Careful Words

weakness (n.)

  It was an amiable weakness.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816): School for Scandal. Act v. Sc. 1.

  Strength is made perfect in weakness.

New Testament: 2 Corinthians xii. 9.

The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become

As they draw near to their eternal home:

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view

That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): On the Divine Poems.