50 Broken Glass Quotes about the Fragility of Life

By Stephanie Kirby

Writer, Entrepreneur and Inspirational quote curator

Published June 24, 2023

These broken glass quotes remind us that life, love, and emotions are beautiful yet fragile.

“Broken Glass” refers to how fragile things like life and emotions are.

Many quotes and phrases use broken glass to symbolize something ending and another thing beginning.

For many people, breaking a glass at the end of a wedding symbolizes the fragile nature of life, encouraging people to live life to the fullest.

Broken glass also can be a reminder of our fragile lives.

For example, you can piece yourself back together after a painful experience, just like putting together a broken glass.

But it’s a slow process; you must repair yourself one piece at a time.

Read these broken glass quotes to see the beauty that can come from brokenness.

Top Broken Glass Quotes

Here are some of the top quotes that reference broken glass.

1. “Broken glass. It’s just like glitter, isn’t it?” — Pete Doherty

2. “She is yet like a diamond on a heap of broken glass.” — Mina Loy

3. “I’m packed with broken glass and memories, and it all hurts.” — Henry Rollins

4. “Wish I could be a fragile piece of glass to accept my brokenness.” — Munia Khan

5. “His broken heart was unfeeling, like shattered glass in an acid bath.” — Pete Townshend

6. “Fortune is like glass—the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken.” — Publilius Syrus

7. “Hearts are like that spun glass, beautiful and fragile, and easily broken.” — Tamara Hoffa

8. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” — Anton Chekhov

9. “Truly, he thought, the way of enlightenment is like unto half a mile of broken glass.” — Terry Pratchett

10. “Friendship is delicate as a glass; once broken it can be fixed, but there will always be cracks.” — Waqas Ahmad

Broken Glass Quotes About the Glass Ceiling

There are many quotes about the belief that women continue to face a glass ceiling that must be broken in the corporate world.

11. “Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor.” — Aldous Huxley

12. “Once a glass ceiling is broken, it stays broken.” — Jennifer Granholm

13. “Glass ceilings have been broken, but more have to be broken.” — Madeleine Albright

14. “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” — Sheryl Sandberg

15. “So if you see a glass ceiling, know that it’s only there so you can shatter it.” — Justin Baldoni

16. “The glass ceiling will go away when women help other women break through the ceiling.” — Indra Nooyi

17. “When one person breaks the glass ceiling, the light shines through, and others can go.” — Elaine Marshall

18. “Aim for the sky, and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling, and you’ll stay on the floor.” — Bill Shankly

19. “Women have broken through the glass ceiling, and they’re now more and more in the power seats.” — Aretha Franklin

20. “Someone’s got to break the glass ceiling, and once it’s broken, everybody else comes clamoring up behind.” — Helen Clark

Broken Glass Quotes About Relationships

Relationships are fragile like glass, leading to many quotes about the connection between the two.

21. “Friendship is like a glass ornament; once it is broken, it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.” — Charles Kingsley

22. “I didn’t think my heart could break any more than it already has. The pieces still inside of me feel like broken glass.” — H.M. Ward

23. “Sometimes, it is like juggling with broken glass because both things are very sensitive and have to be handled with care.” — Kelly Price

24. “Picking up the pieces of a broken relationship is like gathering up shards of glass with bear hands and eyes closed.” — Michael Faudet

25. “He was the one she was doing all this for, but sometimes she missed him so much it felt like she swallowed broken glass.” — Cassandra Clare

26. “Relationship are like glasses, once it’s broken it never be like before, as broken glass remain with the broken piece stains ever…” — Debolina Bhawal

27. “Relationships are like broken glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than hurt yourself trying to put the pieces back together.” — Alex Haditaghi

28. “A bad relationship is like standing on broken glass; if you stay, you will keep hurting… If you walk away, you will hurt, but eventually you will heal.” — Autumn Kohler

29. “Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.” — Derek Walcott

30. “Let us not keep on walking on the broken glass of despair with bleeding words of grief but transcend the viscous discomforts of life and clear out the mountains of clutter in our mind.” — Erik Pevernagie

Broken Glass Quotes About Vulnerability

These quotes use glass as a symbol to show how vulnerable we are.

31. “We are all broken in some way. But it’s all the shattered pieces that give us depth.” — Adriana Law

32. “I could feel heat pulsing from my daughter’s head, her frantic thoughts whirling like broken glass.” — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

33. “One small crack does not mean you are broken; it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart.” — Linda Poindexter

34. “You want to know if something is morally right? Listen to your stomach. If it sits like broken glass, then it’s morally wrong.” — Ken Bruen

35. “You can’t keep hiding behind your masks of glass. Because eventually, you’re just going to either shatter or completely crack.” — Francine Chiar

36. “I see a sickness in his eyes. They’re broken like mine. Like a mirror with cracks in it, but none of the glass has fallen out of the frame.” — Tara Brown

37. “They made me smooth like porcelain. Inside I was broken glass. Every fragment was piercing me sharp. At every breath, I felt I was imploding.” — Sonia Rao

38. “A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces.” — Vera Nazarian

39. “He was like a shattered stained-glass window: something beautiful that’s broken; a million colors fallen on the ground where no light can get through.” — Glenda Millard

40. “If you’ve never known someone your own age who’s died, you can’t imagine what it feels like. It’s as if you were walking on a glass floor, and it suddenly shatters, and now you’re falling and falling, and there’s broken glass in the air all around you and no bottom in sight.” — Todd Strasser

Additional Broken Glass Quotes

Enjoy these final quotes about broken glass.

41. “I couldn’t tell what flavor it was; it tasted salty like tears, but it was sharp as broken glass.” — Laura Bickle

42. “We’re all a bit like Brother Joseph, piecing together our faith, one shard of broken glass at a time.” — Rachel Held Evans

43. “You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house, and if you got a glass jaw, you should watch yo mouth ’cause I’ll break yo face.” — 50 Cent

44. “What is broken is broken—and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.” — Margaret Mitchell

45. “Our sweet illusions are half of them conscious illusions, like effects of color that we know to be made up of tinsel, broken glass and rags.” — George Eliot

46. “We have already broken all the mirror and glass out of fear that you will forget us and fall in love with yourself once you see what we all cannot stop seeing.” — Kamand Kojouri

47. “Even though on the outside we glittered like gold, inside we were almost as black as coal. Sometimes the glitter people saw only the shattered pieces reflecting among the broken glass.” — Tracy Krimmer

48. “The trouble with rules, though, is that you’ll always be tempted to break one- for the right reasons, due to unavoidable circumstances, because it feels as if there’s no other choice. And once you break one, the rest seem like so much broken glass.” — Stacey Kade

49. “As soon as it’s out of my mouth, I cringe, realizing that it’s probably pretty crappy to complain about your parents to someone who doesn’t have any. It’s like bitching that your shoes are too tight to someone who’s walking across broken glass barefoot.” — Katja Millay

50. “I maintain the importance of an absolute prohibition against torture while acknowledging that even absolute prohibitions can sometimes be broken. If that is a contradiction, it is a contradiction that ethics has to embrace, or else it becomes like glass: hard, clear, but fatally inflexible.” — Julian Baggini