Gentler Quotes & Sayings

We must become the person who is ready to accept the thing/s that we want. Sometimes, what you want is already waiting for you, alongside the person that you are capable of becoming. Alongside the destined you. So in between here and there, you have that journey, that process, of becoming that person. Wiser, stronger, gentler. We think that to attain what we want, means simply to achieve what we wish to attain. But if we could only see ourselves
our destined selves
already there in the future, standing hand-in-hand with our desires, we would always know that our worthy desires are objects that call us unto a higher calling, a higher state of existence. — C. JoyBell C.

To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality. — Brene Brown

That was the way it was that beautiful evening of cold November rain and muddy country roads and crazy windshield wipers. That was the moment of my greatest security and confidence; it was the time when I realized that love makes one a better person, a kinder gentler one. — Irene Hunt

Each religion has helped mankind. Paganism increased in man the light of beauty, the largeness and height of his life, his aim at a many-sided perfection; Christianity gave him some vision of divine love and charity; Buddhism has shown him a noble way to be wiser, gentler, purer, Judaism and Islam how to be religiously faithful in action and zealously devoted to God; Hinduism has opened to him the largest and profoundest spiritual possibilities. — Sri Aurobindo

Children with cancer, as one surgeon noted, were typically "tucked in the farthest recesses of the hospital wards." They were on their deathbeds anyway, the pediatricians argued; wouldn't it be kinder and gentler, some insisted, to just "let them die in peace"? — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I am not all sneers and scathings, you see, I have my gentler side. — John Banville

If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own ... how much kinder, how much gentler he would be. — William Allen White

seekers of free video, too. In the past year, a program called Popcorn Time has become the kinder, gentler face of piracy online, taming BitTorrent to make it far more userfriendly and less obviously sketchy. Free incarnations for PCs, phones, and tablets look pretty much like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Instant Video, except with vastly deeper catalogs — Anonymous

If a [democratic] society displays less brilliance than an aristocracy, there will also be less wretchedness; pleasures will be less outrageous and wellbeing will be shared by all; the sciences will be on a smaller scale but ignorance will be less common; opinions will be less vigorous and habits gentler; you will notice more vices and fewer crimes. — Alexis De Tocqueville

You see, every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings. Now, there are those who take the brute's way, but I prefer a gentler approach- the right pressure applied at the right moment, in the right place. It's a delicate thing. — Leigh Bardugo

I choose to love you in silence ...
For in silence I find no rejection,
I choose to love you in loneliness ...
For in loneliness no one owns you but me,
I choose to adore you from a distance ...
For distance will shield me from pain,
I choose to kiss you in the wind ...
For the wind is gentler than my lips,
I choose to hold you in my dreams ...
For in my dreams, you have no end. — Rumi

It had been some time since Magnus was last in love, and he was beginning to feel the effects. He remembered the glow of love as brighter and the pain of loss as gentler than they had actually been. He found himself looking into many faces for potential love, and seeing many people as shining vessels of possibility. Perhaps this time there would be that indefinable something that sent hungry hearts roving, longing and searching for something, they knew not what, and yet could not give up the quest. Every time a face or a look or a gesture caught Magnus's eye these days, it woke to life a refrain in Magnus's breast, a song in persistent rhythm with his heartbeat. Perhaps this time, perhaps this one. — Cassandra Clare

I am against nationalism, and I am against patriotism. They are both the dark side. It is time not simply to redefine a kinder-and-gentler patriotism, but to sweep away the notion and acknowledge it as morally, politically, and intellectually bankrupt. It is time to scrap patriotism. — Robert Jensen

Poor man. You look as though you'd been attacked by a wild beast." A husky laugh escaped him. "Just a small vixen," he said, "who grew a bit fierce in her play." "You should bite her back," Pandora said against his chest. "That would teach her to be gentler with you. — Lisa Kleypas

Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable. — Martin Luther

Misery crouches beside me, ever larger and ever gentler; pain takes an interest, becomes huge and kind; terror flutters up, and it doesn't even frighten me anymore. And that'a the most desolate thing of all. — Joseph Roth

And I was thinking with a part of my
anatomy that has nothing to do with my brain." Veronica had to laugh at that. "Oh, really?" "Yeah," Joe said. His smile grew softer, his eyes gentler. "My heart."
And then he kissed her. — Suzanne Brockmann

Let a man fear, above all, me, his God, and so much the gentler will he become toward my creatures and animals, on whom, on account of me, their Creator, he ought to have compassion. — Bridget Of Sweden

Many writing texts caution against asking friends to read your stuff, suggesting you're not apt to get a very unbiased opinion[.] ... It's unfair, according to this view, to put a pal in such a position. What happens if he/she feels he/she has to say, "I'm sorry, good buddy, you've written some great yarns in the past but this one sucks like a vacuum cleaner"?
The idea has some validity, but I don't think an unbiased opinion is exactly what I'm looking for. And I believe that most people smart enough to read a novel are also tactful enough to find a gentler mode of expression than "This sucks." (Although most of us know that "I think this has a few problems" actually means "This sucks," don't we?) — Stephen King

It always amazes me how many women like dangerous men. Men who almost from the moment you meet them, you know are bad news. Me, I prefer my men kinder, gentler, nice. Niceness is highly underrated by most people. — Laurell K. Hamilton

He places a hand on either side of the bar, locking me in. 'And why won't you admit it?' he asks.
I'm so startled by his new, gentler tone that I hazard a glance. My breath catches in my throat. Jared's eyes have changed to that sumptuous green, huge and mesmerizing, the pupils dilating like a cat's. I can't see to look away as he inches forward, until he's standing all but a hair's breadth away from me. — L.E. Sterling

It is the task of the architect to give life a gentler structure. — Alvar Aalto

I feel safer with a Pyrrho than with a Saint Paul, for a jesting wisdom is gentler than an unbridled sanctity. — Emil Cioran

To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be ... gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier ... it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book ... — Gene Stratton-Porter

He had never talked to her this way before, his soft voice underlaid with with steel. Amanda had no choice but to believe him. She wanted to rail and scream, her frustration escalating to an unbearable pitch. To her utter self-disgust, she found herself near tears, like the witless heroines of the sensation novels she had always enjoyed making jest of. Her mouth trembled as she struggled to control her explosive emotions.
Jack saw that sign of weakness, and something in his face relaxed. "Don't cry. There is no need for tears, mhuirnin," he said in a gentler tone. — Lisa Kleypas

His kissing was slower this time - gentler. The fingertips of his other hand slipped beneath the waist of my undergarment, and I sucked in a breath. He hesitated at the sound, pulling back slightly. But I bit his lip in a silent command that had him growling into my mouth. With one long claw, he shredded through silk and lace, and my undergarment fell away in pieces. The claw retracted, and his kiss deepened as his fingers slid between my legs, coaxing and teasing. I ground against his hand, yielding completely to the writhing wildness that had roared alive inside me, and breathed his name onto his skin. He paused again - his fingers retracting - but I grabbed him, pulling him farther on top of me. I wanted him now - I wanted the barriers of our clothing to vanish, I wanted to taste his sweat, wanted to become full of him. "Don't stop," I gasped out. "I - " he said thickly, resting his brow between my breasts as he shuddered. "If we keep going, I won't be able to stop at all." I — Sarah J. Maas

It has been the struggle between privileged men who have managed to get hold of the levers of power and the people in general withtheir vague and changing aspirations for equality, for justice, for some kind of gentler brotherhood and peace, which has kept that balance of forces we call our system of government in equilibrium. — John Dos Passos

Spiritual dating is a way to date and enjoy yourself that is emotionally safer, gentler, and infinitely more pleasurable than regular dating. — Amy Leigh Mercree

The world in many ways would be a much calmer and gentler place if women ruled. There would have been fewer children sacrificed to the gods of greed and power. — Wm. Paul Young

She was like me in lineaments
her eyes
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears
which I had not;
And tenderness
but that I had for her;
Humility
and that I never had.
Her faults were mine
her virtues were her own
I loved her, and destroy'd her! — George Gordon Byron

I think L.A. has got a great lifestyle, but I love New York. You couldn't do 'Broad City' in L.A. because L.A. is a much gentler place. The standard of living is so different. — Darren Star

The main duty of the historian of mathematics, as well as his fondest privilege, is to explain the humanity of mathematics, to illustrate its greatness, beauty and dignity, and to describe how the incessant efforts and accumulated genius of many generations have built up that magnificent monument, the object of our most legitimate pride as men, and of our wonder, humility and thankfulness, as individuals. The study of the history of mathematics will not make better mathematicians but gentler ones, it will enrich their minds, mellow their hearts, and bring out their finer qualities. — George Sarton

... man by nature is not a wild or unsocial creature, neither was he born so, but makes himself what he naturally is not, by vicious habit; and that again on the other side, he is civilized and grows gentle by a change of place, occupation, and manner of life, as beasts themselves that are wild by nature, become tame and tractable by housing and gentler usage... — Plutarch

By some mysterious method, Susan Carr's gossip gave the listener a gentler feeling towards his kind. When she spoke of her neighbors' faults, one knew that somehow they were simply virtues gone to seed ... — Margaret Deland

Safe to do what?" he says in a gentler tone. "Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven't hurt people - you've given them an opportunity. — Suzanne Collins

There are tons of people in the West who love fiddles, banjos and mandolins. If you got to any cowboy poetry and music gathering those are the instruments they use. It's acoustic music. We don't do that much modern country that has electric guitars and a lot of volume. It's a gentler form of music. It's from the land and comes from the ranchers and farmers. — Michael Martin Murphey

Coach's Rule: never admit a lack of experience or knowledge. Carry on at all times as though you've guided a hundred champion crews. Honesty is not the best policy when leading a bunch of college rowers. They are looking for strong, disciplined leadership and not a kinder, gentler coach. Once you've established a certain attitude and demeanor, it's nearly impossible to change to a difference mode in mid-season. — Brad Alan Lewis

Which in the gray of gentler eyes will prove far more than any of us could ever need; 'enough' we will shout, 'enough!' our bellies full, our hearts full, our ages full; fullness and greater fullness and even more fullness; how then we will laugh and forget how imagining has already left us. — Mark Z. Danielewski

With a little more patience and a little less temper, a gentler and wiser method might be found in almost every case; and the knot that we cut by some fine heady quarrel-scene in private life, or, in public affairs, by some denunciatory act against what we are pleased to call our neighbour's vices might yet have been unwoven by the hand of sympathy. — Robert Louis Stevenson

And perhaps, if men were brought up to be gentler people, women wouldn't have need of protectors. Have you ever thought of that?"
I shake my head. "Men aren't going to change, Ror. Men are what they are. — Stacey Jay

It's an attitude of superiority. We are superior to the rest of life. The Book of Genesis says: 'Increase and multiply and have dominion over the birds of the air and the animals and so forth.' You run it; it's yours; do what you like with it. I don't know how old that text is, but it represents an attitude that probably really got going with the beginning of agriculture. Before that, the hunter-gatherers were gentler people than the agriculture. — W.S. Merwin

Life's supposed to be about making the path a little gentler for those traveling behind you. — Reba McEntire

The cloudless day is richer at its close;
A golden glory settles on the lea;
Soft, stealing shadows hint of cool repose
To mellowing landscape, and to calming sea.
And in that nobler, gentler, lovelier light,
The soul to sweeter, loftier bliss inclines;
Freed form the noonday glare, the favour'd sight
Increasing grace in earth and sky divines.
But ere the purest radiance crowns the green,
Or fairest lustre fills th' expectant grove,
The twilight thickens, and the fleeting scene
Leaves but a hallow'd memory of love! — H.P. Lovecraft

What frightens me most is the danger that, amid all the constant trivial preoccupations of private life, ambition may lose both its force and its greatness, that human passions may grow gentler and at the same time baser, with the result that the progress of the body social may become daily quieter and less aspiring. — Alexis De Tocqueville

My Manager forced me to put my beetle in my own ear, a clear waste and an act that gave me nightmares: of a burning city through which giant carnivorous lizards prowled, eating survivors off of balconies. In one particularly vivid moment, I stood on a ledge as the jaws closed in, heat-swept, and tinged with the smell of rotting flesh. Beetles intended for the tough, tight minds of children should not be used by adults. We still remember a kinder, gentler world. — Jeff VanderMeer

How do you get your information, Mister Brekker?"
"You might say I'm a lockpick."
"You must be a very gifted one."
"I am indeed." Kaz leaned back slightly. "You see, every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings. Now, there are those who take the brute's way, but I prefer a gentler approach - the right pressure applied at the right moment, in the right place. It's a delicate thing."
"Do you always speak in metaphors, Mister Brekker?"
Kaz smiled. "It's not a metaphor."
He was out of his chair before his chains hit the ground. — Leigh Bardugo

instead of mourning, instead of a moment of silence or a hateful, islamophobic message, how about today we make the world a little brighter?
be kinder. be a little gentler, with yourself and others. take more pictures. tell more jokes. be a better human.
today is a lot more than a tragedy. today is a birthday. a day of suicide awareness. a wedding. a birth. a new job. today is a kiss and someone on a tarred over warehouse roof whispering about the day the earth stood still and the day it began spinning again.
be kind. just be kind. it's time we took this day back for the wild ones, for the fiery eyes, for the happy and the brave and the new. no more mourning. let it just be a sunday. — Taylor Rhodes

I'm told I'm like my father, and he was the most wonderful man. But I think he was gentler than me. — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

They gathered not in anger but in celebration of their having found, as a generation, a gentler and more respectful way of being. A way, not incidentally, more in harmony with consuming. — Jonathan Franzen

And in the bug, which moved upward more surely on the gentler grade, he kept looking out between them as the road unwound, affording occasional glimpses of the Overlook Hotel, its massive bank of westward-looking windows reflecting back the sun. It was the place he had seen in the midst of the blizzard, the dark and booming place where some hideously familiar figure sought him down long corridors carpeted with jungle. — Stephen King

Then why are women by nature, by God's own design, the gentler sex? Women faint at the slightest scare. (Morgan)
Slight scare, Captain? I assure you, sir, that I have seen women suffer for days to bring a child into this world. And I have yet to see a woman faint during the labor of it. I beg you, show me a man who would willingly bear that much pain for that many hours, and not cry out for his mommy! In fact, you want to know why women have a higher tolerance for pain, Captain Drake? I'll tell you why, it's so that we women can put up with you men! (Serenity) — Kinley MacGregor

There is nothing tougher than a tough Mexican, just as there is nothing gentler than a gentle Mexican, nothing more honest than an honest Mexican, and above all nothing sadder than a sad Mexican. — Raymond Chandler

We have a thousand points of light for the homeless man. We've got a kinder gentler machine gun hand. — Neil Young

And so, he knows. He wants, he needs, to do the immoral, irresponsible thing. He wants to let this boy court his own destruction. He wants to commit that cruelty. Or (kinder, gentler version) he doesn't want to reconfirm his allegiance to the realm of the sensible, all the good people who take responsibility, who go to the right and necessary parties, who sell art made of two-by-fours and carpet remnants. He wants, for at least a little while, to live in that other, darker world - Blake's London, Courbet's Paris; raucous, unsanitary places where good behavior was the province of decent, ordinary people who produced no works of genius. — Michael Cunningham

Inside us all are pieces of that which makes the neagitve. Demons are neither good nor bad. Like you, they have many facets. It is that inner essence, or drive, if you will, that we all have that guides us through our lives. Sometimes those voices that drive us are whispered memories that live deep inside and cause us such pain that we have no choice except to let it out and to hurt those around us. But at other times, the voice is love and compassion, and it guides us to a gentler place. In the end, we, alone, must choose what path to walk. No one can help us with it. (Menyara) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

We are trying to retrain our responses and form mental habits that are kinder, gentler, and less fearful of others. — Karen Armstrong

There are gentler and more graceful ways to interface with natural conflict. — Bryant McGill

There's obviously instances where I perceive sexism in my job ... I think that the sort of sexism that I see has been one that's a little bit like a gentler form of sexism, but still a little bit debilitating, which is that when, as a producer and a writer, whether it was at The Office or [at The Mindy Project], if I make a decision, it'll still seem like it's up for debate. — Mindy Kaling

The bad news is, people are crueler, meaner and more evil than you've ever imagined. The good news is, people are kinder, gentler and more loving than you've ever dreamed. — Pleasefindthis

Your heart matters most, so be gentler and more patient with yourself, and their hearts matter most, too, so be kinder and more compassionate to others. — Stephanie Nielson

Werewolves have been susceptible to the gentler sex for as long as I can remember, and that is a very long time, indeed. — Gail Carriger

You thought wrong. I'm a new man, bein's I'm in lurve and all. I'm a softer, more understanding man. A kinder, gentler - " Deacon snorted. "Fuck. I couldn't even say that shit with a straight face. — Lorelei James

Now whither does THIS trail lead?" Kaa's voice was gentler. "Not a moon since there was a Manling with a knife threw stones at my head and called me bad little tree-cat names, because I lay asleep in the open. — Rudyard Kipling

Astute social commentators had been anticipating this rightward shift since the early 1980s. Bertram Gross predicted, in his book Friendly Fascism, that the United States might arrive at a gentler form of the virulent ultranationalism, antilabor activity, and racism, which coalesced into fascism in Europe in the 1930s. Corporate America would tolerate such a rightward drift, so the argument went, because more government restrictions on personal freedom would enhance business efforts to discipline the labor force and increase corporate profits. — Steve Brouwer

Vanity, or to call it by a gentler name, the desire of admiration and applause, is, perhaps, the most universal principle of humanactions ... Where that desire is wanting, we are apt to be indifferent, listless, indolent, and inert ... I will own to you, under the secrecy of confession, that my vanity has very often made me take great pains to make many a woman in love with me, if I could, for whose person I would not have given a pinch of snuff. — Lord Chesterfield

Addie had always considered the holidays an extra-special time of year. Magic hung in the air, and people were gentler, kinder to one another. Differences were set aside, friendships deepened, and people in general were more charitable and happier. — Debbie Macomber

When two friends, like you and me, are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By 'more dialectical,' I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows. — Plato

Ere you lie down to sleep in the night, sit still awhile, and nurse again to life your gentler self. Forget the restless, noisy spirit of the day, and encourage to speech the soft voices within you that timidly whisper of the peace of the quiet night; and occasionally look out at the quiet stars. The night will soothe you like a tender mother, folding you against her soft bosom, and hiding you from the harm of the world. — Max Ehrmann

How much we forgive to those who yield us the rare spectacle of heroic manners! We will pardon them the want of books, or arts, and even of gentler virtues. How tenaciously we remember them! — Ralph Waldo Emerson

My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden. — Charlotte Bronte

To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there's no guarantee
and that's really hard, and I can tell you as a parent, that's excruciatingly difficult
to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we're wondering, "Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?" just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, "I'm just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive." And the last, which I think is probably the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says, "I'm enough," then we stop screaming and start listening, we're kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we're kinder and gentler to ourselves. — Brene Brown

Besides, often at difficult moments you'll catch yourself talking to the mountain, flattering it, cursing it, making promises or threats. And you will have the impression that the mountain answers you if you speak to it properly - by becoming gentler, more submissive. Don't think the less of yourself for that; don't be ashamed of behaving like those our specialists call primitives and animists. Just keep in mind, when you remember these moments later on, that your dialogue with nature was just the outward image of an inner dialogue with yourself. — Rene Daumal

You can't do some of the things you used to do. I suppose you have to go at a gentler pace. I mean, God help us, you can't sit at home being a Vicar or anything. — Andy Taylor

A woman betrayed is deadlier than a man's terror's; A woman honored is gentler than a man's expectations. — Mark Donnelly

The new course we're on at Interface ... is to pioneer the next Industrial Revolution: one that is kinder and gentler to the earth. — Ray Anderson

It can take years of tears to melt the hardness that develops in this world, covering our tender, gentler inner selves. Tears for every devastating loss, tears for every humiliating failure, tears for every repeated mistake. Those who honor those tears, and even honor them, are not failures at love but rather its true initiates. First the pain and then the power. First the heart breaks and then it soars. — Marianne Williamson

There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. — Paul Wellstone

Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp - all others but liars! — Herman Melville

Kumiko and I felt something for each other from the beginning. It was not one of those strong, impulsive feelings that can hit two people like an electric shock when they first meet, but something quieter and gentler, like two tiny lights traveling in tandem through a vast darkness and drawing imperceptibly closer to each other as they go. As our meetings grew more frequent, I felt not so much that I had met someone new as that I had chanced upon a dear old friend. — Haruki Murakami

I'm still aspiring to be a better and better person, but I think that disappointments have made me gentler with other people and their disappointments, the stuff that they have to carry around and endure. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Like most men, Jimmy Jim was neither all good nor all bad. It is just that when he was bad, gentler people saw in him a disturbing fury. People, a lot them, don't understand fury. They understand anger and even hatred, but fury is one of those old words that have gone out of style. Jimmy Jim Bundrum understood it. It rode his shoulder like a parrot. — Rick Bragg

Maybe I'm used to religious music being gentler in the classical world. — Jonny Greenwood

I've never really found it hard to stay away from a chick before. Hell, I've never had reason to try. But this time I do. There's something different about Olivia. I want her in my bed. Like, now. But she's ... I don't know. I get the feeling she requires a gentler, more careful touch. She's a challenge.
And damn, if I don't love a challenge! — M. Leighton

Reverence for those wiser, older, and smarter than you. Appreciation for those kinder, gentler, and nicer than you. And utmost worship for those who could fucking annihilate you without a single thought. Grasping — Pepper Winters

On the grave among the pine trees, a boy knelt weeping, his chest, racked by sobs, heaving in the darkness, oppressed by an immense grief gentler than the moon and more unfathomable than the night. — Gustave Flaubert

The gentler and kinder the god, the more harsh and cruel its worshippers, for they hold to their conviction with taut certainty, febrile in its extremity, and so cannot abide dissenters. They will kill, they will torture, in that god's name. And see in themselves no conflict, no matter how bloodstained their hands. — Steven Erikson

I used to think
and given the way we ended up, maybe I still do
that all relationships need the kind of violent shove that a crush brings, just to get you started and to push you over the humps. And then, when the energy from that shove has gone and you come to something approaching a halt, you have to look around and see what you've got. It could be something completely different, it could be something roughly the same, but gentler and calmer, or it could be nothing at all. — Nick Hornby

I don't fool you, do I? Those others" - he waved a vague hand to indicate their
missing comrades - "they think I'm all that - but you know better, don't you."
"Know what?" she'd asked.
He leaned forward, smelling of beer and cigarettes. "You know I'm a fraud. I can
feel the beast inside me, screaming to get out. And if I loose it, it will pull me up to greatness despite myself."
"So why not let it free?" She hadn't been a werewolf then. The world had been a gentler place, the monsters safely in their closets, and she had been brave in her ignorance.
His eyes were old and weary, his voice slurring a bit. "Because then everyone would
see," he told her.
"See what?"
"Me. — Patricia Briggs

When death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes. — Charles Dickens

Ours is no bloody battle With woe and horror fraught Our joust is of a gentler kind A measuring of Mind with Mind A tournament of thought — Willard Fiske

there is no guarantee that an anonymity-free Internet would be a kinder, gentler Internet. — Whitney Phillips

Virgil had read once that Grandma Moses was a primitive painter because she thought snow was white. The writer said if you really looked at it, snow was hardly ever white. It mostly was a gentler version of the color of the sky - blue, gray, orange in the evenings and mornings, often with purple shadows. When he looked, sure enough, the guy was right, and Grandma Moses had her head up her ass. — John Sandford

It is not my strength that grows, so much as God's strength in me, which is given more abundantly as the days roll. It is so given on one condition. If my faith has laid hold of the infinite, the exhaustless, the immortal energy of God, unless there is something fearfully wrong about me, I shall be getting purer, nobler, wiser, more observant of His will; gentler, like Christ; every way fitter for His service, and for larger service, as the days increase. — Alexander MacLaren

Rather than seek to be squired and dated by their rivals why should it not be possible for women to find relaxation and pleasure in the company of their 'inferiors'? They would need to shed their desperate need to admire a man, and accept the gentler role of loving him. A learned woman cannot castrate a truck-driver like she can her intellectual rival, because he has no exaggerated respect for her bookish capacities. The alternative to conventional education is not stupidity, and many a clever girl needs the corrective of a humbler soul's genuine wisdom. — Germaine Greer

Then gently scan your brother
man,
still gentler sister woman, though they may gang
a kennin wrang, to step aside is human — Robert Burns

I'd like everybody to be secular. I suppose I have to say politically I would like religion to become gentler and nicer and to stop interfering with other people's lives, stop repressing women, stop indoctrinating children, all that sort of thing. But I really, really would like to see religion go away altogether. — Richard Dawkins

Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying, 'To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,' his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic. — Charles Krauthammer

Lily ... " "I thought we were friends." He rose in one movement. "I thought we were more than friends." Her eyes widened and she backed up a step, seemingly without conscious thought, as he advanced on her, until her bottom hit the door. He should be gentler, should approach her with caution. Even now she might be afraid of what had been said about him. But he was weary - so very, very weary - of things being taken from him. He wasn't going to lose her as well. Not if he could help it. He halted inches from her. "Weren't we, Lily? More than friends?" Her lips parted as her breath quickened, but she showed no fear of him. "You know we were." "Then that hasn't changed." She laughed, incredulous. "Are you insane? — Elizabeth Hoyt

We noticed the parallels in our marriages -the forceful and decided women in charge, our quiet husbands, gentler than we were, gentler than most people we knew. We needed them, and they really needed us. It was nice to find a woman who felt burdened as I did by her own extroverted behaviour and vivid personality, by her own compulsion to manage. — Susanna Sonnenberg

Why had I entered this profession? I could have gone in for something easier and gentler - like coalmining or lumberjacking. — James Herriot