A Quote by Edith Wharton

No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity.

Edith Wharton

Quote Topics

Frail Human Insect Nest Sustain Those Threads Vanity Weight Which Will

Quote Author

Edith Wharton
American - Novelist
January 24, 1862 - August 11, 1937

As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts, and hide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect.

Henry David Thoreau

And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you’re a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.

Eldridge Cleaver

Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities.

Charles Simmons

He has been positively growing tusks trying to create a breed of human insect which will continue to live on this accursed planet. Everyone needs a goal.

Steve Aylett

I think our lives are connected by threads. We're weaving our own quilts as we go along and it has been my experience that there are so many threads that connect people. Invisible threads, strong threads, sparkling threads, but I think there is so much interconnectivity between people and I acknowledge that and I see it all the time. I think some of that is divine.

Kathy Garver

It is only when our fate hangs in the balance, when our very life depends on something, that we see whether or not we trust that the rope to which we are clinging will support us. If we do not, then we let of of the ledge and swing on it with our full weight.

Margaret George

The Cross will not crush you; if its weight makes you stagger, its power will also sustain you.

Pio of Pietrelcina

Vanity, in a fairy tale, will make you evil. Vanity in the real world will drive you nuts. Vanity makes you say things like “I deserved a better life than this.

Richard Siken

Fruits are always of the same nature with the seeds and roots from which they come, and trees are known by the fruits they bear: as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, that society of men which constitutes a government upon the foundation of justice, virtue, and the common good, will always have men to promote those ends; and that which intends the advancement of one man's desire and vanity, will abound in those that will foment them.

Algernon Sidney

And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

Charles Dickens

In the matter of faith, we have the added weight of hope to that of reason in the convictions which we sustain relating to a future state.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

The human heart is as a frail craft on which we wish to reach the stars.

Giotto di Bondone

He raged for hours. And the skeleton, ever the frail and solelmn philosopher, hung quietly inside, saying not a word, suspended like a delicate insect within a chrysalis, waiting and waiting.

Ray Bradbury

Being a winger or a wide mid, I have to run continuously for 90 minutes, which not only takes endurance but also strength in my legs to be able to be explosive for 90 minutes. I think weight training has really allowed me to sustain for those 90 minutes.

Megan Rapinoe

Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtous, as men become more so; for the improvement must be mutual, or the injustice which one half of the human race are obliged to submit to, retorting on their oppressors, the virtue of men will be worm-eaten by the insect whom he keeps under his feet