Gentlest Quotes & Sayings

Suppose a human being has thus put his ear, as it were, to the heart chamber of the world will and felt the roaring desire for existence pouring from there into all the veins of the world, as a thundering current or as the gentlest brook, dissolving into a mist - how could he fail to break suddenly? How could he endure to perceive the echo of innumerable shouts of pleasure and woe in the "wide space of the world night," enclosed in the wretched glass capsule of the human individual, without inexorably fleeing toward his primordial home, as he hears this shepherd's dance of metaphysics? But if such a work could nevertheless be perceived as a whole, without denial of individual existence; if such a creation could be created without smashing its creator - whence do we take the solution of such a contradiction? — Friedrich Nietzsche

People think it's just forgetting your keys, she says. Or the words for things. But there are the personality changes. The mood swings. The
hostility and even violence. Even from the gentlest person in the world. You lose the person you love. And you are left with the shell... And you are expected to go on loving them even when they are no longer there. You are supposed to be loyal. It's not
that other people expect it. It's that you expect it of yourself. And you long for it to be over soon. — Alice LaPlante

Disgust is expressed by violence, and it is to be noted of our intellectual temper that violence is a quality which is felt to have a peculiarly intellectual sanction. Our preference, even as articulated by those who are most mild in their persons, is increasingly for the absolute and extreme, of which we feel violence to be the true sign. The gentlest of us will know that the tigers of wrath are to be preferred to the horses of instruction and will consider it intellectual cowardice to take into account what happens to those who ride tigers. — Lionel Trilling

What is gentlest in love is love's violence.
Losing yourself in love, you reach love's goal.
Love makes you suffer, as love makes you whole.
Love steals your everything and makes you rich.
Love is both meaningless and poetry.
Captured by love, by love you are set free. — Marilyn Nelson

The guy offered his left fist. Reacher bumped it with his right, behind DeLong's back. Not the first time his knuckles had touched a Sox fan, but by far the gentlest. — Lee Child

Then the green man's face grew even blacker, the red beard so red it seemed to crackle and sparkle like fir twigs on the fire; the mouth contracted to an arrow-like point before it opened to inquire in the sweetest, gentlest tones. — Jeremias Gotthelf

Morpheus urges me into his lap and snuggles my head under his chin, securing me within his tobacco-scented embrace. It's the gentlest gesture we've ever shared. Now you know where you belong, Alyssa. — A.G. Howard

Nothing's
broken, nevertheless I'm skinless,
the gentlest touch would gut me. — Margaret Atwood

His hand passed repeatedly over her hair in the gentlest of caresses, and she heard him murmur in his dark-angel voice, Rest, my love. I'm watching over you. — Lisa Kleypas

You were always grossly obese,' observed Stephen. 'Were you to walk ten miles a day, and eat half what you do in fact devour, with no butcher's meat and no malt liquors, you would be able to play at the hand-ball like a Christian rather than a galvanized manatee, or dugong. Mr Goodridge, how do you so, sir? I hope I see you well.' This to Jack's opponent, a former shipmate, the master of HMS Polychrest and a fine navigator, but one whose calculations had unfortunately convinced him that phoenixes and comets were one and the same thing - that the appearance of a phoenix, reported in the chronicles, was in fact the return of one or another of the various comets whose periods were either known or conjectured. He resented disagreement, and although in ordinary matters he was the kindest, gentlest of men, he was now confined for maltreating a rear-admiral of the blue: he had not actually struck Sir James, but he had bitten his remonstrating finger. — Patrick O'Brian

His long hovered above hers for several long tense seconds before he lowered his mouth to hers. Barely making contact, Hardy brushed his lips back and forth over Miracle's with the gentlest of pressure. He wanted more - wanted to kiss her and touch her so much more - but he wanted to leave her with something as delicate and perfect and special as the moment they were sharing there in the orange glow of the sunshine. — M. Leighton

What if the leaves were to fall a-weeping, and say, "It will be so painful for us to be pulled from our stalks, when autumn comes?" Foolish fear! Summer goes, and autumn succeeds. The glory of death is upon the leaves; and the gentlest breeze that blows takes them softly and silently from the bough, and they float slowly down, like fiery sparks, upon the moss. — Henry Ward Beecher

Know this: I love you so fucking much," Beckett said. "No other person has been to me what you are. No one else ever will be." He leaned down and gave her the sweetest, gentlest kiss. — Debra Anastasia

Precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a moment, a twinkling of the eye - little makes up the quality of the best happiness. Soft! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Your harshest truths are dreams, and your gentlest dreams are true. — Richard Bach

And then I saw her, who I could have only assumed with Aura Tsang, a very petite women, with the exotic features of those you associate with an Asian background complete with slick dark hair but the most amazing piercing blue eyes, the type that any Aryan would have be proud of. She seemed to have the persona that made her a person of the world,Yet, there was the energy that she was giving off, a energy of a powerful and brave woman who could and would take on the world and yet she had the gentlest smile complete with dimples. I was transfixed by her and I felt that my heart would burst into a thousand of pieces if she spoke to me, which of course she would and it did. — Beverley Price

I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of the gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best born. My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office. — Charlotte Bronte

...the teacher picked a flower and said: 'Look at the pretty flower, Betty.'

Betty, filled with spiritual radiance, said, 'All the flowers are beautiful.'

'Ah,' said the teacher, blocking her, 'but this flower is especially beautiful.'

Betty rolled on the ground screaming, and it took a while to calm her. Nobody seemed to notice that she was screaming 'Can't you see? Can't you see!'

In the gentlest possible way, this teacher had been very violent. She was insisting on categorising, and on selecting. — Keith Johnstone

I never heard of anybody who admired the character of sheep. Even the gentlest human personalities in contact with them are annoyed by their lack of brains, courage and initiative, by their extraordinary ability to get themselves into uncomfortable or dangerous situations and then wait in inert helplessness for someone to rescue them. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

It, one suspects, must have had much to do with the evocation of what is called the Oxford spirit - that gentlest spirit, so lingering and searching, so dear to them who as youths were brought into ken of it, so exasperating to them who were not. Yes, certainly, it is this mild, miasmal air, not less than the grey beauty and gravity of the buildings, that has helped Oxford to produce, and foster eternally, her peculiar race of artist-scholars, scholar-artists. The — Max Beerbohm

All of us know about learning life's lessons through pain, struggle, and loss. But few of us realize that it is often the gentlest lessons that teach us most. Serendipity can instruct us as much as sorrow. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

And so, what of it all? What of me and my passions and personas, my great loves and failures of love, my writing, my politics? What of the clanging opinions, the endless queries as to the whys and wherefores of how I chose to conduct myself? In the end, there is but one answer to every question, whether it is spit at me or made as gentlest inquiry: I was I. — Elizabeth Berg

Joys as winged dreams fly fast, / Why should sadness longer last? / Grief is but a wound to woe; / Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe. — John Fletcher

Our works decay and disappear but God gentlest works stay looking down on the ruins we toil to rear. — Walter Smith

He pressed his lips against her forehead in the gentlest of kisses. "I'm going to make love to you, Grace. Not right this minute. I'm not going to pressure you or rush this. But from the moment I saw you on that video surveillance tape, you were mine. I have no explanation for it. I don't even entirely understand the connection. But it's there, and I think you feel it too. I'm willing to wait until the moment is right, but you're mine. — Maya Banks

There can be no question of selecting in any direction, but of penetrating the whole cosmic law of rhythms, forces and material that are the real world, from the ugliest to the most beautiful, everything that has character and expression, from the crudest and most brutal to the gentlest and most delicate; everything that speaks to us in its capacity as life. — Asger Jorn

Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures. — Thomas De Quincey

The gentlest man cannot live in peace if it does not please his wicked neighbor. — Friedrich Schiller

Craziness attacks the softest eyes and hamstrings the gentlest flanks. — Pat Conroy

My father, an engineer, was the gentlest man I knew. — Kevin McCloud

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Now I wanted to show you such a beach
Would set inside your head another jewel,
And lift you like the gentlest electric shock
Into an altogether other England--
An Avalon for which I had the wavelength,
Deep inside my head a little crystal. — Ted Hughes

I told that girl, in the kindest, gentlest way, that I could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one's manuscript, because an individual's verdict was worthless. It might underrate a work of high merit and lose it to the world, or it might overrate a trashy production and so open the way for its infliction upon the world. I said that the great public was the only tribunal competent to sit in judgment upon a literary effort, and therefore it must be best to lay it before that tribunal in the outset, since in the end it must stand or fall by that mighty court's decision any way. — Mark Twain

Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year - and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority. — W.J. Cameron

One of the greatest tragedies in my life is my deafness, for it's been over twenty years now since I've been able to hear notes. When I listen to music it's as if the letters in a text were changing places with one another, rendering the words unintelligible and muddying the lines. I'd consider my old age redeemed if my hearing were to come back, for music would be the gentlest opiate, calming my fears as I move toward death. In any case, I suppose the only chance I have for that kind of miracle involves nothing short of a visit to Lourdes. — Luis Bunuel

If possible, avoid being a bubble; for a bubble, even the gentlest touch is fatal. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

He cradled her face between his hands, angled his mouth over hers, and welcomed the bliss she offered. Boldly, she gave her tongue the freedom to roam within his mouth. She sighed. He moaned.
He thought a man could become spoiled touching a woman. He might never want to touch stone again. Stone wasn't warm. It didn't alter its shape with the gentlest of pressures. Stone didn't breathe so he could feel its moisture on his face. Rocks didn't make soft sounds that he'd carry with him until the day he died. — Lorraine Heath

...but I desire i may no further be harassed, and i recommend it to you to retire to your chamber, and to endeavour to adopt a more retional conduct, than that yielding to fancies, and to a sensibility, which, to call it by the gentlest name, is only a weakness. — Ann Radcliffe

Nature's stern discipline enjoins mutual help at least as often as warfare. The fittest may also be the gentlest. — Theodosius Dobzhansky

The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks. — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Only he whose bright lyre
has sounded in shadows
may, looking onward, restore
his infinite praise.
Only he who has eaten
poppies with the dead
will not lose ever again
the gentlest chord.
Though the image upon the pool
often grows dim:
Know and be still.
Inside the Double World
all voices become
eternally mild. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Oh, popular applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?
The wisest and the best feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentlest gales;
But swell'd into a gust
who then, alas!
With all his canvas set, and inexpert,
And therefore, heedless, can withstand thy power? — William Cowper

Different minds incline to different objects; one pursues the vast alone, the wonderful, the wild; another sighs for harmony and grace, and gentlest beauty. — Mark Akenside

Evolution works through this principle: the survival of the fittest. One of the essential elements of Christian discipleship demands that we work for this principle: the survival of the weakest and the gentlest. — Ronald Rolheiser

Rudeness, abruptness, gory tales of blood and thunder, and coarse language usually show up the greenhorn or counterfeit, and certainly the ill-bred. "The bravest are the tenderest; the gentlest are the daring. — Kenneth W. Estes

You know I find surprises vulgar," Lady Kent said, waving her hand dismissively and shifting her gaze to me. "You are acquainted with Miss Madeline Verinder, I presume?"

"Good evening, Miss Verinder," I said, exchanging curtsies with the sweetest, gentlest, most accomplished, and most amiable girl in all of London. At least that is what I had continually repeated to myself the past season, so I wouldn't slap her by sheer reflex whenever she entered my conversations with Mr. Kent and turned them into competitions for his attention. — Tarun Shanker

But as it falleth, in the gentlest hearts Imperious love hath highest set his throne, And tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts Of them, that to him buxom are and prone. — Edmund Spenser

A Christian is the gentlest of men; but then he is a man. — Charles Spurgeon

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Few boys have been as fortunate as I, raised into manhood with only the gentlest of words and blandishments in my ears and the kindest of caresses upon my person, by a mother who sheltered us from everything that is harsh and ugly in this world. I was spoiled, utterly unprepared for cruelty, and perhaps this sounds like I'm complaining, but I'm not! You mustn't think I blame you. I'm afraid I must sound like the most ungrateful son in the world, when in fact the opposite is true. I am more grateful now than ever for the way you raised us, teaching us the value of kindness, of education, of independent thinking and liberal ideals, in the face of the fascism that is sweeping our country. The cruelest punishments now fail to bring even a tear to my eye, but the thought of the hardship you've suffered on behalf of your ideals makes me weep like a baby. — Ruth Ozeki

Many wild foods have their charms, but the dearest one to my heart - my favorite fruit in the whole world - is the thimbleberry. Imagine the sweetest strawberry you've ever tasted, crossed with the tartest raspberry you've ever eaten. Give in the texture of silk velvet and make it melt to sweet juice the moment it hints your tongue. Shape it like the age-old sewing accessory that gives the fruit its name, and make it just big enough to cup a dainty fingertip. That delicious jewel of a fruit is a thimbleberry. They're too fragile to ship and too perishable to store, so they are one of those few precious things in life that can't be commoditized, and for me they always symbolize the essence of grabbing joy while I can. When it rains in thimbleberry season, the delicate berries get so damp that even the gentlest pressure crushes them, so instead of bringing them home as mush, I lick each one of my fingers as soon as it is picked. These sweet berries are treasure beyond price... — Sarah A. Chrisman

Where do whites fit in the New Africa? Nowhere, I'm inclined to sayand I do believe that it is true that even the gentlest and most westernised Africans would like the emotional idea of the continent entirely without the complication of the presence of the white man for a generation or two. But nowhere, as an answer for us whites, is in the same category as remarks like What's the use of living? in the face of the threat of atomic radiation. We are living; we are in Africa. — Nadine Gordimer

Often on earth the gentlest heart is fain To feed and banquet on another's woe. — Petrarch

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling. — William Wordsworth

He cupped my face between his hands, and when our lips touched, his skin felt soft and warm. It was the smallest,
gentlest, most earth-shattering kiss in the long and glorious history of kisses, and it took my breath away. — Antony John

So mightiest powers buy deepest calms are fed, And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be! — Bryan Procter

He'll behave. He has a mien and manners of a prince."
"Oh, like you?"
"I resent your tone."
"I'm not sure you can control him."
"Has he ever aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you'll get married, and make babies
"
"Gods, Roshar, shut up. — Marie Rutkoski

For happiness, how little suffices for happiness! ... the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Be still.4 — Eckhart Tolle

The very old lady in black looked up at a notice over the window:
TO STOP THE TRAIN PULL DOWN THE CHAIN
PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE, FIVE POUNDS.
She smiled the gentlest, sweetest smile. "All my life I have been afraid that one day the temptation would prove too much for me," she said.
"Don't suppose there's anyone who doesn't feel like that, ma'am," said the soldier, grinning. — Constance Savery

For of this world one never sees enough and to dine in harmony with nature is one of the gentlest and loveliest things we can do. — James A. Michener

The same quickness which makes a mind buoyant in gladness often makes it gentlest and most sympathetic in sorrow. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

The beauty of an art school: as long as you can pay the tuition, they will never, even in the gentlest way, suggest that you have no talent. — David Sedaris

In reality punk people are usually the gentlest, kindest folks you'll ever know. They're like hippies, only they wear way more black. — Kate Rockland

O happiness! O happiness! Wilt thou perhaps sing, O my soul? Thou liest in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd playeth his pipe.

Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect.

Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo - hush! The old noontide sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now drink a drop of happiness -

- An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh over it, its happiness laugheth. Thus - laugheth a God. Hush!

"For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!" Thus spoke I once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: that have I now learned. Wise fools speak better.

The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye-glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Hush! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Endurance is the prerogative of woman, enabling the gentlest to suffer what would cause terror to manhood. — Christoph Martin Wieland

How can you manage all alone, Mr. Young?" His large, almost girlish eyes rested on her for a moment before he replied, and then it was in the softest and gentlest of voices. "Oh, I get along pretty well with them. — Jack London

The gentlest thing in the world
overcomes the hardest thing in the world.
That which has no substance
enters where there is no space.
This shows the value of non-action.
Teaching without words,
performing without actions:
that is the Master's way. — Lao-Tzu

Roland sat beside his little sister. "You are too young to know this, but love cannot grow in rocky soil. It must be planted in a tender heart, cared for with the gentlest of touches, warmed with happiness. and protected from all that might wish to harm it."
"That sounds like a lot of work," Melisandre said.
"It is a lot of work. But if it's true love, then it will be the lightest burden you'll ever carry. — Karen Hawkins

John dear!" said I in the gentlest voice, "the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!"
That silenced him for a few moments.
Then he said - very quietly indeed, "Open the door, my darling!"
"I can't," said I. "The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!"
And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it of course, and came in. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Sleep, thou repose of all things; sleep, thou gentlest of the deities; thou peace of the mind, from which care flies; who doest soothe the hearts of men wearied with the toils of the day, and refittest them for labor. — Ovid

Suffering has its place in the scheme of things. It serves a purpose even though the sufferer may be entirely free from the taint of sin ... Among the gentlest and sweetest souls are sometimes found those who suffer much. A person that accepts his lot, does his best, loving both God and man, is a success and will experience a joy in living. — Joseph F. Merrill

Even when a prohibition in a fairy-story is guessed to be derived from some taboo once practised long ago, it has probably been preserved in the later stages of the tale's history because of the great mythical significance of prohibition. A sense of significance may indeed have lain behind some of the taboos themselves. Thou shalt not - or else thou shalt depart beggared into endless regret. The gentlest 'nursery-tales' know it. Even Peter Rabbit was forbidden a garden, lost his blue coat, and took sick. The Locked Door stands as an eternal Temptation. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Rake," came the succinct reply. "Oh, all right," Lillian grumbled. "I suppose he is a rake. But that may not be an impediment to his courtship of Lady Natalie. Some women like rakes. Look at Evie." Evie continued to snip doggedly through the brocade ribbon, while a smile curved her lips. "I don't l-like all rakes," she said, her gaze on her work. "Just one." Evie, the gentlest and most soft-spoken of them all, had been the one least likely to capture the heart of the notorious Lord St. Vincent, who had been the definitive rake. Although Evie, with her round blue eyes and blazing red hair, possessed a rare and unconventional beauty, she was unbearably shy. And there was the stammer. But Evie also had a reserve of quiet strength and a gallant spirit that seemed to have seduced her husband utterly. "And that former rake obviously adores you beyond reason," Annabelle said. — Lisa Kleypas

We have within ourselves as a species, to find the beauty in everything. And once we master it, we will then be some of the gentlest creatures that ever evolved. — Tom Althouse

Nietzsche, in a rare moment of deep stillness, wrote, For happiness, how little suffices for happiness! ... the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Be still. — Eckhart Tolle