Quotes & Sayings About Graciousness

When strangers meet, great allowances should be made for differences in custom and training. — Frank Herbert

If you think the most courageous and difficult thing you can do is stubbornly stand your ground, try graciously giving in. — Richelle E. Goodrich

He loved his family, his friends, his writing, his painting; he knew their flaws, but they neither surprised nor embittered him. — Philip Zaleski

To bear defeat with dignity, to accept criticism with poise, to receive honors with humility - these are marks of maturity and graciousness. — William Arthur Ward

[Sandra Day O'Connor] is a justice whose graciousness and sense of duty fuels her continued service, even agreeing to serve more than six months after her retirement date. — Patrick Leahy

Beauty brings warmth, elegance and grandeur. Something in our souls longs deeply for that graciousness and delight. When we advert to the presence of beauty, the direction, rhythm and energy of our lives become different. The — John O'Donohue

He is as full of valor as of kindness. Princely in both. — William Shakespeare

There is graciousness and a kind of urbanity in beginning with men by esteem and confidence. It proves, at least, that we have long lived in good company with others and with our selves. — Joseph Joubert

When I became a bandit, I spent a lot of time being close to the lowliest of the low: criminals, the enslaved, deserters, men who had nothing to lose. Contrary to what I had expected, I found that they had a hardscrabble beauty and grace. They were not mean in their nature, but made mean by the meanness of their rulers. The poor were willing to endure much, but the emperor had taken everything from them.

These men have simple dreams: a plot of land, a few possessions, a warm house, conversations with friends, and a happy wife and healthy children. They remember the smallest acts of kindness and think me a good man because of a few exaggerated stories. They've raised me on their shoulders and called me duke, and I have a duty to help them get a little closer to their dreams. — Ken Liu

Homes should mean something to us humans. They are a basic instinct. A home, with a life that centers only on food and sleep, is not really a home, it's a house. Beauty and graciousness, joy of living, being used in every part, these are the things that make a house a home. (chapter header quote from Popular Home Decorations, 1940) — Ellen Baker

Characters carrying the playwright's disapproval is a un-Shakespearian burden. — Harold Bloom

Let me help," said Benedict. "Let me do this for you."

He took the spade from her hand, allowing her to step back and stand beside Maggie. To slip an arm around her crying daughter.

With smooth, slow movements, he turned over the earth. Quietly, doing what needed to be done with a graciousness that meant everything.

And that was when she realized: she had fallen in love with him. — Theresa Romain

She was torn between her customer service training and her youthful certitude. — Bill Bryson

The truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind. Emily Dickinson — Eugene H. Peterson

It may be that until now there has been no more potent means for beautifying man himself than piety: it can turn man into so much art, surface, play of colors, graciousness that his sight no longer makes one suffer.
— Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm annoyed by those who love mankind but are discourteous to people. — John Howard Griffin

The trout fisher, like the landscape painter, haunts the loveliest places of the earth, and haunts them alone. Solitude and his own thoughts - he must be on the best terms with all of these; and he who can take kindly the largest allowance of these is likely to be the kindliest and truest with his fellow men. — Thomas Hughes

The author perceives nuances of Abigail Adams' character in the occasional errors she makes in readily quoting John Milton. Rather than giving the observer a reason to quibble, they are evidence that she had absorbed Milton's works enough to feel comfortable quoting them from memory. — David McCullough

Civilization depends on, and civility often requires, the willingness to say, "What you are doing is none of my business" and "What I am doing is none of your business. — George F. Will

My wife has been my greatest earthly inspiration. She excels in eloquence, the poetry of words, empathy and graciousness. — George W. Romney

He may have confused honor with with with ruthlessness. — T. J. Stiles

No low-trust society will ever produce sustained innovation. — Thomas L. Friedman

Femininity is not just lipstick, stylish hairdos, and trendy clothes. It is the divine adornment of humanity. It finds expression in your qualities of your capacity to love, your spirituality, delicacy, radiance, sensitivity, creativity, charm, graciousness, gentleness, dignity, and quiet strength. — James E. Faust

Cynicism is intelectual dandyism, but graciousness in speech is an aphrodisiac. (Andy Spade) — Kate Spade

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves. — Samuel Johnson

Art itself is female - it is full of graciousness, cadence, color, rhythm. It's full of love and grace. — Juan Gabriel

He showed me the lowest. I had to surmise the highest. — John Howard Griffin

He was a product of a culture where it was generally counterproductive to hold grudges. — H.W. Brands

The giver is more than the gift; God is more than the blessing. And our being kept waiting on Him is the only way for our learning to find our life and joy in Himself. Oh, if God's children only knew what a glorious God they have, and what a privilege it is to be linked in fellowship with Him, then they would rejoice in Him! Even when He keeps them waiting, they will learn to understand better than ever. "Therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you." His waiting will be the highest proof of His graciousness. — Andrew Murray

Too many people are too angry about language too much of the time. This time could be better spent listening, learning, and enjoying the vast variety of human language around them. — Robert Lane Greene

We are not to look to what men in themselves deserve but to attend to the image of God which exists in all and to which we owe all honor and love. — John Calvin

One must place one's principles in big things. For the small, graciousness will suffice. — Albert Camus

We are enjoined whenever we behold the gifts of God in others so to reverence and respect the gifts as also to honor those in whom they reside. — John Calvin

When you learn to embrace your self with a sense of appreciation and affection, you begin to glimpse the goodness and light that is in you and gradually you will realize that you are worthy of respect from yourself. When you recognize your limits, but still embrace your life with affection and graciousness, the sense of inner dignity begins to grow. You become freer and less dependent on the affirmation of outer voices and less troubled by the negativity of others. — John O'Donohue

Our girls have need of such an example of graciousness, elegance, refinement, and spirituality. — Maria Young Dougall

He did something he rarely did. He decided not to see things from the other guy's point of view. — H.W. Brands

After American titan and presidential father Joseph P. Kennedy suffered a stroke that impacted one side of his body, guests pretended not to notice the impact. Jackie Kennedy, however, held the impacted hand and kissed the affected side of his face, facing his disability and giving him the courage to do so. — Sally Bedell Smith

In America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil freedom. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Manners matter, asserts the professor. What provokes rebellion, he asserts, is not as often a theory out allowing for arbitrary power but be excessive, brusque use of it by a particular individual. — Robert J. Allison

Sportsmanship is the ethical and moral dimension of sports. It is demonstrated by a number of attributes and attitudes such as fair play, respect for the rules and traditions of the sport and various traits of good character including integrity (abiding by the letter and spirit of the rules and concepts of honor); demonstrated respect for others including teammates, opponents, officials and spectators; accountability, self-control, and graciousness in victory and defeat. — Michael Josephson

He says this episode will be about grief. About helping other people to mourn. He says that my family's involvement could really help other people in similar situations. All those viewers who thought they lost a family member to a famous serial killer, then are told 36 years later that DNA from the crime scene matches both that of a retired nurse and a man who was four years old at the time and grew up to murder his mother, I think.
With less graciousness than I'd hoped to display, I ask if there's a reason why stories about the bizarre, violent deaths of young, good-looking, middle- to upper-class white girls help people mourn better than other stories. — Maggie Nelson

She was never satisfied with anything less than perfection, but she was no grind. She was too interested in people. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

I would recommend a free commerce both of matter and mind. I would let men enter their own churches with the same freedom as their own houses; and I would do it without a homily or graciousness or favor, for tyranny itself is to me a word less odious than toleration. — Walter Savage Landor

Self-slaughter is an extravagant enactment of feeling sorry for oneself. Suicide is stingy act, because no matter how wretched our life may currently be, a person can always rise tomorrow and perform some small act of kindness for other people, care for a pet, or perform some other caring act that works towards preserving nature's graciousness. To die of their own hand is to cheat other people and shortchange Mother Nature; it is taking without giving back in kind. What combats suicide is a sense of gratitude, a willingness to give to other people, and to cease living life as a taker. Without a profound appreciation for all that is living and devoid of a sincere willingness to contribute to the flourishing of all life forms, one can callously write off the value of their own life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

There is really no good English translation for adab. It means behaving well or good etiquette. It is acting with heedfulness, beauty, refinement, graciousness, and respect for others. The Koran teaches us the importance of acting beautifully. "Do what is beautiful. God loves those who do what is beautiful." (2:195) — Robert Frager

Almost alone among successful politicians, he took slights personally. — Rick Perlstein

It is true that nothing here makes any sense, but this is no great misfortune; I learned from the islanders that sense is not of any particular importance, that its presence may even disrupt the clean lines of certain pictures and cast a cloud over their fine light, while laments on the absurdity of being struck me as self-indulgent and objectionable even before my stay on the island. Once you get a little used to a terrain cleansed of sense, you realize that there is amusement enough to be had here, and that only in its emptiness can the magic crystals of beauty originate. And in this space something is revealed: the silent dignity of people, animals, plants and objects, that is able to stir graciousness, compassion and reverence. — Michal Ajvaz

Graciousness in serving and being served marks the lives of leaders who have made the largest impact on my life. — Sue Mallory

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness. — Charles Caleb Colton

The wings of the dove are as soft as they are swift. Gentleness is a sure result of the Sacred Dove's transforming power: hearts touched by His benign influence are meek and lowly henceforth and for ever. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Love: understanding, honesty, humility, forgiveness, acceptance, patience, reverence, gratitude, graciousness, benevolence, compassion and integrity. Be Love. — Maximus Freeman

I too once belived in the heavier gauge string as a superior tone source. However, thanks to the graciousness of B.B. King I learned that a lighter-gauge string offers superior playing comfort ... try it, you may like it ... — Billy Gibbons

Charlestonians had a particularly vicious and cunning game, developed after the War. They treated outsiders with so much graciousness and consideration that their politeness became a weapon. 'Visitors end up feeling as if they're wearing shoes for the first time in their lives. It's said that only the strongest ever recover from the experience. The Chinese never developed a torture to match it, although they're a very subtle people. — Alexandra Ripley

Blessed is the man who has the gift of making friends; for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of oneself, and seeing and appreciating whatever is noble and living in another man. — Thomas Hughes

Custom is a mutable thing; yet we readily recognize the permanence of certain social values. Graciousness and courtesy are never old-fashioned. — Emily Post

Indeed, the key to all diplomacy was knowing when they were serious about their threats and when they were posturing. Nations were like individuals, requiring cultivation and the paying of respect. — H.W. Brands

Truthfulness takes you a mile. Graciousness takes you around the world. — Matshona Dhliwayo

She grew more and more vexed with his dignified behavior. By a cruel irony, she was drawing out what was best in his disposition. — E. M. Forster

It says Jesus puts His hearer in the role of the father, of the one who forgives. Because if we are, so to speak, the debtor and of course we are that too, that suggests no graciousness in us. And grace is the great gift. The other half is that we also can forgive, restore, and liberate, and therefore we can feel the will of God enacted through us, which is the great restoration of ourselves to ourselves. — Marilynne Robinson

She was an experimental child but compassionate with it. — Joe Cawley

Graciousness is the luxury of the wise, — Patrick Rothfuss

Soft power is quiet persistence. — Susan Cain

The lessons near and far have taught us that our truth is Kuwait, and our involvement with this fact is what created for us, with God's graciousness, our victory set. — Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah

Thank you to Giulia Fani, Joan Spence and my sister for the rooms and desks they loaned me. — Moez Surani

The art of British Columbia's native Indians played a big role in inspiring my creativity ... the simplicity of the images, the graciousness of the lines and curves, and the emotional impact of the bright simple primary colours. — Joe Average

A thousand little civilities create tenderness in time. — E. M. Forster

I've been fortunate to live a very full professional life. Most of it has happened through God's graciousness and not from something I've imagined. — Oleta Adams

It's sloppy theology to think that all suffering is good for us, or that it's a result of sin. All suffering can be used for good, over time, after mourning and healing, by God's graciousness. But sometimes it's just plain loss, not because you needed to grow, not because life or God or anything is teaching you any kind of lesson. The trick is knowing the difference between the two. — Shauna Niequist

To identify a person as a Southerner suggests not only that her history is inescapable and formative but that it is also impossibly present. Southerners live uneasily at the nexus between myth and reality, watching the mishmash amalgam of sorrow, humility, honor, graciousness, and renegade defiance play out against a backdrop of profligate physical beauty. — Sally Mann

each year, she finds her friendships less volatile and easier, because she increasingly succeeds at looking past their flaws and disappointments and homing in on their pleasures and on what set them in motion to begin with. And she wonders why she didn't do that sooner, why she gave in to so much fury and sorrow when she could have just let those emotions go. — Frank Bruno

Christ's vast benevolence must, from the very nature of things, have afforded Him the deepest possible delight, for benevolence is joy. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Dinner is a cacophonous exercise of holy sanctification. — Jen Pollock Michel

Whenever relationships can't be restored, it's because someone is not willing to move forward in the promises of God. — Matt Chandler

He was a generous but subtly demanding boss. — H.W. Brands

We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the psalms, and that the habit of celebrating the greatness and graciousness of God yields an endless flow of thankfulness, joy, and zeal. — J.I. Packer

The key to entering into the Divine Exchange is never our worthiness but always God's graciousness. Any attempt to measure or increase our worthiness will always fall short, or it will force us into the position of denial and pretend, which produces the constant perception of hypocrisy in religious people.
To switch to an "economy of grace" is a switch that is very hard for humans to make. We base almost everything in human culture on achievement, performance, accomplishment, an equal exchange value, or some kind of worthiness gauge. I call it meritocracy. Unless one personally experiences a dramatic and personal breaking of the rules of merit (forgiveness or undeserved goodness), it is almost impossible to disbelieve or operate outside of its rigid logic. This cannot happen theoretically or abstractly. It cannot happen "out there" but must be known personally "in here. — Richard Rohr

My own personality, which was molded by the furnace of time and circumstances ... strengthened by the touchstone of varied experiences, has changed a bit due to the benevolence and graciousness of people around me but I have never felt trapped in the nets of influence. — Balroop Singh

If he could be hard on kings and cabinets, he was invariably kind to his colleagues. — John Taliaferro

He wants to be known deep down, abysmally deep down, before he is capable of being loved at all; he dares to let himself be fathomed. He feels that his beloved is fully in his possession only when she no longer deceives herself about him, when she loves him just as much for his devilry and hidden insatiability as for his graciousness, patience, and spirituality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Parasitism is the only practice of the church; with its ideal of anaemia, its holiness, draining all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to negate every reality; the cross as the mark of recognition for the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed-against health, beauty, whatever has turned out well, courage, spirit, graciousness of the soul, against life itself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

As a dinner guest I gratefully eat just about anything that's set before me, because graciousness among friends is dearer to me than any other agenda. — Barbara Kingsolver

My fake Japanese was smooth enough to earn me the title of 'The Emperor of Pleasing Graciousness' in that country. — Wolfman Jack

Hospitality can be an expression of doctrine beyond the pulpit. Hospitality is the means by which the Church, from the ground level, models the gospel to others. — Matt Chandler

If you happened to be born on third base, you didn't rub it in the face of the guy who wasn't even born in the stadium. Self-interest was generally checked at the door with your coat and hat. — Ron Suskind

The desire to lift, the willingness to help, and the graciousness to give come from a heart filled with love. The poet wrote, 'Love is the most noble attribute of the human soul.' And William Shakespeare cautioned, 'They do not love who do not show their love' (Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 1, sc. 2, line 31). — Thomas S. Monson

All that we know theologically must be "accessed" by our heart with all the joy, peace, self-control, love, durability, patience, and graciousness that it should produce in a human being. — Timothy Keller

My prophetic task would be twofold: to stand up to him, and to stand by him. To awaken his conscience, and to salve the pain this would cause him. — Erik Larson

Graciousness, courtesy, compassion-this is hesed. Hesed is a quality that extends even to the animals and the land. The sabbath rest principle of Hebrew law included the needs of the livestock (Exod. 23:12). After seven years of planting and harvesting, the land itself needed "a year of complete rest" (Lev. 25:5). Even the soil of the vineyards was not to be overtaxed by planting other crops between the rows (Deut. 22:9). The oxen that trod out the grain were not to be muzzled so that they could eat while they worked (Deut. 25:4). And so on. — Richard J. Foster

If one had to define one essential gift with which a dancer needs to be endowed, there might be a rush of answers. A beautiful body, grace of line, graciousness of spirit, joy in the work, ability to please, unswerving integrity, relentless ambition towards some abstract perfection. Certainly all these factors determine a dancer's character, and every element exists in some combination within the performing artist's presence. — Lincoln Kirstein

The joyful heart sees and reads the world with a sense of freedom and graciousness. — John O'Donohue

Thoughts for Young Men abounds in reliable counsel and says - with a rare combination of seriousness and graciousness - the very things we need to hear. Young men, for whom it was written, will find it invaluable; but all Christians, men or women, young or old, can read it with lasting benefit. It deserves to be widely read and circulated, and will do spiritual good to every reader. — Sinclair B. Ferguson

This was my first real lesson in politics ... If you are cast on a desert island with only a screwdriver, hatchet, and the chisel to make a boat with, why, go and make the best one you can. It would be better if you had a saw, but you haven't, so with men. — Theodore Roosevelt

By some special graciousness of fate I am deposited - as all good photographers like to be - in the right place at the right time. Go into it as young as possible. Bring all the asset you have and play to win. — Margaret Bourke-White

Like families, competitors can bring out the worst as well as the best in each other. Like romance, competition has many faces, some of them ugly. In addition to showing me my grace and graciousness, the mirror of sports has reflected back to me my jealousy, pettiness, and arrogance. — Mariah Nelson

I've learned that in many cases, change is not a function of life's cruelty but instead a function of God's graciousness. — Shauna Niequist

The hard truth is, the life thing moments happen. They are the details, the surprises, the every now and again "dang it" moments that are necessary for you to be able to appreciate good times and accomplish greater things. — Jaha Knight

And yet he held his tongue, wanting his farewell with Marina to be peaceable, not out of any magnanimity, but so that after Tor ruined her - he felt confident Tor would ruin her - and she was once more alone, she would think of Lucy's graciousness and feel the long-lingering sting of bitter regret. — Patrick DeWitt

Graciousness is the fruit of someone who knows how badly they themselves need grace. — Tullian Tchividjian

I will not believe that thou hast tasted of the honey of the gospel if thou canst eat it all thyself. True grace puts an end to all spiritual monopoly. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Just keep playing, mastering as you do the step Into disorder this one meant. Don't you see It's all we can do? Meanwhile, great fires Arise, as of haystacks aflame. The dial has been set And that's ominous, but all your graciousness in living Conspires with it, now that this is our home: A place to be from, and have people ask about. — John Ashbery