Love makes all hearts gentle. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
O sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole. [ Coleridge ]
The gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds. [ William Cullen Bryant ]
A gentle wind of western birth,
From some far summer sea,
Wakes daisies in the wintry earth. [ George MacDonald ]
Use gentle words, for who can tell
The blessings they impart?
How oft they fall, as manna falls,
On some nigh-fainting heart. [ Ethel L. Beers ]
The gentle hawk half mans herself. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Nothing is so strong as gentleness,
Nothing so gentle as real strength. [ St. Francis de Sales ]
He is gentle that doth gentle deeds. [ Chaucer ]
Gentle in method, resolute in action. [ From the Latin ]
Sweet souls around us watch us still,
Press nearer to our side;
Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
With gentle helpings glide. [ Harriet Beecher Stowe ]
A gentle housewife mars the household. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Lie lightly on my ashes, gentle earth! [ Beaumont and Fletcher ]
The canker-worm of every gentle breast. [ Spenser ]
Sleep, thou most gentle of the deities. [ Ovid ]
Since every Jack became a gentleman,
There's many a gentle person made a Jack. [ William Shakespeare, Richard III ]
Be gentle, genteel, genuine and generous.
O death! thou gentle end of human sorrows. [ Rowe ]
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet forget-me-not. [ Coleridge ]
A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. [ Shakespeare ]
So gentle, yet so brisk, so wondrous sweet.
So fit to prattle at a lady's feet. [ Churchill ]
Look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray. [ William Shakespeare ]
A noble man is led by woman's gentle words. [ Goethe ]
Her air, her manners, all who saw admired;
Courteous though coy, gentle though retired. [ Crabbe ]
Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird.
Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Ah! that deceit should steal such gentle shapes
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice. [ William Shakespeare, Richard III ]
Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest.
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high.
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold. [ William Shakespeare ]
Oh! thou gentle scene
Of Sweet repose; where by the oblivious draught
Of each sad toilsome day to peace restor'd.
Unhappy mortals lose their woes awhile. [ Thomson ]
Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow
In his light wings, is lifted up to sky;
The scorn of knighthood and true chivalry,
To think, without desert of gentle deed
And noble worth, to be advanced high,
Such praise is shame, but honour, virtue's meed.
Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed. [ Spenser ]
Remorse is as the heart in which it grows.
If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews
Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy,
It is the poison tree that, pierced to the inmost,
Weeps only tears of poison. [ Coleridge ]
A death-like sleep, A gentle wafting to immortal life. [ Milton ]
Say to Pleasure, Gentle Eve, I will none of your apple.
[ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Hark! how the gentle echo from her cell
Talks through the cliffs, and murmuring over the stream.
Repeats the accent - we shall part no more. [ Akenside ]
Though the mastiff be gentle, yet bite him not by the lip. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Wisdom! I bless thy gentle sway, and ever, ever will obey. [ Mrs. Barbauld ]
She was gentle towards death, as she was towards every one. [ Bossuet ]
All is gentle; nought Stirs rudely; but congenial with the night.
Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. [ Byron ]
An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions. [ Chesterfield ]
No gale disturb the trees, nor aspen leaves confess the gentle breeze. [ Gay ]
Every day a little life, a blank to be inscribed with gentle thoughts. [ Rogers ]
To be instructed in the arts softens the manners and makes men gentle. [ Ovid ]
Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman. [ William Shakespeare ]
He that cannot ride a gentle horse must not attempt to back a mad colt. [ Proverb ]
Fortune is gentle to the lowly, and heaven strikes the humble with a light hand. [ Seneca ]
A wise man in his house should find a wife gentle and courteous, or no wife at all. [ Euripides ]
What will not woman, gentle woman, dare, When strong affection stirs her spirit up. [ Southey ]
Her face is like the Milky Way in the sky, - A meeting of gentle lights without a name. [ Sir John Suckling ]
True zeal is an ignis lambeus, a soft and gentle flame, that will not scorch one's hand. [ Cudworth ]
Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence. [ Richter ]
Whose wit in the combat, gentle as bright, never carried a heart-stain away on its blade. [ Moore ]
A mother's prayers, silent and gentle, can never miss the road to the throne of all bounty. [ Henry Ward Beecher ]
You will find that silence, or very gentle words, are the most exquisite revenge for reproaches. [ Judge Hale ]
There is no room in the universe for the least contempt or pride; but only for a gentle and a reverent heart. [ James Martineau ]
In the man whose childhood has known caresses there is always a fibre of memory that can be touched to gentle issues. [ George Eliot ]
Amusements to virtue are like breezes of air to the flame - gentle ones will fan it, but strong ones will put it out. [ David Thomas ]
Happiness is the fine and gentle rain which penetrates the soul, but which afterwards gushes forth in springs of tears. [ M. de Guérin ]
Gentle words, quiet words, are after all, the most powerful words. They are more convincing, more compelling, more prevailing. [ Washington Gladden ]
Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless. [ Macaulay ]
The gentle breath of peace would leave him on the surface neglected and unmoved. It is only the tempest that lifts him from his place. [ Junius ]
Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, gentle, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly, and never seeking her own. [ Thomas à Kempis ]
O gentle sleep! my welcome breath shall hail thee midst our mortal strife, who art the very thief of life, the very portraiture of death. [ Alonzo de Ledesma ]
Do we not hear voices, gentle and great, and some of them like the voices of departed friends - do we not hear them saying to us, Come up hither?
[ Wm. Mountford ]
Amongst the instrumentalities of love and peace, surely there can be no sweeter, softer, more effective voice than that of gentle, peace-breathing music. [ E. Burritt ]
A man or a woman may be highly irritable, and yet be sweet, tender, gentle, loving, sociable, kind, charitable, thoughtful for others, unselfish, generous. [ Charles Buxton ]
Women are so gentle, so affectionate, so true in sorrow, so untired and untiring! but the leaf withers not sooner, and tropic light fades not more abruptly. [ Barry Cornwall ]
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. [ Coleridge ]
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 ]
Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over the funeral urn. [ Schiller ]
Beautiful to Ledyard, stiffening in the cold of a northern winter, seemed the diminutive, smoke-stained women of Lapland, who wrapped him in their furs, and ministered to his necessities with kindness and gentle words. [ Whittier ]
Education does not commence with the alphabet; it begins with a mother's look, with a father's nod of approbation, or a sign of reproof; with a sister's gentle pressure of the hand, or a brother's noble act of forbearance. [ G. A. Sala ]
There is to me a daintiness about early flowers that touches me like poetry; they blow out with such a simple loveliness among the common herbs of pastures, and breathe their lives so unobstrusively, like hearts whose beatings are too gentle for the world. [ N. P. Willis ]
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. [ Sir John Herschel ]
A mother's love is indeed the golden link that binds youth to age; and he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek or silvered his brow, who can yet recall, with a softened heart, the fond devotion, or the gentle chidings, of the best friend that God ever gives us. [ Bovee ]
With a clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you have friends in plenty; but let fortune frown, and the firmament be overcast, and then your friends will prove like the strings of the lute, of which you tighten ten before you find one that will bear the stretch and keep the pitch. [ Gotthold ]
Hair is the most delicate and lasting of our materials, and survives us, like love. It is so light, so gentle, so escaping from the idea of death, that, with a lock of hair belonging to a child or friend, we may almost look up to heaven and compare notes with the angelic nature, - may almost say, I have a piece of thee here not unworthy of thy being now.
[ Leigh Hunt ]
In Goethe's drama, Iphigenia defends her chastity, ascribing her firmness to the gods. No god hath said this: thine own heart hath spoken,
answered Thoas, the king. They only speak to us through our heart,
she replies. Have not I the right to hear them too?
he rejoins. Thy storm of passion drowns the gentle whisper,
adds the maiden, and closes all debate. [ Bartol ]
Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and little, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. [ Montaigne ]
Consistent characters are those which in social intercourse are easy, sure, and gentle. We do not clash with them, and they are never wanting nor contradictory to themselves; their stability incites confidence, their frankness induces self-surrendering openness. We feel at ease with them, we are not offended at their superiority, doubtless we admire them less, but we also hardly dream of feeling envious of them, and they seem almost to disdain malignity by the peaceful influence of their presence. [ Degerando ]
The grandest operations, both in nature and in grace, are the most silent and imperceptible. The shallow brook babbles in its passage, and is heard by every one; but the coming on of the seasons is silent and unseen. The storm rages and alarms, but its fury is soon exhausted, and its effects are partial and soon remedied; but the dew, though gentle and unheard, is immense in quantity, and the very life of large portions of the earth. And these are pictures of the operations of grace in the church and in the soul. [ Cecil ]
Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gesture or quick movement inspires involuntary disrespect. One looks for a moment at a cascade; but one sits for hours, lost in thought, and gazing upon the still water of a lake. A deliberate gale, gentle manners, and a gracious tone of voice - all of which may be acquired - give a mediocre man an immense advantage over those vastly superior to him. To be bodily tranquil, to speak little, and to digest without effort are absolutely necessary to grandeur of mind or of presence, or to proper development of genius. [ Balzac ]