Quotes About Weak Points

“From what I've seen, it isn't so much the act of asking that paralyzes us
it's what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.
It points, fundamentally, to our separation from one another.”

— Amanda Palmer

“Here lies Morris, a good man and friend. He enjoyed the finer points of civilized life but never shied away from a hearty adventure or hard work. He died a free man, which is more than most people can say, if we are going to be honest about it. Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven't the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren't worth a goddamned thing, you will see what I mean.”

— Patrick DeWitt

“All the masters have those weak points that are called masterpieces; and besides, they do them as crowd pleasers
to prove that they have the know-how.”

— Paul Gauguin

“When you see a good person, think of becoming like her/him. When you see someone not so good, reflect on your own weak points.”

— Confucius

“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. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected .”

— Sun Tzu

“Stop saying that. If you are weak, then what am I? I can't hold onto anything, because I don't even see myself. This is the punishment for evading everything. Afraid to be rejected. A coward who is overly sensitive to the sorrounding reactions. I don't even notice if no one points it out. "You must be very sad". Compared to anyone, compared to anything else, I don't understand myself the most.”

— Jun Mochizuki

“Men who pride themselves on being shrewd in discovering the weak points, the vanity, the dishonesty, immorality, intrigue, and pettiness of others think they understand character. They know only a part of character. They know only the depths to which some men may sink; they know not the heights to which some men may rise.”

— William George Jordan

“As Brother Francis readily admitted, his mastery of pre-Deluge English was far from masterful yet. The way nouns could sometimes modify other nouns in that tongue had always been one of his weak points. In Latin, as in most simple dialects of the region, a construction like servus puer meant about the same thing as puer servus, and even in English slave boy meant boy slave. But there the similarity ended. He had finally learned that house cat did not mean cat house, and that a dative of purpose or possession, as in mihi amicus, was somehow conveyed by dog food or sentry box even without inflection. But what of a triple appositive like fallout survival shelter? Brother Francis shook his head. The Warning on Inner Hatch mentioned food, water, and air; and yet surely these were not necessities for the fiends of Hell. At times, the novice found pre-Deluge English more perplexing than either Intermediate Angelology or Saint Leslie's theological calculus.”

— Walter M. Miller, Jr.

“Anderson's papers and slide shows have become more alarming. Under titles such as "Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous . . . Brutal Numbers and Tenuous Hope," he points out that the chances of staying within anything like safe temperature levels are diminishing fast. With his colleague Alice Bows-Larkin, an atmospheric physicist and climate change mitigation expert at the Tyndall Centre, Anderson argues that we have lost so much time to political stalling and weak climate policies-all while emissions ballooned-that we are now facing cuts so drastic that they challenge the core expansionist logic at the heart of our economic system.”

— Naomi Klein

“Wilbur, as George Spratt once told Octave Chanute, was "always ready to oppose an idea expressed by anybody," ready to "jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up." And as Wilbur himself would explain to Spratt, he believed in "a good scrap." It brought out "new ways of looking at things," helped "round off the corners." It was characteristic of all his family, Wilbur said, to be able to see the weak points of anything.”

— David McCullough

“After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.”

— Edith Wharton

“The weak point in the whole of Carlyle's case for aristocracy lies, indeed, in his most celebrated phrase. Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. But the essential point of it is merely this, that whatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired. And this doctrine does away altogether with Carlyle's pathetic belief (or any one else's pathetic belief) in "the wise few." There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.”

— G.K. Chesterton

“Our enemies are quite good for relentlessly keeping us sharp and on our toes. This especially goes for sincere philosophers. They use their enemies to challenge their arguments so that they can know the weak points in their own reasoning and how to argue for and strengthen their position. There are just none like one's enemies to always look for his mistakes and do it harder than anyone else.”

— Criss Jami

“The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.
...
[But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings.”

— Haruki Murakami

“Listen, Kafka. What you're experiencing now is the motif of many Greek tragedies. Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man. That's the basic worldview of Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy-according to Aristotle-comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex being a great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results.”

— Haruki Murakami

“When I'm criticized unjustly (from my own viewpoint, at least), or when someone I'm sure will understand me doesn't, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer it's like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent. It also makes me realize again how weak I am, how limited my abilities are. I become aware, physically, of these low points. And one of the results of running a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger. If I'm angry, I direct that anger toward myself. If I have a frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself.”

— Haruki Murakami

“This is tantamount to saying, "My hand is weak. I cannot draw a straight line,-that is, a line which will be the shortest line between two given points,-and so, in order to make it more easy for myself, I, intending to draw a straight, will choose for my model a crooked line." The weaker my hand, the greater the need that my model should be perfect.”

— Leo Tolstoy

“When Heaven is going to give a great responsibility to someone, it first makes his mind endure suffering. It makes his sinews and bones experience toil, and his body to suffer hunger. It inflicts him with poverty and knocks down everything he tries to build. In this way Heaven stimulates his mind, stabilizes his temper, and develops his weak points. -The Book of Mencius (Chinese, 300 BC)”

— Timothy Keller

“We have both been given the same wish to survive, We are all, you see, toys of the life-force. It made you numerically stronger, but mentally undeveloped. It made us mentally strong but physically weak: now it has set us at one another, to see what will happen. A cruel sport perhaps, from both our points of view, but a very very old one. Cruelty is as old as life itself. There is some improvement: humour and compassion are the most important of human inventions; but they are not very firmly established yet, though promising well. But the life-force is a lot stronger than they are; and it won't be denied its blood-sports.”

— John Wyndham

“A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points.”

— David Mitchell

“I study you so much to discover the possible flaws, the weak points, the danger zones. I don't find them-not any. That means I am in love, blind, blind. To be blind forever.”

— Henry Miller

“Shut up, Four! she says, and I want to yell back that I'm as frustrated as she is, with an
Erudite vulture analyzing  my every move, searching for my weak points so he can hit them as hard
as he can.”

— Veronica Roth

“He analyses every strategy and asks: "what would I do if I had to fight myself?" He thus discover his weak points.”

— Paulo Coelho

“- You are better, do not worry - she said. - In fact, when we light up our inner light, the first things we see are the cobwebs and dust, our weak points. They were there all the time, only you saw nothing in the darkness. Now it will be easier to cleanse your soul.”

— Paulo Coelho

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion.”

— Franz Bardon

“Weak points or holes in the opponent's position must be occupied by pieces not Pawns”

— Siegbert Tarrasch

“To me, strategy means trying to overcome your limitations and your weak points. To do that, I try to enhance and leverage my strong points.”

— Stan Shih

“Study yourself. Find your strong points and make them stronger as well as your weak ones and strengthen them. Study yourself carefully and you will see yourself as you really are.”

— William Walker Atkinson

“Misfortunes, untoward events, lay open, disclose the skill of a general, while success conceals his weakness, his weak points.”

— Horace

“What will really make you attractive is not working on your weak points but embracing them.”

— Deepak Chopra

“Roughly speaking, any man with energy and enthusiasm ought to be able to bring at least a dozen others round to his opinion in the course of a year no matter how absurd that opinion might be. We see every day in politics, in business, in social life, large masses of people brought to embrace the most revolutionary ideas, sometimes within a few days. It is all a question of getting hold of them in the right way and working on their weak points.”

— Aleister Crowley

“We can stop picking on ourselves for picking on ourselvesWe can cherish ourselves and our lives. We can nuture ourselves and love ourselves. We can accept our wonderful selves, with all our faults, foibles, strong points, weak points, feelings, thoughts, and everything else. It's the best thing we've got going for us. It's who we are, and who we were meant to be. And it's not a mistake. We are the greatest thing that will ever happen to us. Believe it. It makes life much easier.”

— Melody Beattie

“Woman's great strength lies in being late or absent. Presence immediately reveals the weak points of our beloved; when she is absent she become one of the sylph-like figures of our adolescence whom we endowed with perfection.”

— Andre Maurois

“The average woman sees only the weak points in a strong man, and the good points in a weak one.”

— Elbert Hubbard

“There are those who say that temptation can be barricaded beyond the door. The ones who think that stray desires can be driven out of the heart like the moneychangers from the temple. Maybe they can, if you patrol your weak points day and night, don't look, don't smell, don't dream.”

— Jeanette Winterson

“Three points for the dead slowly prising open the lids of their coffins. They want to hunt the living. They can't stop. Their throats have turned to liquid and their fingers glint under the weak autumn sun.”

— Jenny Downham

“Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.”

— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“Meditate on your own and refine your consciousness. Tighten up your life. Constantly examine your life and look for weak points. You know what's going on in your life.”

— Frederick Lenz

“Philosophy is not politics, and we do our best, within our all-too-human limitations, to seek the truth, not to score points against opponents. There is little satisfaction in gaining an easy triumph over a weak opponent while ignoring better arguments against your views.”

— Peter Singer

“About weak points [of the Origin] I agree. The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder.”

— Charles Darwin

“Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they can't hurt you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble.”

— William E. Gladstone

“The China of the 1970s was a communist dictatorship. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. But the measurement of the political and the economic evolution has not yet been completed, and is one of the weak points of the system.”

— Henry A. Kissinger