"The human heart is as a frail craft on which we wish to reach the stars"
About this Quote
The intent isn’t to romanticize emotion but to frame longing as an act of navigation. “We wish to reach the stars” smuggles in ambition, even hubris, yet the craft is “frail,” implying that desire alone doesn’t grant safe passage. That tension is the engine: aspiration doesn’t cancel precarity; it heightens it. Giotto’s era was saturated with cosmic order - a heaven mapped above a brutal, contingent earthly life. The subtext is that transcendence is not guaranteed, and the materials we have to attempt it (love, devotion, conscience, imagination) are breakable.
Context matters: in the wake of new urban wealth, Franciscan spirituality, and a growing attention to individual interiority, Giotto’s world was learning to take personal feeling seriously without trusting it completely. The quote lands like a painter’s manifesto: render the soul’s reach, but never forget the cracked wood under your feet.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
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| Source | Evidence:
A Life from Beginning to End Hourly History. Chapter Seven Giotto , the Architect “ The human heart is as a frail craft on which we wish to reach the stars . " -Giotto As has been stated , the concept of " artist " or " painter " was ... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Bondone, Giotto di. (2026, February 12). The human heart is as a frail craft on which we wish to reach the stars. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-human-heart-is-as-a-frail-craft-on-which-we-8326/
Chicago Style
Bondone, Giotto di. "The human heart is as a frail craft on which we wish to reach the stars." FixQuotes. February 12, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-human-heart-is-as-a-frail-craft-on-which-we-8326/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The human heart is as a frail craft on which we wish to reach the stars." FixQuotes, 12 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-human-heart-is-as-a-frail-craft-on-which-we-8326/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.








