Mary Oliver
Poet
"it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world."
Broken quotes
Broken
1.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Alfred Adler
Psychologist
"You can be healed of depression if every day you begin the first thing in the morning to consider how you will bring a real joy to someone else."
Henri Nouwen
Theologian, Author
"Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives."
Charles Dickens
Novelist
"I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."
Rumi
Poet, Philosopher
"Don't dismiss the heart, even if it's filled with sorrow. God's treasures are buried in broken hearts."
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"Love can melt the hardest heart, heal the wounds of the broken heart and quiet the fears of the anxious heart."
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"Art is to console those who are broken by life."
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"In every treaty, insert a clause which can easily be violated, so that the entire agreement can be broken in case the interests of the State make it expedient to do so."
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"It's the notion that there is no perfection - that there is a broken world and we live with broken hearts and broken lives but still there is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say hallelujah under those circumstances."
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"I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy as long as I can paint."
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"We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent."
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"Words can bruise and break hearts, and minds as well. There are no black and blue marks, no broken bones to put in plaster casts, and therefore no prison bars for the offender."
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"For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people's faces."
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"The elevator to success is broken, take the stairs."
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"I think in life everyone needs to be broken in some way."
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"But simply punishing the broken--walking away from them or hiding them from sight--only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity."
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"From the sun did I learn this, when it goeth down, the exuberant one: gold doth it then pour into the sea, out of inexhaustible riches, -So that the poorest fisherman roweth even with golden oars! For this did I once see, and did not tire of weeping in beholding it. - Like the sun will also Zarathustra go down: now sitteth he here and waiteth, old broken tables around him, and also new tables half-written."
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"Don't trust the person who has broken faith once."
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"We're stronger in the places that we've been broken."
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"Spoken of the young Archimedes: . . . [he] was as much enchanted by the rudiments of algebra as he would have been if I had given him an engine worked by steam, with a methylated spirit lamp to heat the boiler; more enchanted, perhaps for the engine would have got broken, and, remaining always itself, would in any case have lost its charm, while the rudiments of algebra continued to grow and blossom in his mind with an unfailing luxuriance. Every day he made the discovery of something which seemed to him exquisitely beautiful; the new toy was inexhaustible in its potentialities."
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"Who are we? We're not perfect but we're not worthless. Scripture tells us that we're beautifully made, but broken."
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"We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."
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"Many promising reconciliations have broken down because while both parties come prepared to forgive, neither party come prepared to be forgiven."
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"I dont want a broken heart because Ill lose the pieces."
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"For the last 30 years, I've been leading a life of crime and international intrigue that's involved 40 stamps in my passport, love affairs, and broken hearts to go with each one of them. You would have to live three lifetimes to catch up with just the allegations that follow me!"
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