Crying Is Not A Sign Of Weakness Quotes

Guys always think tears are a sign of weakness. They’re a sign of FRUSTRATION. She’s only crying so she won’t cut your throat in your sleep. So make nice and be grateful.

Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.

The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time. The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is. There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside. Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain. Roman Catholic art. Sweeping front porches, turrets, cast-iron balconies, colonnades- 30-foot columns, gloriously beautiful- double pitched roofs, all the architecture of the whole wide world and it doesn't move. All that and a town square where public executions took place. In New Orleans you could almost see other dimensions. There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again. Chronic melancholia hanging from the trees. You never get tired of it. After a while you start to feel like a ghost from one of the tombs, like you're in a wax museum below crimson clouds. Spirit empire. Wealthy empire. One of Napoleon's generals, Lallemaud, was said to have come here to check it out, looking for a place for his commander to seek refuge after Waterloo. He scouted around and left, said that here the devil is damned, just like everybody else, only worse. The devil comes here and sighs. New Orleans. Exquisite, old-fashioned. A great place to live vicariously. Nothing makes any difference and you never feel hurt, a great place to really hit on things. Somebody puts something in front of you here and you might as well drink it. Great place to be intimate or do nothing. A place to come and hope you'll get smart - to feed pigeons looking for handouts

Clover was on the verge of tears but fought hard to keep them back. Never let them see you cry. Any sign of weakness put them into a feeding frenzy.

We are so happy to have you here,” he said; he didn’t blink. I didn’t know if this was something necessary for a politician, if blinking was a sign of weakness or something. As a result, I began blinking so much that I almost started crying.

Weakness doesn't mean your'e going to cry and crying is not a sign of weakness.

Why do so many men still kill themselves? What is going wrong? The common answer is that men, traditionally, see mental illness as a sign of weakness and are reluctant to seek help. Boys don’t cry.

Because I questioned myself and my sanity and what I was doing wrong in this situation. Because of course I feared that I might be overreacting, overemotional, oversensitive, weak, playing victim, crying wolf, blowing things out of proportion, making things up. Because generations of women have heard that they’re irrational, melodramatic, neurotic, hysterical, hormonal, psycho, fragile, and bossy. Because girls are coached out of the womb to be nonconfrontational, solicitous, deferential, demure, nurturing, to be tuned in to others, and to shrink and shut up. Because speaking up for myself was not how I learned English. Because I’m fluent in Apology, in Question Mark, in Giggle, in Bowing Down, in Self-Sacrifice. Because slightly more than half of the population is regularly told that what happens doesn’t or that it isn’t the big deal we’re making it into. Because your mothers, sisters, and daughters are routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied, harassed, threatened, punished, propositioned, and groped, and challenged on what they say. Because when a woman challenges a man, then the facts are automatically in dispute, as is the speaker, and the speaker’s license to speak. Because as women we are told to view and value ourselves in terms of how men view and value us, which is to say, for our sexuality and agreeability. Because it was drilled in until it turned subconscious and became unbearable need: don’t make it about you; put yourself second or last; disregard your feelings but not another’s; disbelieve your perceptions whenever the opportunity presents itself; run and rerun everything by yourself before verbalizing it—put it in perspective, interrogate it: Do you sound nuts? Does this make you look bad? Are you holding his interest? Are you being considerate? Fair? Sweet? Because stifling trauma is just good manners. Because when others serially talk down to you, assume authority over you, try to talk you out of your own feelings and tell you who you are; when you’re not taken seriously or listened to in countless daily interactions—then you may learn to accept it, to expect it, to agree with the critics and the haters and the beloveds, and to sign off on it with total silence. Because they’re coming from a good place. Because everywhere from late-night TV talk shows to thought-leading periodicals to Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Wall Street to Congress and the current administration, women are drastically underrepresented or absent, missing from the popular imagination and public heart. Because although I questioned myself, I didn’t question who controls the narrative, the show, the engineering, or the fantasy, nor to whom it’s catered. Because to mention certain things, like “patriarchy,” is to be dubbed a “feminazi,” which discourages its mention, and whatever goes unmentioned gets a pass, a pass that condones what it isn’t nice to mention, lest we come off as reactionary or shrill.

Here’s the deal. I’m a girl in a guys’ world, a world where showing any emotion besides rage (or elation after a sweet save or a killer goal) is a sign of weakness. I’ve never (not once) cried on the ice (alone in the locker room after the game? Yeah, a couple of times).

Outsong in the Jungle [Baloo:] For the sake of him who showed One wise Frog the Jungle-Road, Keep the Law the Man-Pack make For thy blind old Baloo's sake! Clean or tainted, hot or stale, Hold it as it were the Trail, Through the day and through the night, Questing neither left nor right. For the sake of him who loves Thee beyond all else that moves, When thy Pack would make thee pain, Say: "Tabaqui sings again." When thy Pack would work thee ill, Say: "Shere Khan is yet to kill." When the knife is drawn to slay, Keep the Law and go thy way. (Root and honey, palm and spathe, Guard a cub from harm and scathe!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee! [Kaa:] Anger is the egg of Fear-- Only lidless eyes see clear. Cobra-poison none may leech-- Even so with Cobra-speech. Open talk shall call to thee Strength, whose mate is Courtesy. Send no lunge beyond thy length. Lend no rotten bough thy strength. Gauge thy gape with buck or goat, Lest thine eye should choke thy throat. After gorging, wouldst thou sleep ? Look thy den be hid and deep, Lest a wrong, by thee forgot, Draw thy killer to the spot. East and West and North and South, Wash thy hide and close thy mouth. (Pit and rift and blue pool-brim, Middle-Jungle follow him!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee! [Bagheera:] In the cage my life began; Well I know the worth of Man. By the Broken Lock that freed-- Man-cub, ware the Man-cub's breed! Scenting-dew or starlight pale, Choose no tangled tree-cat trail. Pack or council, hunt or den, Cry no truce with Jackal-Men. Feed them silence when they say: "Come with us an easy way." Feed them silence when they seek Help of thine to hurt the weak. Make no bandar's boast of skill; Hold thy peace above the kill. Let nor call nor song nor sign Turn thee from thy hunting-line. (Morning mist or twilight clear, Serve him, Wardens of the Deer!) Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, Jungle-Favour go with thee! [The Three:] On the trail that thou must tread To the threshold of our dread, Where the Flower blossoms red; Through the nights when thou shalt lie Prisoned from our Mother-sky, Hearing us, thy loves, go by; In the dawns when thou shalt wake To the toil thou canst not break, Heartsick for the Jungle's sake; Wood and Water, Wind air Tree, Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy, Jungle-Favour go with thee!

never seen Da cry. He tells us that crying is a sign of weakness. That boys don’t cry. That boys should never cry. So we don’t. Ever. Unless we’re in private, when nobody sees. Da

Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, "What am I to do?" But the answer my mind gave--"Leave Thornfield at once"--was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it." But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony. Let me be torn away," then I cried. "Let another help me!" No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.

Now I know some guys think it’s a pussy thing to cry in front of their woman, but that’s bullshit. Crying over the loss of a loved one isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s part of what makes us human.

A memory comes up and you brace yourself. What will it be? Something that makes you cry? So what if it makes you cry? Why do you judge your tears? That’s another lie that someone told you. That tears are bad. That tears are a sign of weakness. Tears are a sign of life and love and like the spring rains that wash away the harshness of winter they nourish and clear the way for regeneration. Tears are a part of life. Sadness and sorrow are a part of life. Are you willing to cut off the life we shared together simply because you do not want to feel your sorrow or the wet tears upon your face?

Many people think less of a man if he cries because it supposedly shows a sign of weakness, but I beg to differ. A man that’s in touch with his feelings is absolutely beautiful! I admire, respect, and appreciate their braveness to be vulnerable. Crying is NOT a weakness. We cannot expect our men to be strong all of the time. That’s SO unfair! They have feelings, too. Don’t ever make a man feel less than just because he cries. Comfort, love, and support him. Show him that you genuinely care.

One is ejected into the world like a dirty little mummy; the roads are slippery with blood and no one knows why it should be so. Each one is traveling his own way and, though the earth be rotting with good things, there is no time to pluck the fruits; the procession scrambles toward the exit sign, and such a panic is there, such a sweat to escape, that the weak and the helpless are trampled into the mud and their cries are unheard.

a counselor interrupted his meeting with faculty down the hall. "Frank, they need you," he said. "You need to go out there." Frank walked the hallway to the nave of the church, contemplating what to say. And again he faced the dilemma of how to act at the microphone. Several of his friends, and staff, too, had warned him not to cry again. "God, you're going to be in the national media," they said. "You can't show that, it's a sign of weakness." He had gotten away with it once, but the media would crucify him if they discovered he was buckling. The trauma specialists disagreed. These kids had been raised in a western mentality, they argued: real men fend for themselves; tears are for weaklings; therapy is a joke. "Frank, you are the key," one counselor advised him. "You're an emotional person, you need to show those emotions. If you try to hold your emotions inside, you're going to set the image for other people." The boys, in particular, would be watching him. DeAngelis felt. They were already dangerously bottled up. "Frank, they need to know it's all right to show emotion," the counselor said. "Give them that permission."... "I walked on that stage and I saw those kids cheering and the tears started coming down." This time he decided to address the tears. "Guys, trust me, now is not the time to show your manliness," he told them. "Emotion is emotion, and keeping it inside doesn't mean you're strong." That was the last time Mr. D worried about crying in public. p117-18

One day over breakfast, a medical resident asked how Dr. Apgar would make a systematic assessment of a newborn. “That’s easy,” she replied. “You would do it like this.” Apgar jotted down five variables (heart rate, respiration, reflex, muscle tone, and color) and three scores (0, 1, or 2, depending on the robustness of each sign). Realizing that she might have made a breakthrough that any delivery room could implement, Apgar began rating infants by this rule one minute after they were born. A baby with a total score of 8 or above was likely to be pink, squirming, crying, grimacing, with a pulse of 100 or more—in good shape. A baby with a score of 4 or below was probably bluish, flaccid, passive, with a slow or weak pulse—in need of immediate intervention. Applying Apgar’s score, the staff in delivery rooms finally had consistent standards for determining which babies were in trouble, and the formula is credited for an important contribution to reducing infant mortality. The Apgar test is still used every day in every delivery room.

It is true. I did fall asleep at the wheel. We nearly went right off a cliff down into a gorge. But there were extenuating circumstances.” Ian snickered. “Are you going to pull out the cry-baby card? He had a little bitty wound he forgot to tell us about, that’s how small it was. Ever since he fell asleep he’s been trying to make us believe that contributed.” “It wasn’t little. I have a scar. A knife fight.” Sam was righteous about it. “He barely nicked you,” Ian sneered. “A tiny little slice that looked like a paper cut.” Sam extended his arm to Azami so she could see the evidence of the two-inch line of white marring his darker skin. “I bled profusely. I was weak and we hadn’t slept in days.” “Profusely?” Ian echoed. “Ha! Two drops of blood is not profuse bleeding, Knight. We hadn’t slept in days, that much is true, but the rest . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Azami. Azami examined the barely there scar. The knife hadn’t inflicted much damage, and Sam knew she’d seen evidence of much worse wounds. “Had you been drinking?” she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. Those long lashes fanned her cheeks as she gaze at him until his heart tripped all over itself. Sam groaned. “Don’t listen to him. I wasn’t drinking, but once we were pretty much in the middle of a hurricane in the South Pacific on a rescue mission and Ian here decides he has to go into this bar . . .” “Oh, no.” Ian burst out laughing. “You’re not telling her that story.” “You did, man. He made us all go in there, with the dirtbag we’d rescued, by the way,” Sam told Azami. “We had to climb out the windows and get on the roof at one point when the place flooded. I swear ther was a crocodile as big as a house coming right at us. We were running for our lives, laughing and trying to keep that idiot Frenchman alive.” “You said to throw him to the crocs,” Ian reminded. “What was in the bar that you had to go in?” Azami asked, clearly puzzled. “Crocodiles,” Sam and Ian said simultaneously. They both burst out laughing. Azami shook her head. “You two could be crazy. Are you making these stories up?” “Ryland wishes we made them up,” Sam said. “Seriously, we’re sneaking past this bar right in the middle of an enemy-occupied village and there’s this sign on the bar that says swim with the crocs and if you survive, free drinks forever. The wind is howling and trees are bent almost double and we’re carrying the sack of shit . . . er . . . our prize because the dirtbag refuses to run even to save his own life—” “The man is seriously heavy,” Ian interrupted. “He was kidnapped and held for ransom for two years. I guess he decided to cook for his captors so they wouldn’t treat him bad. He tried to hide in the closet when we came for him. He didn’t want to go out in the rain.” “He was the biggest pain in the ass you could imagine,” Sam continued, laughing at the memory. “He squealed every time we slipped in the mud and went down.” “The river had flooded the village,” Sam added. “We were walking through a couple of feet of water. We’re all muddy and he’s wiggling and squeaking in a high-pitched voice and Ian spots this sign hanging on the bar.

When everything about a people is for the time growing weak and ineffective, it begins to talk about efficiency. So it is that when a man’s body is a wreck he begins, for the first time, to talk about health. Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims. There cannot be any better proof of the physical efficiency of a man than that he talks cheerfully of a journey to the end of the world. And there cannot be any better proof of the practical efficiency of a nation than that it talks constantly of a journey to the end of the world, a journey to the Judgment Day and the New Jerusalem. There can be no stronger sign of a coarse material health than the tendency to run after high and wild ideals; it is in the first exuberance of infancy that we cry for the moon. None

Prayer is one of the few spiritual practices that is pointless unless God is real. Meditation calms the body whether or not there's a spiritual being receiving our deliberate breathing and clear mind. Reading sacred texts aligns us with the wisdom of our ancestors whether or not it was divinely inspired. Church attendance connects us to the needs of our community. Fasting cleanses the body of toxic substances. Resting on Sundays allows us to let go of stress and worry. But prayer? Taking time to pour out our needs and our anxieties, demanding change, confessing sin, crying out for help - all of these things depend upon the existence of God, and specifically the existence of a God who hears and responds to our cries. Prayer in the face of insurmountable problems is an admission of weakness and need. Prayer is a commitment to a better future, a sign of faith that the world will one day be made right. Prayer is an act that emerges out of helplessness. Prayer is an act of hope.

Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him, it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting room, as the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves as if he were going to wield a crowbar or sledge-hammer. It was necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin, and when he did begin he made every down-stroke so slowly that it might have been six feet long, while at every up-stroke I could hear his pen spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of him where it was not and constantly dipped his pen into space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block, but on the whole he got on very well indeed, and when he had signed his name, and had removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his performance from various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded satisfaction.

Many people think that crying is a sign of weakness, they're wrong - it is a sign of healing.

Crying is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign that you’ve been strong for too long. It’s time to let go.

Cracking the Crying Code Sure, crying is a baby’s only form of communication—but that doesn’t mean you’ll always know exactly what he or she is trying to say. Not to worry. This cheat sheet can help you figure out what those whimpers, wails, and shrieks really mean: “I’m hungry.” A short and low-pitched cry that rises and falls rhythmically and has a pleading quality to it (as in “Please, please feed me!”) usually means that baby’s in the market for a meal. The hunger cry is often preceded by hunger cues, such as lip smacking, rooting, or finger sucking. Catch on to the clues, and you can often avoid the tears. “I’m in pain.” This cry begins suddenly (usually in response to something unexpectedly painful—for instance, the jab of a needle at shot time) and is loud (as in ear-piercing), panicked, and long (with each wail lasting as long as a few seconds), leaving the baby breathless. It’s followed by a long pause (that’s baby catching his or her breath, saving up for another chorus) and then repeated, long, high-pitched shrieks. “I’m bored.” This cry starts out as coos (as baby tries to get a good interaction going), then turns into fussing (when the attention he or she is craving isn’t forthcoming), then builds to bursts of indignant crying (“Why are you ignoring me?”) alternating with whimpers (“C’mon, what’s a baby got to do to get a cuddle around here?”). The boredom cry stops as soon as baby is picked up or played with. “I’m overtired or uncomfortable.” A whiny, nasal, continuous cry that builds in intensity is usually baby’s signal that he or she has had enough (as in “Nap, please!” or “Clean diaper, pronto!” or “Can’t you see I’ve had it with this infant seat?”). “I’m sick.” This cry is often weak and nasal sounding, with a lower pitch than the “pain” or “overtired” cry—as though baby just doesn’t have the energy to pump up the volume. It’s often accompanied by other signs of illness and changes in the baby’s behavior (for example, listlessness, refusal to eat, fever, and/or diarrhea). There’s no sadder cry in baby’s repertoire or one that tugs harder at parental heartstrings than the “sick” cry.

Tears are not a sign of weakness, Chas. They’re a sign of caring and love. They’re also a sign of strength, because if you cannot cry, it means you don’t have a soul to cleanse.

Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive. ― Charlotte Brontë

Crying is not about being weak. It is a sign of being human. Always wear your Life on your sleeve and do not fear being vulnerable. When you are yourself, when you are authentic, a lot of love, compassion, blessings and support always come your way.

If outrage were a sign of godliness, then the devil would be the godliest soul in the cosmos. He, after all, rages and roars “because he knows his time is short” (Rev. 12:12). Contrast that with the Lord Jesus who does not “quarrel or cry aloud” (Matt. 12:19). Why is this so? It’s because the devil has no mission apart from killing and destroying and accusing and slandering. And it’s because the devil is on the losing side of history. The challenge of the next generation is to cultivate a convictional kindness in our witness as we address the outside world. This kindness is not weak or passive. In fact, kindness is an act of warfare.

THE FIRST CRY Humans, according to the philosopher Kant, are the only species to emit a sound at birth-one reason, perhaps, that the newborn baby's cries have been invested with such purity, innocence, and almost mystical power. Hegel, on the other hand, thought the first cry reflected the 'horror of the spirit, at its subjection to nature'. The reality is more prosaic. The first audible cry clears the respiratory tract of mucus for the first breath. It's also an instinctive reaction to a shocking change of temperature, light, and air. Immediately after being born, healthy newborn babies everywhere produce an almost identical reflex cry-one which, intriguingly, matches the frequency of the international standard tone for tuning musical instruments. So essential is the first cry as a sign of independent life that, if it is absent, a baby is often-still today-slapped into producing it. The pitch, tone, and dynamic strength of the cry are assessed within one minute of the infant entering the world, and then again at five minutes. The APGAR scale judges health, allocating two points for a good strong cry, but only one for a weak (whimpering or grunting) one.

He had never talked to her this way before, his soft voice underlaid with with steel. Amanda had no choice but to believe him. She wanted to rail and scream, her frustration escalating to an unbearable pitch. To her utter self-disgust, she found herself near tears, like the witless heroines of the sensation novels she had always enjoyed making jest of. Her mouth trembled as she struggled to control her explosive emotions. Jack saw that sign of weakness, and something in his face relaxed. "Don't cry. There is no need for tears, mhuirnin," he said in a gentler tone.

Crying was a sign of weakness. She would not be weak. Not in front of him. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, forcing back the tears. Once she had herself under control, she took a shuddering breath and moved to the side of the bed where a chair had been pulled

Each one is traveling his own way ad though the earth be rotting with good things, there is no time to pluck the fruits; the procession scrambles toward the exit sign, and such a panic is there, such a sweat to escape, that the weak and the helpless are trampled into the mud and their cries are unheard.

Sorry.” I sniffed again, wiping the corner of my eye. “Why are you apologizing for crying?” “Because it’s weak.” He scoffed. “Showing emotion is a sign of strength, Harper. Too many people hide how they feel.” “Why do you think that is?” “Because they’re scared of the consequences of showing how they feel,” he whispered, looking away.

Oh God!” Leigh cried out with pain, and then snapped bitterly, “Why do we women have to have the babies? Men should have them. What did we ever do to deserve this?” “Eve ate the apple,” Justin responded, braking and shifting the van into park. “Shut up, Justin, or I swear I’ll shove an apple up your—” “Ow, ow, ow,” Valerie cried out as Leigh nearly pulverized the bones in her fingers. “Sorry,” Leigh muttered, releasing her fingers. “I was trying not to squeeze too tight.” “That’s okay,” Valerie said weakly. “I’ll go get Etienne and Rachel,” Justin announced, opening the door. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to get Leigh in the house without help.” “That’s because I’m a beached whale,” Leigh moaned, suddenly sounding teary. “No, honey,” Valerie said quickly. “He’s just worried about you having a contraction while we’re walking you in. It’s better if we have someone to help us carry you in.” Leigh snorted with disbelief, all sign of tears gone and irritation in their place again. “Justin could carry me with one hand. He’s just scared I’ll bite him or something.

She hates when she cries; sees it as a sign of weakness. I see it as a sign of truth. Strength. Resilience. Bravery.

Damn it. I hate crying almost as much as I hate bleeding. They’re both signs of weakness, and I can’t afford either one.

Weakness doesn't mean you’re going to cry, and crying is not a sign of weakness.

It was a mistake to think of them. He felt a sob rise in his throat and swallowed it down; he could not see his plate. He could not cry. There was no chance he would be treated with compassion. Dap was not Mother. Any sign of weakness would tell the Stilsons and Peters that this boy could be broken. Ender did what he always did when Peter tormented him. He began to count doubles. One, two, four, ...He tried doubling again and lost it...It was gone. Start over again. All the doubling he could hold. The pain was gone. The tears were gone. He would not cry. ... The touch of kindness in this frightening place was enough to push someone over the edge into tears.

It was a mistake to think of them. He felt a sob rise in his throat and swallowed it down; he could not see his plate. He could not cry. There was no chance he would be treated with compassion. Dap was not Mother. Any sign of weakness would tell the Stilsons and Peters that this boy could be broken. Ender did what he always did when Peter tormented him. He began to count doubles. One, two, four, ...He tried doubling again and lost it...It was gone. Start over again. All the doubling he could hold. The pain was gone. The tears were gone. He would not cry. ... The touch of kindness in this frightening place was enough to push someone over the edge into tears. "His isolation can't be broken. He can never believe that anyone will ever help him out, ever. If he once thinks there's an easy way out, he's wrecked." "You're right. That would be terrible, if he believed he had a friend." "He can have friends. It's parents he can't have. Ender Wiggin is ten times smarter and stronger than I am. What I'm doing to him will bring out his genius. If I had to go through it myself, it would crush me.[. . . ]Ender Wiggin must believe that no matter what happens, no adult will ever, ever step in to help him in any way. He must believe to the core of his soul, that he can only do what he and the other children work out for themselves. If he does not believe that, he will never reach the peak of his abilities.

In my community, crying is a sign of weakness, and I could be targeted for being weak, so early on I had to mask my sadness with aggression and learning how to fight,

Dear Friend, Recently I have suffered a devastating loss. I am grieving, and it will take months and even years to recover from this loss. I wanted to let you know that I will cry from time to time. I don’t apologize for my tears since they are not a sign of weakness or a lack of faith. They are God’s gift to me to express the extent of my loss, and they are also a sign that I am recovering. At times you may see me angry for no apparent reason. Sometimes I’m not sure why. All I know is that my emotions are intense because of my grief. If I don’t always make sense to you, please be forgiving and patient with me. And if I repeat myself again and again, please accept this as normal. More than anything else, I need your understanding and your presence. You don’t always have to know what to say or even say anything if you don’t know how to respond. Your presence and a touch or hug lets me know you care. Please don’t wait for me to call you, since sometimes I am too tired or tearful to do so. If I tend to withdraw from you, please don’t let me do that. I need you to reach out to me for several months. Pray for me that I would come to see meaning in my loss someday and that I would know God’s comfort and love. It does help to let me know that you are praying for me. If you have experienced a similar type of loss, please feel free to share it with me. It will help, rather than cause me to feel worse. And don’t stop sharing if I begin to cry. It’s all right, and any tears you express as we talk are alright, too. This loss is so painful, and right now it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen to me. But I will survive and eventually recover. I cling to that knowledge, even though there have been times when I didn’t feel it. I know that I will not always feel as I do now. Laughter and joy will emerge once again someday. Thank you for caring about me. Thank you for listening and praying. Your concern comforts me and is a gift for which I will always be thankful.26

As a boy growing up in Tennessee, you learned never to cry where anyone else could see. Crying was a sign of weakness. When we were kids, tears made the other boys around us brave.

Most of what we think of as traditional or natural gender roles are actually constructed by our society, and often almost totally arbitrary. For instance, our culture is actually the exception for thinking that it’s unmanly to cry. Japanese samurai, medieval heroes, and even Beowulf himself cried like babies throughout their adventures. As recently as the nineteenth century, male tears were actually celebrated as a sign of honesty, integrity, and strength. And not in the “You’re brave enough to show your weakness” way, but just as a symbol that you actually gave a crap. Odysseus (the guy who killed a Cyclops and frickin’ won the Trojan War) would break down into tears periodically, at least once just because he listened to an emotional song. 3.D

ON THE WAY back I thought about tears. Our culture says that men must be strong and that the strength of a man in sorrow is to be seen in his tearless face. Tears are for women. Tears are signs of weakness and women are permitted to be weak. Of course it’s better if they too are strong. But why celebrate stoic tearlessness? Why insist on never outwarding the inward when that inward is bleeding? Does enduring while crying not require as much strength as never crying? Must we always mask our suffering? May we not sometimes allow people to see and enter it? I mean, may men not do this?

Take some time to wonder aloud with your kids about tears, encouraging them to think deeply and question the common narrative that tears are a sign of weakness. Here are some starter questions, all of which are meant to promote thoughtfulness, not answers: “What do you think tears tell us? Are tears good, or bad, or neither good nor bad—maybe they just are? Did you know that tears release stress from our bodies? Isn’t that interesting? There are some people who don’t like to cry. I wonder why? Can boys and girls cry? Can adults and kids cry? Can men and women cry? Is it more okay for girls or boys to cry or okay for both? Why? How did you learn that?

The only reason I have alluded to this is that the ascetic ideal has, for the present, even in the most spiritual sphere, only one type of real enemy and injurer: these are the comedians of this ideal – because they arouse mistrust. Everywhere else where spirit is at work in a rigorous, powerful and honest way, it now completely lacks an ideal – the popular expression for this abstinence is ‘atheism’ –: except for its will to truth. But this will, this remnant of an ideal, if you believe me, is that ideal itself in its strictest, most spiritual formulation, completely eso- teric, totally stripped of externals, and thus not so much its remnant as its kernel. Unconditional, honest atheism (– its air alone is what we breathe, we more spiritual men of the age!) is therefore not opposed to the ascetic ideal as it appears to be; instead, it is only one of the ideal’s last phases of development, one of its final forms and inherent logical conclusions, – it is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of a two-thousand-year discipline in truth-telling, which finally forbids itself the lie entailed in the belief in 127 ‘the religion of suffering’. 118 Third essay God. (The same process of development in India, completely independ- ently, which therefore proves something; the same ideal forcing the same conclusion; the decisive point was reached five centuries before the European era began, with Buddha or, more precisely: already with the Sankhya philosophy subsequently popularized by Buddha and made into a religion.) What, strictly speaking, has actually conquered the Christian God? The answer is in my Gay Science (section 357):128 ‘Christian moral- ity itself, the concept of truthfulness which was taken more and more seriously, the confessional punctiliousness of Christian conscience, trans- lated and sublimated into scientific conscience, into intellectual rigour at any price. Regarding nature as though it were a proof of God’s goodness and providence; interpreting history in honour of divine reason, as a con- stant testimonial to an ethical world order and ethical ultimate purpose; explaining all one’s own experiences in the way pious folk have done for long enough, as though everything were providence, a sign, intended, and sent for the salvation of the soul: now all that is over, it has conscience against it, every sensitive conscience sees it as indecent, dishonest, as a pack of lies, feminism, weakness, cowardice, – this severity makes us good Europeans if anything does, and heirs to Europe’s most protracted and bravest self-overcoming!’ . . . All great things bring about their own demise through an act of self-sublimation: that is the law of life, the law of necessary ‘self-overcoming’ in the essence of life, – the lawgiver himself is always ultimately exposed to the cry: ‘patere legem, quam ipse tulisti’.129 In this way, Christianity as a dogma was destroyed by its own morality, in the same way Christianity as a morality must also be destroyed, – we stand on the threshold of this occurrence. After Christian truthfulness has drawn one conclusion after another, it will finally draw the strongest con- clusion, that against itself; this will, however, happen when it asks itself, ‘What does all will to truth mean?’ . . . and here I touch on my problem again, on our problem, my unknown friends (– because I don’t know of any friend as yet): what meaning does our being have, if it were not that that will to truth has become conscious of itself as a problem in us? . . . Without a doubt, from now on, morality will be destroyed by the will to truth’s becoming-conscious-of-itself: that great drama in a hundred acts reserved for Europe in the next two centuries, the most terrible, most questionable drama but perhaps also the one most rich in hope . . .

But the cry from Fawkes tells us that this is about healing and second chances. Slughorn once let his weakness cloud his judgment with fatal consequences he never intended. He enjoyed being flattered by a rising star and ignored the signs that he should have been more circumspect. Similarly, Dumbledore ignored signs of Grindelwald’s evil and his sister died for it. Snape joined a hate group and Lily died for it. Dumbledore is saying, then, that Phineas Nigellus Black has never been responsible for anyone’s death and wouldn’t understand the immobilizing shame.

The worst thing I can tell you is to be a man. Be a man means man up, act tough, take it like a man, have no emotions, make sure to lead, dominant, never submit, be strong, suck it up and don't you dare cry because it's a sign of weakness. When in truth, it takes courage to cry; faking a smile is easy. I tell my man to cry, and I will cry with him; laugh, and I will laugh with him; yell, and I will yell on top of the roof with him, we will rebuild even if we lose everything. He knows not to "be a man" around me other than himself.

In addition to the tamping down of our intelligence and sexuality, these women were not supposed to cry about any of it. To deal, we were only supposed to sneak sips of cognac from the flasks held in our bosoms. Or maybe take an extra one of those white pills with the number ten on the back. Or stuff our faces with that three-piece dark chicken on white bread with extra hot sauce. We were supposed to do whatever it took to silence that part of ourselves that wanted both Jesus and liberty. There was no room for mourning the station in life we’d accepted. Any emotional expression of our pain was a sign of weakness or rebellion. So we saved our tears for high worship because, at least then, we knew God could bottle them up.

You have been told your whole life to be a man. Showing emotions is a sign of a weak man. Crying is not an option as a man. Act tough and be strong—that's a man. When in truth, it takes courage to cry; faking a smile is easy. I can’t imagine being a man.