Pity melts the mind to love. [ Dryden ]
The rose is fragrant, but it fades in time:
The violet sweet, but quickly past the prime:
White lilies hang their heads, and soon decay,
And white snow in minutes melts away. [ Dryden ]
Who soars too near the sun, with golden wings, melts them. [ William Shakespeare ]
Chastity is like an icicle; if it once melts, that's the last of it. [ Proverb ]
Honesty is like an icicle; if it once melts, that is the last of it. [ Amer. Proverb ]
Gold, like the sun, which melts wax and hardens clay, expands great souls and contracts bad hearts. [ Rivarol ]
There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. [ Bruyere ]
Marble, pearl, rose, dove, all may disappear: the pearl melts, the marble breaks, the rose fades, the bird escapes. [ T. Gautier ]
Gradual as the snow, at heaven's breath, melts off and shows the azure flowers beneath, her lids unclosed, and the bright eyes were seen. [ Moore ]
More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
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 ]
Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or perchance of a hundred centuries. [ Hawthorne ]
The higher enthusiasm of man's nature is for the while without exponent; yet does it continue indestructible, unweariedly active, and work blindly in the great chaotic deep. Thus sect after sect, and church after church, bodies itself forth, and melts again into new metamorphosis. [ Carlyle ]
See a fond mother encircled by her children; with pious tenderness she looks around, and her soul even melts with maternal love. One she kisses on its cheeks, and clasps another to her bosom; one she sets upon her knee, and finds a seat upon her foot for another. And while, by their actions, by their lisping words, and asking eyes, she understands their numberless little wishes, to these she dispenses a look, and a word to those; and whether she grants or refuses, whether she smiles or frowns, it is all in tender love. [ Krummacher ]
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every motion of envy dies; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire forsake me: when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I reflect how vain it is to grieve for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying beside those who deposed them, when I behold rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men who divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the frivolous competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. [ Addison ]