Infirmity Quotes

Our wickedness shall not overpower the unspeakable goodness and mercy of God; our dullness shall not overpower God's wisdom, nor our infirmity God's omnipotence. ~ John Of Kronstadt

Nevertheless, there are many respects, in tiny and contemptible matters, where our curiosity is provoked every day. How often do we slip, who can count? How many times we initially act as if we put up with people telling idle tales in order not to offend the weak, but then gradually we find pleasure in listening. I now do not watch a dog chase a rabbit when this is happening at the circus. But if by chance I am passing when coursing occurs in the countryside, it distracts me perhaps indeed from thinking out some weighty matter. The hunt turns me to an interest in the sport, not enough to lead me to alter the direction of the beast I am riding, but shifting the inclination of my heart. Unless you had proved to me my infirmity and quickly admonished me either to take the sight as the start for some reflection enabling me to rise up to you or wholly to scorn and pass the matter by, I would be watching like an empty-headed fool. When I am sitting at home, a lizard catching flies or a spider entrapping them as they rush into its web often fascinates me. The problem is not made any different by the fact that the animals are small. The sight leads me on to praise you, the marvellous Creator and orderer of all things; but that was not how my attention first began. It is one thing to rise rapidly, another thing not to fall. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

Idiots, the lame, the blind, the dumb, are men in whom the devils have established themselves: and all the physicians who heal these infirmities, as though they proceeded from natural causes, are ignorant blockheads. ~ Martin Luther

As different as Emily Dickinson's parents' life in America seems from that of Sitaram Gawande's in India, both relied on systems that shared the advantage of easily resolving the question of care for the elderly. There was no need to save up for a spot in a nursing home or arrange for meals-on-wheels. It was understood that parents would just keep living in their home, assisted by one or more of the children they'd raised. In contemporary societies, by contrast, old age and infirmity have gone from being a shared, multigenerational responsibility to a more or less private state - something experienced largely alone or with the aid of doctors and institutions. How did this happen? How did we go from Sitaram Gawande's life to Alice Hobson's? ~ Atul Gawande

We must in the end acknowledge the infirmity of our nature ~ Rene Descartes

Most other people, your wife included, with her unerring inner compass, seem to be able to get around without difficulty. They know where they are, where they have been, and where they are going, but you know nothing, you are forever lost in the moment, in the void of each successive moment that engulfs you, with no idea where true north is, since the four cardinal points do not exist for you, have never existed for you. A minor infirmity until now, with no dramatic consequences to speak of, but that doesn't mean a day won't come when you accidentally walk off the edge of a cliff. ~ Paul Auster

The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours, and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves - the creature of habits and infirmities. ~ Isaac D'Israeli

I believe that much of the secret of soul-winning lies in having bowels of compassion, in having spirits that can be touched with the feeling of human infirmities. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering --every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain's senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain's hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the comm ~ Plato

Gracefulness cannot subsist without ease; delicacy is not debility; nor must a woman be sick in order to please. Infirmity, and sickness may excite our pity, but desire and pleasure require the bloom and vigor of health. ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau

For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Power helpeth our infirmity in prayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Life ends our deadness in prayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Wisdom delivers us from ignorance in this holy art ofprayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Fire delivers us from coldness in prayer. The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Might comes to our aid in our weakness as we pray. ~ Leonard Ravenhill

On feeling guilty about lack of 'productivity':
"In a time of infirmity, the illness IS one's work. Taking care of all the disciplines that our health problems require IS the other part of the small daily fidelity to which we are called, beside the faithfulness of being attentive to God. We can be well simply by our diligence in being who we are at the moment."
Marva Dawn, Being Well When We're Ill pg 137 ~ Marva J. Dawn

I have begotten them and I have reared them but I have no comments to make and no advice to give. I do not know if I have done them good or ill. I do not know whether, in their own generation, they will do well or badly; I cannot even guess whether they will build because of me or in spite of me. I know only that they will build elsewhere, and that I have here no continuing city. I can barely live with my children, yet I must shortly and inconceivably live without them. I have hardly known them, hardly begun to walk in the streets of their minds and the gardens of their pleasures, hardly explored with them the city that they are, and already they begin to go their ways and to take my city with them. My exile comes implacably. By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee O Sion. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. I am absurd, I know; but it is the infirmity in which I glory. ~ Robert Farrar Capon

Age, that acquaints us with infirmities in ourselves, should make us tender in our reprehension of weakness elsewhere. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

There is no physical pain, no spiritual wound, no anguish of soul or heartache, no infirmity or weakness you or I ever confront in mortality that the Savior did not experience first. In a moment of weakness we may cry out, 'No one knows what it is like. No one understands.' But the Son of God perfectly knows and understands, for He has felt and borne our individual burdens. ~ David A. Bednar

Let there be no mistake in your mind as to the special character of the man who has come to Christ, and is a true Christian. He is not an angel, he is not a half-angelic being, in whom is no weakness, or blemish, or infirmity - he is nothing of the kind. He is nothing more than a sinner who has found out his sinfulness, and has learned the blessed secret of living by faith in Christ. What was the glorious company of the apostles and prophets? What was the noble army of martyrs? What were Isaiah, Daniel, Peter, James, John, Paul, Polycarp, Chrysostom, Augustine, Luther, Ridley, Latimer, Bunyan, Baxter, Whitefield, Venn, Chalmers, Bickersteth, M'Cheyne? What were they all, but sinners who knew and felt their sins, and trusted only in Christ? What were they, but men who accepted the invitation I bring you this day, and came to Christ by faith? By this faith they lived; in this faith they died. In themselves and their doings they saw nothing worth mentioning; but in Christ they saw all that their souls required. The invitation of Christ is now before you. If you never listened to it before, listen to it today. Broad, full, free, wide, simple, tender, kind, that invitation will leave you without excuse if you refuse to accept it. There are some invitations, perhaps, which it is wiser and better to decline. There is one which ought always to be accepted: that one is before you today. Jesus Christ is saying, "Come! Come unto Me. ~ J.C. Ryle

Her eyes are the first indication of her infirmity, or rather that she resides in more than one world. (Dementia) ~ Stephanie Kallos

Man seems to be a rickety poor sort of thing, any way you take him; a kind of British Museum of infirmities and inferiorities. He is always undergoing repairs. A machine that was as unreliable as he is would have no market. ~ Mark Twain

The conception that growth and progress are just approximations to a final unchanging goal is the last infirmity of the mind in its transition from a static to a dynamic understanding of life. ~ John Dewey

There is no true and constant gentleness without humility. While we are so fond of ourselves, we are easily offended with others. Let us be persuaded that nothing is due to us, and then nothing will disturb us. Let us often think of our own infirmities, and we will become indulgent towards those of others. ~ Francois Fenelon

This is a hard and precarious world, where every mistake and infirmity must be paid for in full. ~ Clarence Day

My opinion is that it is a very extraordinary thing for anyone to be upset by such a topic. Why should anyone be shattered by the though of hell? It is not compulsory for anyone to go there. Those who do, do so by their own choice, and against the will of God, and they can only get into hell by defying and resisting all the work of Providence and grace. It is their own will that takes them there, not God's. In damning them He is only ratifying their own decision
a decision which He has left entirely to their own choice. Nor will He ever hold our weakness alone responsible for our damnation. Our weakness should not terrify us: it is the source of our strength. Libenter gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis ut inhabitet in me virtus Christi. Power is made perfect in infirmity, and our very helplessness is all the more potent a claim on that Divine Mercy Who calls to Himself the poor, the little ones, the heavily burdened. ~ Thomas Merton

It is an infirmity of our nature to mingle our interests and prejudices with the operation of our reasoning powers, and attribute to the objects of our likes and dislikes qualities they do not possess and effects they can not produce. ~ Andrew Jackson

Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Maybe Violet was stricken with colorblindness, the willful inability to distinguish between white and any other color, the only infirmity Americans wished for themselves. But ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being. ~ Michel De Montaigne

There is more beauty in truth, even if it is a dreadful beauty. The storytellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet to the lazy and the stupid and the weak, and this only strengthens their infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar. ~ John Steinbeck

God sometimes afflicts with infirmity of body. Sickness takes away the comfort of life, and makes one in deaths oft. ~ Thomas Watson

When you were dying, Edward quickly discovered, people would let you do pretty much whatever you wanted. So he made some new unofficial decrees:
1. The king was allowed to sleep in as long as he wished.
2. The king no longer had to wear seven layers of elaborate, jewel-encrusted clothing. Or silly hats with feathers. Or pants that resembled pumpkins. Or tights. From now on, unless it was a special occasion, he was fine in just a simple shirt and trousers.
3. Dessert was to be served first. Blackberry pie, preferably. With whipped cream.
4. The king would no longer be taking part in any more dreary studies. His fine tutors had filled his head with enough history, politics and philosophy to last him two lifetimes, and as he was unlikely to get even half of one lifetime, there was no need for study. No more lessons, he decided. No more books. No more tutors' dirty looks.
5. The king was now going to reside in the top of the southeast turret, where he could sit in the window ledge and gaze out at the river for as long as he liked.
6. No one at court would be allowed to say the following words or phrases: affliction, illness,
malady, sickness, disease, disorder, ailment, infirmity, convalescence, indisposition, malaise,
plight, plague, poor health, failing health, what's going around, or your condition. Most of all, no one was allowed to say the word dying.
And finally (and perhaps most importantly, for the sake of our story)
7. ~ Cynthia Hand

The Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The desire of glory is the last infirmity cast off even by the wise. ~ Tacitus

Freedom is a state of mind, mignonne,' he said against her hair. 'My ancestor found it in this room, studying the constellations, even though physically he was a prisoner of his own infirmity. Other men are prisoners of their own emotions, their hearts given in bondage to a woman as cold and remote as the distant stars. ~ Penny Jordan

For myself, I wouldn't have lifted a finger to own a Rolex, a pair of Nikes or a BMW Z3; in fact, I had never succeeded in identifying the slightest difference between designer goods and non-designer goods. In the eyes of the world, I was clearly wrong. I was aware of this: I was in a minority, and consequently in the wrong. There had to be a difference between Yves Saint-Laurent shirts and other shirts, between Gucci moccasins and Andre moccasins. I was alone in not perceiving this difference; it was an infirmity which I could not cite as grounds for condemning the world. Does one ask a blind man to set himself up as an expert on post-impressionist painting? Through my blindness, however involuntary, I set myself apart from a living human reality powerful enough to incite both devotion and crime. These youths, through their half-savage instincts, undoubtedly discerned the presence of beauty; their desire was laudable, and perfectly in keeping with social norms; it was merely a question of rectifying the inappropriate way in which it was expressed. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Many patients imagine that they have tried everything. True, they have used many remedies, but they have never had the cause of their infirmity adjusted. ~ Daniel D. Palmer

Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities. ~ Joseph Addison

Yes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake him. Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool. ~ William Shakespeare

Sins of ignorance or infirmity are to be admonished in a different way than intentional sins of malice of intention. The assurance of forgiveness is not to be offered carelessly by those whose conscience is seared, but to penitents who come contritely to the table of the Lord. ~ Thomas C. Oden

Although you feel tepid, approach with confidence, for the greater your infirmity the more you stand in need of a physician. ~ Bonaventure

Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. ~ John Milton

Thirst of power and of riches now bear sway,
The passion and infirmity of age. ~ James Anthony Froude

Every day that we allow ourselves to take things for granted, every day that we allow some little physical infirmity or worldly worry to come between us and our obstinate, indignant, defiant exultation, we are weakening our genius for life. ~ John Cowper Powys

Our prejudices are like physical infirmities - we cannot do what they prevent us from doing. ~ John Lancaster Spalding

I am not in the least surprised that your impression of death becomes more lively, in proportion as age and infirmity bring it nearer. God makes use of this rough trial to undeceive us in respect to our courage, to make us feel our weakness, and to keep us in all humility in His hands. ~ Francois Fenelon

[ellipsis in source] it is true that the world was made in six days, but it was by God, to whose power the infirmity of men isnot to be compared. ~ Elizabeth I

Instead of ignoring her infirmity, pretending it was not there, he made it seem like something special and endearing. For the first time Pauline felt that her bad foot was an asset ~ Toni Morrison

Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, 'Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf.' Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed. ~ Ludwig Van Beethoven

Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery. ~ David Hume

He worries a lot and often suffers from feelings of self-doubt. He has a natural attraction to the melancholy side of life. He is drawn to the rain, the minor key, and to suffering. Hardship, infirmity, and misery gain his attention and fuel his passion for healing. ~ Sandra Nichols

[The public has] the habit now of invalidating opinions emanating from me by reference to my age and infirmities. ~ James Madison

Worry is the last infirmity of the weak-minded. ~ E. C. R. Lorac

Physicians must discover the weaknesses of the human mind, and even condescend to humor them, or they will never be called in to cure the infirmities of the body. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. ~ Edmund Burke

To constantly have at your side a woman,an unmarried woman,a sister,a wonderful person who is there because you need her and because she can't do without you,to know that you are indispensable to the one you need, to be endlessly able to measure her affection by the amount of presence she grants you and to say to your self, "since she devotes all her time to me,that means i have her whole heart";to see her thoughts,if not her face,to weigh one being's faithfulness when the rest of the world has been eclipsed,to detect the rustling of her dress as though it were the sound of wings,to hear her coming and going,going out,coming back,talking,singing,and to know you are the centre of every step she takes,of every word,of every song,to manifest your own gravitational pull every minute of the day,to feel yourself your infirmity,to become in darkness,and through darkness,the star around which this angel revolves-few worms of bliss come anywhere near it!The ultimate happiness in life is the conviction that one is loved;loved for oneself-better still,loved in spite of oneself.And this conviction is what the blind have.In such distress,to be waited on is to be hugged and kissed. ~ Victor Hugo

God's willingness to answer our prayers exceeds our willingness to give good and necessary things to our children, just as far as God's ability, goodness and perfection exceed our infirmities and evil. ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

He had never been quite certain whether this action indicated courage or infirmity of purpose. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Would that our harsh judgments could be restrained, our impatience checked, our selfishness broken down, our passions controlled, our waste of time and life in worthless or unworthy objects corrected, by the thought that there is One in whose hands we are, who cares for us with a parent's love, who will judge us hereafter without the slightest tinge of human' infirmity, the All-Merciful and the All-Just. ~ Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

It is the infirmity of our nature always to believe ourselves much more unhappy than those who groan by our sides! ~ Alexandre Dumas

We love a saint, though he has many personal failings. There is no perfection here. In some, rash anger prevails; in some, inconstancy; in some, too much love of the world. A saint in this life is like gold in the ore, much dross of infirmity cleaves to him, yet we love him for the grace that is in him. A saint is like a fair face with a scar: we love the beautiful face of holiness, though there be a scar in it. The best emerald has its blemishes, the brightest stars their twinklings, and the best of the saints have their failings. You that cannot love another because of his infirmities, how would you have God love you? ~ Thomas Watson

For years I've wanted to live according to everyone else's morals. I've forced myself to live like everyone else, to look like everyone else. I said what was necessary to join together, even when I felt separate. And after all of this, catastrophe came. Now I wander amid the debris, I am lawless, torn to pieces, alone and accepting to be so, resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities. And I must rebuild a truth–after having lived all my life in a sort of lie. ~ Albert Camus

Thus it is, we sow motions of hatred out of our own impoverished understanding of love. Yet we do so in the name of love. The perplexing precipice of the illusory infirmity. ~ Steven Storm

It is only an error in judgment to make a mistake, but it shows infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

Every phenomenon is a corrupt version of another, larger
phenomenon: time, a disease of eternity; history, a disease of
time; life, again, a disease of matter.
Then what is normal, what is healthy? Eternity? Which itself
is only an infirmity of God. ~ Emil Cioran

(The Francophile and radical John Stuart Mill had noted, not long after the Commune fell, in a letter to an English union leader, "an infirmity of the French mind" - that of "being led away by phrases, and treating abstractions as if they were realities which have a will and exert active power.") ~ Anonymous

On differing perspectives:

"At birth, we're yanked from a warm, safe place and thrust into a world we have no way of comprehending. Childhood is a constant routine of punishment and confusion. Hell we're depressed and misunderstood as teenagers, then frightened and unprepared as we become adults. In midlife, we watch as our youth slowly slips away; our dreams for greatness becoming pathetic memories. Old age brings loneliness, infirmity, and the constant fear of death."

"At birth, we're rescued from a dark, silent place and ushered into a world full of wonder. Childhood is a magical time, free from responsibility. We're curious and filled with energy as teenagers, and then challenged to reach our full potential as we become adults. In mid-life, we watch as our pretensions slowly slip away, our dreams for happiness finally becoming realized. Old age brings wisdom, wonderful memories, and a passionate love of life. ~ Rick Reynolds

That which is asserted universally, by everyone, cannot possibly be totally false. For a false opinion is a kind of infirmity of the understanding, just as a false judgment concerning a proper sensible happens as the result of a weakness of the sense power involved. But defects, being outside the intention of nature, are accidental. And nothing accidental can be always and in all things; the judgment about savors given by every tasting cannot be false. Thus, the judgment uttered by everyone concerning truth cannot be erroneous. ~ Thomas Aquinas

I must confess that I lead a miserable life. For almost two years, I have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to say to people, 'I am deaf.' If I had any other profession, I might be able to cope with my infirmity; but in my profession, it is a terrible handicap. ~ Ludwig Van Beethoven

Mutability is the badge of infirmity. It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing two days alike. Now he is for marrying; and now a mistress is preferred to a wife. Now he is ambitious and aspiring; presently the meanest servant is not more humble than he. This hour he squanders his money away; the next he turns miser. Sometimes he is frugal and serious; at other times profuse, airy, and gay. ~ Pierre Charron

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve. I was made weak, that I might humbly learn to obey. I asked for health, that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity, that I might do better things. I asked for riches, that I might be happy. I was given poverty, that I might be wise. I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life. I was given life, that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for. Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I among all men am most richly blessed.[1] ~ Bryan Chapell

There is an energy which springs from sickness and debility: it has a more powerful effect than the real, but, sadly, expires in an even greater infirmity. ~ Novalis

Are you still to learn that the end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue? ~ Alexander The Great

Think not silence the wisdom of fools; but, if rightly timed, the honor of wise men, who have not the infirmity, but the virtue of taciturnity. ~ Thomas Browne

Would a musician feel flattered by the loud applause of an audience if he knew that they were nearly all deaf, and that, to conceal their infirmity, they set to work to clap vigorously as soon as ever they saw one or two persons applauding? ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Her rage flopped awkwardly away like a duck. She felt as she had when her cold, fierce parents had at last grown sick and old, stick-boned and saggy, protected by infirmity the way cuteness protected a baby, or should, it should protect a baby, and she had been left with her rage
vestigial, girlhood rage
inappropriate and intact. She would hug her parents good-bye, the gentle, emptied sacks of them, and think Where did you go? ~ Lorrie Moore

Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around, building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like silkworms, and is suffocated in it. A mouse in a pitch barrel ... thinks it notices from a distance some sort of glimmer of imaginary light and truth; but while running toward it, it is crossed by so many difficulties and obstacles, and diverted by so many new quests, that it strays from the road, bewildered. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Poverty, many can endure with dignity. Success, how few can carry off, even with decency and without baring their innermost infirmities before the public gaze! ~ Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham

Where there is no rest there is energy.
Where there is no disruption there is normality.
Where there is no profit there is bankruptcy.
Where there is no gain there is insolvency.
Where there is no injury there is safety.
Where there is no team there is individuality.
Where there is no hindrance there is opportunity.
Where there is no injury there is safety.
Where there is no sense there is inefficiency.
Where there is no failiure there is competency.
Where there is no decline there is industry.
Where there is no strength there is infirmity.
Where there is no idleness there is activity.
Where there is no weakness there is intensity.
Where there is no failiure there is industry.
Where there is no leadership there is anarchy.
Where there is no repetition there is originality.
Where there is no increase there is deficiency.
Where there is no ignorance there is capacity.
Where there is no impotence there is ability.
Where there is no falseness there is authenticity.
Where there is no excellence there is mediocrity.
Where there is no mistake there is quality.
Where there is no amatuer there is ingenuity.
Where there is no error there is mastery.
Where there is no defect there is virtuosity. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

If nihilism is the inability to believe, then its most serious symptom is not found in atheism, but in the inability to believe in what is, to see what is happening, and to live life as it is offered. This infirmity is at the root of all idealism. Morality has no faith in the world. ~ Albert Camus

Our reverence for independence takes no account of the reality of what happens in life: sooner or later, independence will become impossible. Serious illness or infirmity will strike. It is as inevitable as sunset. And then a new question arises: If independence is what we live for, what do we do when it can no longer be sustained? ~ Atul Gawande

Men of power are seldom protected from their own infirmities by the men subordinate to them
not even in the sad circumstances of mental exhaustion. ~ Abigail McCarthy

Endeavor to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort 'soever they be; for that thyself also has many failings which must be borned with by others. ~ Thomas A Kempis

Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. ~ Charles Dickens

He shifted his weight, and she saw he was leaning on a cane. It was hard to reconcile this infirmity with the muscled brute he appeared to be, but of course there was no way that strength could compensate for a partially missing limb. ~ Eloisa James

I told them I was but a man, and they must not expect me to be perfect; if they expected perfection from me, I should expect it from them; but if they would bear with my infirmities and the infirmities of the brethren, I would likewise bear with their infirmities. ~ Joseph Smith Jr.

I will do nothing to superinduce sleep by putting myself at ease, or making myself more comfortable; if, however, in spite of my resistance I yield to my infirmity, then I deserve to be laughed at, and accept as punishment the mortification I feel."19 ~ S.C. Gwynne

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character. ~ Dale Turner

Among the Spartans all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race. ~ Ernst Haeckel

Whatever situation you are in - be it familiar spirit, generational curses or infirmity - be released, in the name of Jesus! ~ T. B. Joshua

A friend should bear his friends infirmities. ~ William Shakespeare

Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly. ~ Thomas Hobbes

The infirmities of genius are often mistaken for its privileges. ~ Marguerite Gardiner, Countess Of Blessington

I am afraid, ... that health begins, after seventy, and often long before, to have a meaning different from that which it had at thirty. But it is culpable to murmur at the established order of the creation, as it is vain to oppose it. He that lives, must grow old; and he that would rather grow old than die, has God to thank for the infirmities of old age. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

The illusion that egoists will be pleased, or flattered, by interest taken in their habits persists throughout life; whereas, in fact, persons like Widmerpool, in complete subjection to the ego, are, by the nature of that infirmity, prevented from supposing that the minds of others could possibly be occupied by any subject far distant from the egoist's own affairs. ~ Anthony Powell

We're living in an unprecedented day (when) evil is no longer evil. We've changed the terminology
iniquity is now infirmity; wickedness is now weakness; devilry is now deficiency. ~ Leonard Ravenhill

...Though it may not be a suitable comment for even this confidential record, I thought, by no means for the first time in such surroundings, what an odd way it was for people of opposite sexes to spend the evening, when, after all, there was nothing ahead that any of us could be sure of but infirmity, illness, and death. ~ Robert Aickman

Anger is a noble infirmity; the generous failing of the just; the one degree that riseth above zeal, asserting the prerogative of virtue. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

The greatest attribute of God is Love. The Tree of Life is located in the very depth of our soul. The most perfect and abundant fruit that grows and ripens is Life giving Love; it is the great healing force in the world. Love never fails to meet every demand of the human heart. The Divine principal of Love may be used to eliminate every sorrow, infirmity, in-harmony, ignorance and all mistakes of mankind. Love is God; eternal, limitless, changeless, infinite. It is the pulse of the world, the heartbeat of the Universe. ~ Baird T. Spalding

Infirmity and misery do not of necessity imply guilt. ~ Thomas De Quincey

We shall, as we ripen in grace, have greater sweetness towards our fellow Christians. Bitter-spirited Christians may know a great deal, but they are immature. Those who are quick to censure may be very acute in judgment, but they are as yet very immature in heart. He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more; he overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it ... I know we who are young beginners in grace think ourselves qualified to reform the whole Christian church. We drag her before us, and condemn her straightway; but when our virtues become more mature, I trust we shall not be more tolerant of evil, but we shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Haste represented youth's infirmity. ~ S.W. Frank