Gentle Quotes - Page 40

• It is a gentle and affectionate thought, that in immeasurable height above us, at our first birth, the wreath of love was woven with sparkling stars for flowers.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Stars, Flower, Woven

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry Nelson Coleridge (1854). “The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions”, p.531

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• There is a gentle absurdity about Washington, D.C., and it is easy to develop affection for the place, if you can forget that the consequences of what goes on there are real, whereas what goes on there may not be.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Real, Goes On, May

  Linda Ellerbee (1987). “"And so it goes": adventures in television”, Berkley Pub Group

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• Do thou restrain the haughty spirit in thy breast, for better far is gentle courtesy.

  Homer

  Spirit, Courtesy, Breasts

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• it is a surprising thing that the largest city in the world should have a population as gentle and pleasant and intimate and considerate and comforting as a little bit of a place where everybody knows everybody and everything, but astonishing or not it is perfectly true and the inhabitants of New York are just like that, and they are like that and this thing is a delightful, natural and gentle and sweet and comforting thing.

  Gertrude Stein

  Sweet, New York, Should Have

  Gertrude Stein (1974). “How Writing Is Written”

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• Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive, while timidity is not vulgar, if it be a characteristic of race or fineness of make. A fawn is not vulgar in being timid, nor a crocodile "gentle" because courageous.

  John Ruskin

  Courage, Race, Rude

  John Ruskin (1869). “Modern Painters: pt. 6. Of leaf beauty. pt. 7. Of cloud beauty. pt. 8-9. Of ideas of relation: Of invention formal. Of invention spiritual”, p.288

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• If all were gentle and contented as sheep, all would be as feeble and helpless.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Sheep, Would Be, Ifs

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Every day a little life, a blank to be inscribed with gentle thoughts.

  Samuel Rogers

  Littles, Blank

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• What good is music? None ... and that is the point. To the world and its states and armies and factories and Leaders, music says, 'You are irrelevant'; and, arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it says only, 'Listen.' For being saved is not the point. Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for themselves, that they may see the sky.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Army, Men, Sky

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “Orsinian Tales”, p.112, Library of America

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• The gentle fair on nervous tea relies,
  Whilst gay good-nature sparkles in her eyes;
  An inoffensive scandal fluttering round,
  Too rough to tickle, and too light to wound.

  George Crabbe

  Eye, Gay, Light

  George Crabbe, John Crabbe (1834). “The poetical works of the Rev. George Crabbe: in eight volumes”, p.300

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• Who are the advertising men kidding, besides the European tourist? Between the tired, sad, gentle faces of the subway riders and the grinning Holy Families of the Ad-Mass, there exists no possibility of even a wishful identification.

  Mary McCarthy

  Tired, Men, Faces

  Mary McCarthy (1964). “The Humanist in the Bathtub”

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• How many serious family quarrels, marriages out of spite, and alterations of wills, might have been prevented by a gentle dose of blue pill!-What awful instances of chronic dyspepsia in the characters of Hamlet and Othello! Banish dyspepsia and spirituous liquors from society, and you have no crime, or at least so little that you would not consider it worth mentioning.

  Charles Kingsley

  Character, Blue, Pills

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• Sweet memory, wafted by the gentle gale,
  Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail,
  To view the fairy haunts of long-lost hours,
  Blest with far greener shades, far fresher flowers.

  Samuel Rogers

  Sweet, Memories, Flower

  Samuel Rogers, Thomas Campbell, James Montgomery, Charles Lamb, Henry Kirke White (1839). “The poetical works of Rogers, Campbell, J. Montgomery, Lamb, and Kirke White”, p.13

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• There is a gentle, but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of.

  John Herschel

  Dream, Reading, Character

  John Herschel (2014). “Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews”, p.13, Cambridge University Press

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• Love has a hundred gentle ends.

  Leonora Speyer

  Ends, Hundred

  Leonora Speyer (1926). “Fiddler's Farewell”

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• The strangest thing about life is not its frightful cruelty, but that it can be gentle.

  Storm Jameson

  Life Is, Cruelty

  Storm Jameson (2011). “The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell”, p.39, A&C Black

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• This it is that gives a majesty so pure and touching to the historic figure of Christ; self-abandonment to God, uttermost surrender, without reserve or stipulation, to the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the Soul of souls; pause in no darkness; hesitation in no perplexity, recoil in no extremity of anguish, but a gentle unfaltering hold of the invisible Hand, of the Only Holy and All Good--these are the features that have made Jesus of Nazareth the dearest and most sacred image to the heart of so many ages.

  James Martineau

  Jesus, Heart, Invisible Hand

  James Martineau (1905). “A Martineau year book: Extracts from sermons”

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• The temptations of prosperity insinuate themselves after a gentle, but very powerful manner; so that we are but little aware of them and less able to withstand them.

  Francis Atterbury

  Powerful, Temptation, Littles

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• Gentle feelings produce profoundly beneficial effects upon stern natures. It is the spring rain which melts the ice-covering of the earth, and causes it to open to the beams of heaven.

  Fredrika Bremer

  Kindness, Spring, Rain

  Fredrika Bremer (1856). “Hertha”, p.143

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• Maybe love is like rain. Sometimes gentle, sometimes torrential, flooding, eroding, joyful, steady, filling the earth, collecting in underground springs. When it rains, when we love, life grows.

  Carol Gilligan

  Spring, Rain, Love Life

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• True zeal is an ignis lambeus, a soft and gentle flame, that will not scorch one's hand.

  Ralph Cudworth

  Flames, Hands, Zeal

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• Be ever gentle with the children God has given you; watch over them constantly; reprove them earnestly, but not in anger. In the forcible language of Scripture, "Be not bitter against them." "Yes, they are good boys," I once heard a kind father say. "I talk to them very much, but do not like to beat my, children--the world will beat them." It was a beautiful thought not elegantly expressed.

  Elihu Burritt

  Beautiful, Children, Father

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• The pleasant converse of the fireside, the simple songs of home, the words of encouragement as I bend over my school-tasks, the kiss as I lie down to rest, the patient bearing with the freaks of my restless nature, the gentle counsels mingled with reproofs and approvals, the sympathy that meets and assuages every sorrow, and sweetens every little success--all these return to me amid the responsibilities which press upon me now, and I feel as if I had once lived in heaven, and, straying, had lost my way.

  J. G. Holland

  Song, Encouragement, Lying

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 325, 1895.

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• The child--a skilled actor with a hundred masks: a different one for his mother, father, grandmother or grandfather, for a stern or lenient teacher, for the cook or maid, for his own friends, for the rich and poor. Naive and cunning, humble and haughty, gentle and vengeful, well behaved and willful, he disguises himself so well that he can lead us by the nose.

  Janusz Korczak

  Mother, Teacher, Children

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• To be gentle is the test of a lady.

  Owen Feltham

  Tests

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• I am iron butterfly ... / I am she/we / of flesh / and iron / and silk wings, / healing, flying / into a gentle blue sky.

  Janice Mirikitani

  Confidence, Healing, Butterfly

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