Tenderness is a virtue. [ Goldsmith ]
Tenderness is increased by pity. [ Mme. Dufresnoy ]
Tenderness is the repose of passion. [ Joubert ]
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes.
But not too humbly, or she will despise
Thee and thy suit though told in moving tropes;
Disguise even tenderness, if thou art wise. [ Byron ]
Yes - it was love - if thoughts of tenderness.
Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress,
Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime,
And yet - oh more than all! - untired by time.
Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile,
Could render sullen were she near to smile,
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent
On her one murmur of his discontent;
Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part.
Lest that his look of grief should reach her heart;
Which nought removed, nor menaced to remove -
If there be love in mortals— this was love! [ Byron ]
A solitary blessing few can find,
Our joys with those we love are intertwined,
And he whose wakeful tenderness removes
The obstructing thorn that wounds the breast he loves,
Smooths not another's rugged path alone,
But scatters roses to adorn his own.
A mother's tenderness and caresses are the milk of the heart. [ Mlle. de Guerin ]
It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the charm. [ Fontanelle ]
Reason is the torch of friendship, judgment its guide, tenderness its aliment. [ De Bonald ]
A mother's tenderness and a father's care are nature's gifts for man's advantage. [ L. Murray ]
Friend, beware of fair maidens! When their tenderness begins, our servitude is near. [ Victor Hugo ]
An infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all truly great men. [ John Ruskin ]
Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity. [ Johnson ]
The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best of hearts. [ Fielding ]
There are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses of affection. [ Washington Irving ]
When we exaggerate the tenderness of our friends towards us, it is often less from gratitude than from a desire to exhibit our own merit. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
The love of woman is a precious treasure. Tenderness has no deeper source, devotion no purer shrine, sacrifice no more saintlike abnegation. [ Saint-Foix ]
Youth, enthusiasm, and tenderness are like the days of spring. Instead of complaining, O my heart, of their brief duration, try to enjoy them. [ Rückert ]
The sweetest music is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of tenderness, truth, or courage. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
There may be some tenderness, in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart. [ Richard Alleine ]
What chiefly distinguishes great artists from feeble artists is first their sensibility and tenderness; secondly, their imagination; and thirdly, their industry. [ John Ruskin ]
Friendship has the skill and observation of the best physician, the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother. [ Earl of Clarendon ]
Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence the expression of its yearning tenderness. [ Bovee ]
There is a gravity which is not austere nor captious, which belongs not to melancholy nor dwells in contraction of heart; but arises from tenderness and hangs upon reflection. [ Landor ]
Oh, if the loving, closed heart of a good woman should open before a man, how much controlled tenderness, how many veiled sacrifices and dumb virtues, would be seen reposing there! [ Richter ]
If the ear is the road to the heart, and the heart to the affections, how keen must the affliction of deafness be to those who possess great tenderness of the one, and susceptibility of the other. [ J. Ellis ]
The night is made for tenderness; so still that the low whisper, scarcely audible, is heard like music; and so deeply pure that the fond thought is chastened as it springs, and on the lip made holy. [ N. P. Willis ]
Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, - I mean good-nature, - are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind and staff of life. [ Dryden ]
The last, best fruit which comes to late perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth of heart toward the cold, and philanthropy toward the misanthropic. [ Jean Paul ]
And this is woman's fate: all her affections are called into life by winning flatteries, and then thrown back upon themselves to perish; and her heart, her trusting heart, filled with weak tenderness, is left to bleed or, break. [ L. E. Landon ]
When we think of the tenderness, of the solicitude, of the protection, of the grace, of the charm, of the happiness, or at least of the consolation that woman brings to the life of man, one is tempted to speak to her only with uncovered head, and bowed knee. [ L. Desnoyers ]
As the health and strength or weakness of our bodies is very much owing to their methods of treating us when we were young, so the soundness or folly of our minds is not less owing to those first tempers and ways of thinking which we eagerly received from the love, tenderness, authority, and constant conversation of our mothers. [ E. Law ]
Weakness can never be beautiful, either morally or physically: and though the feminine type may possess greater softness and more feeling, it must be active, firm, and healthy, or it cannot be beautiful; the weak mind, distracted by alternations of feeling, and constant craving for help and sympathy from others, cannot at the same time possess that tenderness and unselfish devotion which is the loveliest trait of the female character. [ M. Martell ]
Though no participator in the joys of more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures, in the tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practice toward a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]
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 ]