far enough. So you need an antidote to suffering. And maybe you think that you can build walls of luxury around yourself, and that that will protect you from the suffering. Good luck with that. That isn't going to work. Maybe you think that you could build a delusion and live inside that. Well, that's going to fall apart. What is there, then, that's going to help you fight against suffering? That's easy: It's the Truth. The Truth is the antidote to suffering. The reason for that is because the Truth puts reality behind you, so that you can face the reality that's coming straight at you without becoming weak and degenerating and becoming resentful and wishing for the destruction of Being, because that's the final Hell. The final Hell is your soul wishing for the destruction of everything, because it's too painful, and you're too bitter. And that happens to people all the time.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life, Pain, People, Truth

“Smiling makes me feel weak and not in control and not powerful and small. Writing a song is so personal. You have to have trust in someone you're working with; otherwise, you're not gonna come out with something that's really you.”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Source: https://www.wmagazine.com/story/billie-eilish-new-ep/

Personality, Making love, Smile, Feeling

“Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Love

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Sad, Hurtful, Love, Tear

“I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too,”

Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)
Context: I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

Heart

“The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Variant: You have to remember something: Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.

Jealousy

“Dr. Watson's summary list of Sherlock Holmes's strengths and weaknesses:

"1. Knowledge of Literature: Nil.
2. Knowledge of Philosophy: Nil.
3. Knowledge of Astronomy: Nil.
4. Knowledge of Politics: Feeble.
5. Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.
6. Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.
7. Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.
8. Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.
9. Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.
10. Plays the violin well.
11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

Source: A Study in Scarlet

Law, Literature, Knowledge, Appearance

“When the workers of a single factory or of a single branch of industry engage in struggle against their employer or employers, is this class struggle? No, this is only a weak embryo of it. The struggle of the workers becomes a class struggle only when all the foremost representatives of the entire working class of the whole country are conscious of themselves as a single working class and launch a struggle that is directed, not against individual employers, but against the entire class of capitalists and against the government that supports that class. Only when the individual worker realizes that he is a member of the entire working class, only when he recognises the fact that his petty day-to-day struggle against individual employers and individual government officials is a struggle against the entire bourgeoisie and the entire government, does his struggle become a class struggle.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: On the Foreign Policy of the Soviet State

Support, Country

“Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Love

“The distribution of troops devoted to the defence of a place includes a garrison, an occupying force, numerically as weak as possible; a reserve as strong as possible, designed for counterattacking and for providing itself, at the moment it goes into action, with a security service which will guard it from any possible surprise.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 147

Strong

“Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

“My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Attitude, Motivational, Thinking

“It is not great men who change the world, but weak men in the hands of a great God.”

Brother Yun (1958) Chinese christian house church leader

Source: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun

Men, God, World, Change

“What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Antichrist

Sec. 2
The Antichrist (1888)

Feeling, Happiness

“whatever you think that you will be.
if you think yourself weak, weak you will be;
if you think yourself strong, you will be”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Thinking, Strong

“Strength is Life, Weakness is Death.
Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death.
Love is Life, Hatred is Death.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Love, Life, Death

“A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.”

Primo Levi book If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man (1947)
Source: If This Is a Man / The Truce

Wisdom, Law, Country

“LORD strengthen me where I am too weak and weaken me where I am too strong!”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

Strong

“First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.
Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million… despite all this, the Americans are once again trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

1990s, Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (1998)

War, People, Past, Fight

“Of course there are dangers in the present situation, and not only that of dogmatism, not only that of weakening the ties with the masses midway in the great task. There is also the danger of weaknesses. If a man thinks that dedicating his entire life to the revolution means, that in return he should not have such worries as that his son lacks certain things, or that his children's shoes are worn out, or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is entering into rationalisations which open his mind to infection by the seeds of future corruption.
In our case we have maintained that our children should have or should go without those things that the children of the average man have or go without, and that our families should understand this and strive to uphold this standard. The revolution is made through man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit day by day.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)

Life, Children, Family, Shoe

“The love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbor away. … If America had been twice the size it is, there still would not have been enough.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches, p. 75
Sourced quotes

Love, People, Disease, Religion

“Even the wolf has its moments of weakness, in which it sides with the lamb and thinks: I hope it runs away.”

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) Argentine novelist

"El mismo lobo tiene momentos de debilidad, en que se pone del lado del cordero y piensa: Ojalá que huya."
Guirnaldas con amores, 1959.

Hope, Thinking, Wolf

“A manager's task is to make the strengths of people effective and their weakness irrelevant - and that applies fully as much to the manager's boss as it applies to the manager's subordinates”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1990s and later, Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992), p. 139

People

“The vain and weak see a judge in everyone; the proud and strong know no judge other than themselves.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Der eitle, schwache Mensch sieht in Jedem einen Richter, der stolze, starke hat keinen Richter als sich selbst.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 34.

Strong

“I am mindful of human weakness, and I reflect upon the might of Fortune and know that everything that we do is exposed to a thousand chances.”

Scipio Africanus (-235–-183 BC) Roman general in the Second Punic War

Context: I am mindful of human weakness, and I reflect upon the might of Fortune and know that everything that we do is exposed to a thousand chances. But, just as I should admit that I were acting with arrogance and violence if, before I had crossed over to Africa, I were to reject you when you were voluntarily withdrawing from Italy and, while your army was already on shipboard, you were coming in person to sue for peace, so now, when I have dragged you to Africa, resisting and shifting ground as we almost came to blows, I am under no obligation to respect you. Therefore, if to the terms upon which peace was formerly about to be made, as it seemed, you are adding some kind of compensation for the ships loaded with supplies that were taken by force during the armistice, and for violence done to my envoys, I have reason to bring it before the council. But if that addition also seems too severe, prepare for war, since you have been unable to endure a peace [bellum parate, quoniam pacem pati non potuistis]. Reply to Hannibal's attempt to set terms for peace, prior to the Battle of Zama, as quoted in Livy. Books XXVIII-XXX With An English Translation (1949), Book 30, Ch. 31 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0159%3Abook%3D30%3Achapter%3D31 Variant translation: I am aware of the frailty of man, I think about the power of fortune, and I know that all our actions are at the mercy of a thousand vicissitudes. Now I admit that it would have been arrogant and headstrong reaction on my part if you had come to sue for peace before I crossed to Africa, and I had rejected your petition when you were yourself voluntarily quitting Italy, and had your troops embarked on your ships. But, as it is, I have forced you back to Africa, and you are reluctant and resisting almost to the point of fighting, so that I feel no need to show you any consideration. Accordingly, if something is actually added to the terms on which it seems probable that a peace could be concluded — some sort of indemnity for the forceful appropriation of our ships, along with their cargoes, during truce and for the violation of our envoys — then I have something to take to my council. But if you consider even that to be excessive, prepare for war, for you have found peace intolerable. Hannibal's War : Books Twenty-one to Thirty by Livy, as translated by John Yardley (2006), p. 600 Prepare to fight — for, evidently, you have found peace intolerable. Let us make war, since evidently, you have found peace intolerable.

Chance

“If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

"If his forces are united, separate them" is also interpreted: "If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them."
Source: The Art of War, Chapter I · Detail Assessment and Planning

Appearance

“Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day. Love it, respect it, do not sully it, do not hinder it from coming to flower. Love it even when it is gray and sad like to-day. Do not be anxious. See. It is winter now. Everything is asleep. The good earth will awake again. You have only to be good and patient like the earth. Be reverent. Wait. If you are good, all will go well. If you are not, if you are weak, if you do not succeed, well, you must be happy in that. No doubt it is the best you can do. So, then, why will? Why be angry because of what you cannot do? We all have to do what we can.... Als ich kann.”

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) French author

Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)

Waiting, Making love, Bad luck, Flowers

“Being kind
won't
cause you
to look weak
nor
less than.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“The weak fall, but the strong will remain and never go under!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Variant: The weak die out and the strong will survive, and will live on forever
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Strong

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Commonly misquoted, converted to imperative mood, as "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler".
Walden (1854)

Life, Law, Dreams, Confidence

“Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

God

“I can't imagine how anyone can say: "I'm weak," and then remain so. After all, if you know it, why not fight against it, why not try to train your character? The answer was: "Because it's so much easier not to!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Imagination, Fight, Training

“Have this faith that someone is there to take away your weaknesses. Ok, you slipped once, twice, thrice. It does not matter. Keep moving ahead. People take vows never to commit mistakes again. Breaking the vows makes it worse. Surrendering is better”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

People, Faith

“A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Variant: When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.
Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

For women, Strong

“Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Passion

“I cannot waste time in these classes and these books, memorizing the weak assumptions of lesser mortals.”

John Nash (1928–2015) American mathematician and Nobel Prize laureate

Books, Time

“I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Community And Growth, 1979

Success

“My weaknesses have always been food and men - in that order.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

Men, Food

“Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.”

Lois Wyse (1926–2007) American advertising executive

For women, Women, Men

“And St. Francis said: 'My dear son, be patient, because the weaknesses of the body are given to us in this world by God for the salvation of the soul. So they are of great merit when they are borne patiently.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

Source: The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi

God, World, Soul

“The difference between a strong man and a weak one is that the former does not give up after a defeat.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Strong

“It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty (1859)

Men, Strong

“Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it.”

Léon Bloy (1846–1917) French writer, poet and essayist

Auden, W.H.; Kronenberger, Louis (1966), The Viking Book of Aphorisms, New York: Viking Press.

Love, Dependency

“Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows, and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"You and the Atom Bomb" http://orwell.ru/library/articles/ABomb/english/e_abomb, Tribune (19 October 1945)

Strong

“The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit.”

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) Catholic Saint, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits)

No. 325.
Spiritual Exercises (1548)

Nature, Strong, Rage, Heart

“When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Video interview, quoted in Analyzing Leaders, Presidents and Terrorists by Diane E. Holloway page 325 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jc7CY1yV1g8C&pg=PA325, with NPR transcript https://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/investigation/011213.binladen.transcript.html (9 November 2001) 2000s, 2002

People, Nature, Strong, Horse

“To tell the story of how and why we chose to do what we did, no one can ignore the personalities and characteristics of those individuals engaged in making decisions. For military command is as much a practice of human relations as it is a science of tactics and a knowledge of logistics. Where there are people, there is pride and ambition, prejudice and conflict. In generals, as in all other men, capabilities cannot always obscure weaknesses, nor can talents hide faults.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. x.

Men, People, Knowledge, Decision

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.
Political and intellectual functionaries exhibit this depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in their self-serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and even morally justified it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And the decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts and inflexibility on the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed currents which clearly cannot offer resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Variant translation: A loss of courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days...
Harvard University address (1978)

Life, World, Courage, Support

“Without a flicker of hesitatoin I inejected the morphine into my arm. My insecurity, frefulness and timidity were swept away completely; I turned into an expansively optimistic and fluent talker. The injection mademe forget how weak my body was, and I applied myself energetically to my cartoon.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

The Third Notebook: Part Two
No Longer Human

Forgetting

“Yesterday, we were a weak and small country trampled upon by big powers. Today, our geopolitical location remains the same, but we are transformed into a proud political and military power and an independent people that no one can dare provoke. The days are gone forever when our enemies could blackmail us with nuclear bombs.”

Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea

April 15th 2012 speech in Kim Il-Sung Square, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/world/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korean-leader-talks-of-military-superiority-in-first-public-speech.html

People, Country

“I will remain what I am until I die, a hunter, and when there are no buffalo or other game I will send my children to hunt and live on prairie, for where an Indian is shut up in one place his body becomes weak.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Recorded by James M. Walsh, inspector in the Northwest Territory of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, at a conference with Sitting Bull on March 23, 1879. Published in Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. p. 206.

Children, Game

“True character stands the test of emergencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weakness from which the awakening is rude.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“For each of us as women, there is a dark place within where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, “Beautiful and tough as chestnut/stanchions against our nightmare of weakness” and of impotence. These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

"Poetry is Not a Luxury"
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Women, Beauty, Feeling, Strong

“The moderation of great men only sets a limit to their vices. The moderation of weak men is mediocrity.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

La modération des grands hommes ne borne que leurs vices. La modération des faibles est médiocrité.
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 168.

Men

“The first essential of civilization is law. Anarchy is simply the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny and despotism. Law and order enforced with justice and by strength lie at the foundations of civilization. Law must be based upon justice, else it cannot stand, and it must be enforced with resolute firmness, because weakness in enforcing it means in the end that there is no justice and no law, nothing but the rule of disorderly and unscrupulous strength. Without the habit of orderly obedience to the law, without the stern enforcement of the laws at the expense of those who defiantly resist them, there can be no possible progress, moral or material, in civilization. There can be no weakening of the law-abiding spirit here at home, if we are permanently to succeed; and just as little can we afford to show weakness abroad.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties

Lie, Justice, Law, Home

“If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Planning for Freedom (1952), p. 44

“Peace and love are possible only between equals. The real enemies of peace are those weak people, who, because of their weakness, incite the strong. If we are weak, we commit the sin of disturbing world peace. The real cause of our degradation is our mental weakness.”

K. B. Hedgewar (1889–1940) Founding leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

Dr. K.B. Hedgewar, Quoted from Talreja, K. M. (2000). Holy Vedas and holy Bible: A comparative study. New Delhi: Rashtriya Chetana Sangathan.

Love, People, World, Peace

“love when i lose aobut 100 followers immediately after making a beautiful post. the weak shriveling up into dust. Thats called darwin”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/955933835329462273] Tweets by year, 2018

Love, Beauty

“The terrible situation of the country makes my mind restless and I cannot keep silent. Meaningless ritual keep the Hindus divided in hundred sects. Sop we are suffering from series of defeats. We are tired and worn-out by the fortunes by the internal external enemies. The Muslims are united in religion and rituals. The Bengali Muslims the South Indian Muslims and even the Muslims outside India-all are united. They always stand untied in face of danger. The broken and divided Hindus will not be able to combat them. Days are coming when the Hindus will be again humiliated by the Muslims. "You are a mother of children, one day you will die, passing the future of Hindus society on the weak shoulders of your children, but think about their future."”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

From the letter to Hemantabala Sarkar, written on 16the October, 1933, quoted in Bengali weekly `Swastika', 21-6-1999 http://hindusamhati.blogspot.com/2013/05/thoughts-of-rabindranath-tagore-on.html

Children, Religion, Thinking, Suffering

“If you are not capable of cruelty, then you are absolutely a victim of anyone who is. For those who are exceedingly agreeable, there is a part of them crying out for the incorporation of the monster within them, which is what gives them strength of character and self-respect, because it is impossible to respect yourself until you grow teeth. And if you grow teeth, you realize that you're somewhat dangerous, or seriously dangerous. Then you might be more willing to demand that you treat yourself with respect and that other people do the same thing. That doesn't mean that being cruel is better than not being cruel. What it means is that being able to be cruel, and then not being cruel, is better than not being able to be cruel, because in the first case you're nothing but weak and naive, and in the second case you're dangerous but you have it under control. If you're competent at fighting, it actually decreases the probability that you're going to have to fight, because when someone pushes you you'll be able to respond with confidence, and with any luck a reasonable show of confidence, which is a show of dominance, will be enough to make the bully back off.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLc_MC7NQek&t=0s "2017 Personality 04/05: Heroic and Shamanic Initiations"

People, Confidence, Fight, Parting

“Inefficiency is a curse; and no good intention atones for weakness of will and flabbiness of moral, mental, and physical fiber”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)
Context: Yet surely it is the duty of every public man to try to make all of us keep in mind, and practice, the moralities essential to the welfare of the American people. It is of vital concern to the American people that the men and women of this great Nation should be good husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters; that we should be good neighbors, one to another, in business and in social life; that we should each do his or her primary duty in the home without neglecting the duty to the State; that we should dwell even more on our duties than on our rights; that we should work hard and faithfully; that we should prize intelligence, but prize courage and honesty and cleanliness even more. Inefficiency is a curse; and no good intention atones for weakness of will and flabbiness of moral, mental, and physical fiber; yet it is also true that no intellectual cleverness, no ability to achieve material prosperity, can atone for the lack of the great moral qualities which are the surest foundation of national might. In this great free democracy, more than in any other nation under the sun, it behooves all the people so to bear themselves that, not with their lips only but in their lives, they shall show their fealty to the great truth pronounced of old—the truth that Righteousness exalteth a nation.

“I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

"The Authority Principle" in No Gods, No Masters : An Anthology of Anarchism (1980) Daniel Guérin, as translated by Paul Sharkey (1998), p. 90
Context: I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.

Law, Feeling, Fish

“A weak ego cannot be dissolved.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

My Way: The Way of the White Clouds (1995)
Context: Only a ripe fruit falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. An unripe ego cannot be thrown, cannot be destroyed. And if you struggle with an unripe ego to destroy and dissolve it, the whole effort is going to be a failure. Rather than destroying it, you will find it more strengthened in new subtle ways. This is something basic to be understood: the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity — only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved.

“My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

1963 interview, used in The Century of the Self (2002)
Context: My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering; that the problem is not to undo suffering or to wipe it off the face of the earth but to make it inform our lives, instead of trying to cure ourselves of it constantly and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call "happiness." There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad.

People, Truth, Suffering

“To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”

Paul of Tarsus book First Epistle to the Corinthians

I Corinthians 9:22 (KJV)
First Epistle to the Corinthians
Context: Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.

Men

“I will be harsh and stern against the aggressor, but I will be a pillar of strength for the weak.”

Umar (585–644) Second Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate and a companion of Muhammad

As quoted in Al Farooq, Umar (1944) by Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Ch. 5, p. 124
Context: I will be harsh and stern against the aggressor, but I will be a pillar of strength for the weak.
I will not calm down until I will put one cheek of a tyrant on the ground and the other under my feet, and for the poor and weak, I will put my cheek on the ground.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,”

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

Stanza 1.
The Raven (1844)
Context: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.