C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Gentleness
Gentleness is the outgrowth of benignity.
The gentleness of all the gods go with thee.
Let gentleness thy strong enforcement be.
Gentleness and affability conquer at last.
We must be gentle now we are gentlemen.
Sweet speaking oft a currish heart reclaims.
Let mildness ever attend thy tongue.
The mildest manners and the gentlest heart.
The power of gentleness is irresistible.
Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.
A woman’s strength is most potent when robed in gentleness.
Your gentleness shall force, more than your force move us to gentleness.
Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman.
With all women gentleness is the most persuasive and powerful argument.
The human heart becomes softened by hearing of instances of gentleness and consideration.
In the husband, wisdom; in the wife, gentleness.
Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.
Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites by severity.
Gentleness corrects whatever is offensive in our manners.
We do not believe, or we forget, that “the Holy Ghost came down, not in shape of a vulture, but in the form of a dove.”
A man never so beautifully shows his own strength as when he respects a woman’s softness.
Fearless gentleness is the most beautiful of feminine attractions, born of modesty and love.
It is only people who possess firmness who can possess true gentleness. In those who appear gentle, it is generally only weakness, which is readily converted into harshness.
Power can do by gentleness that which violence fails to accomplish; and calmness best enforces the imperial mandate.
What thou wilt, thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile, than hew to it with thy sword.
If you would fall into any extreme, let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists rigor, and yields to softness.
Gentleness, which belongs to virtue, is to be carefully distinguished from the mean spirit of cowards and the fawning assent of sycophants.
The golden beams of truth and the silken cords of love, twisted together, will draw men on with a sweet violence, whether they will or not.
In families well ordered, there is always one firm, sweet temper, which controls without seeming to dictate. The Greeks represented Persuasion as crowned.
Gentleness is far more successful in all its enterprises than violence; indeed, violence generally frustrates its own purpose, while gentleness scarcely ever fails.
Experience has caused it to be remarked that in the country where the laws are gentle, the minds of the citizens are struck by it, as it is elsewhere by the most severe.
With regard to manner, be careful to speak in a soft, tender, kind and loving way. Even when you have occasion to rebuke, be careful to do it with manifest kindness. The effect will be incalculably better.
True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to Him who made us, and to the common nature which we all share. It arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just views of the condition and the duty of man. It is native feeling heightened and improved by principle.
If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valor, as being essential to the character of manhood. In the like manner, if you describe a right woman, in a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender fear, and all those parts of life which distinguish her from the other sex, with some subordination to it, but such an inferiority as makes her still more lovely.
The best and simplest cosmetic for women is constant gentleness and sympathy for the noblest interests of her fellow-creatures. This preserves and gives to her features an indelibly gay, fresh, and agreeable expression. If women would but realize that harshness makes them ugly, it would prove the best means of conversion.