Quotes & Sayings About Simple Gestures

In the hours that followed, I learned that Ademic hand gestures did not actually represent facial expressions. It was nothing so simple as that. For example a smile can mean you're amused, happy, grateful, or satisfied. You can smile to comfort someone. You can smile because you're content or because you're in love. A grimace or a grin look similar to a smile, but they mean entirely different things.
Imagine trying to teach someone how to smile. Imagine trying to describe what different smiles mean and when, precisely, to use them in conversation. It's harder than learning to walk. — Patrick Rothfuss

Simple, common gestures can also unconsciously influence our thoughts and feelings. — Daniel Kahneman

The tea ritual: such a precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tastes; accession to simple, authentic and refined sensations, a license given to all, at little cost, to become aristocrats of taste, because tea is the beverage of the wealthy and the poor; the tea ritual, therefore, has the extraordinary virtue of introducing into the absurdity of our lives an aperture of serene harmony. Yes, the world may aspire to vacuousness, lost souls mourn beauty, insignificance surrounds us. Then let us drink a cup of tea. Silence descends, one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light. And, with each swallow, time is sublimed. — Muriel Barbery

Could it be as simple as that? Could love be not grand gestures or empty vows, not promises meant to be broken, but instead a paper trail of forgiveness? A line of crumbs made of memories, to lead you back to the person who was waiting? — Jodi Picoult

It was so good to be held. If only their relationship could be distilled into simple, wordless gestures of comfort. Why had humans ever learned to talk? — J.K. Rowling

I hold your life and do not take it." They had begun as gestures of trust rather than of affection, but their meaning had grown. Now, depending on the circumstances, a simple lifting of the head - as she had lifted hers to receive his bite - could mean trust, affection, challenge, or contempt. It was, Tahneh thought bitterly, the perfect gesture for a betrayal. — Octavia E. Butler

What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion. — Chris Abani

You should go upstairs and relax a little. Take a nap or read one of those books that make your cheeks burn."
She playfully squinted at him. "How would you know what I look like when I read?"
He leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table. "I like watching you read."
"Really?" she questioned.
"Why?"
"It's sexy the way you react to the stories," he whispered. "Your gestures are usually simple like a giggle or a gasp. But occasionally, your nipples harden. — Stacey O'Neale

We created the 'Like' feature in FriendFeed because I realized that people wanted an easy way to let others know that they saw what their friends posted and appreciated it. Putting in those simple little gestures is very powerful. — Paul Buchheit

Tea ceremony is a way of worshipping the beautiful and the simple. All one's efforts are concentrated on trying to achieve perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. Its beauty consists in the respect with which it is performed. If a mere cup of tea can bring us closer to God, we should watch out for all the other dozens of opportunities that each ordinary day offers us. — Paulo Coelho

She loved their funny stiff dancing, listening to their incomprehensible and guttural tongue, and watching their simple gestures, natural behavior and childlike eagerness for life. — Erik Larson

There was nothing to be done. From then on, there were flowers waiting for me every time we met, and in the end I gave in, because I was disarmed by the spontaneity of giving and understood tha Lucie cared for it; perhaps her tongue-tied state, her lack of verbal eloquence, made her think of flowers as a form of speech; not in the sense of heavy-handed conventional flower symbolism, but in a sense still more archaic, more nebulous, more instinctive, prelinguistic; perhaps, having always been sparing of words, she longed for that mute stage of evolution when there were no words and people communicated by simple gestures — Milan Kundera

Instead of having to program, to wire, to solder, littleBits allow you to program using very simple intuitive gestures. — Ayah Bdeir

I was certainly a better actor after my five years in Hollywood. I had learned to be natural - never to exaggerate. I found I could act on the stage in just the same way as I had acted in a studio: using my ordinary voice, eliminating gestures, keeping everything extremely simple. — Walter Huston

That's the thing about saying "sorry" or "excuse me" in this city. No one ever does. Or when we do apologize, we don't actually say it clearly. We just whisper the outline of excuse me or form the word sorry with our mouth, as if we expect people to lip-read. — Susane Colasanti

If the way to the center were easy to find - if it were capable of being captured in doctrines or were subject to human control - it would not be the genuine way. If the path that opens the heart and the mind could be found by simple belief, all the true believers would be opening the doors and windows of their hearts with gestures of true compassion. They would readily understand the common threads in the words "Jesus was right," "Moses led me along," and "Mohammed opened doors in my heart." When the great way opens even for a moment the path between mind and heart widens. The heart begins to find the thought of unity buried within it and the mind begins to see subtleties that were impossible to grasp just a minute before. Finding the great way requires a willingness to surrender again and again, not simply a zeal for bowing one's head in the same old way. — Michael Meade

My readers, who may at first be apt to consider Quotation as downright pedantry, will be surprised when I assure them, that next to the simple imitation of sounds and gestures, Quotation is the most natural and most frequent habitude of human nature. For, Quotation must not be confined to passages adduced out of authors. He who cites the opinion, or remark, or saying of another, whether it has been written or spoken, is certainly one who quotes; and this we shall find to be universally practiced. — James Boswell

He was amazed to find that the Karmapa, an eminent spiritual leader known the world over, treated him as though his visit were one of the most important things that had ever happened to the Karmapa in his life. This treatment did not manifest through grandiose gestures or ceremony, but rather through the simplicity and completeness of the Karmapa's presence, which offered my friend an experience of being completely loved. When I heard this story, I thought about how many conversations I have had during which my attention was halfhearted. I might be thinking about the next thing I had to do or the next person I had to talk to. How unfair that lack of attention now seems! The simple act of being completely present to another person is truly an act of love - no drama is required. — Sharon Salzberg

Words of encouragement, a little respect, simple gestures of kindness from a teacher promote the perfect climate for studetns to study, learn, and grow. — Donna Fargo

Let us concentrate all our efforts on achieving perfection through the imperfect gestures of everyday life. True wisdom means respecting the simple things we do, for they can take us where we need to go. — Paulo Coelho

When we resent someone in some way we need to "be on the alert" that even innocent gestures on their part can become suspect to us. Even something as simple as their walking into a room or whispering something to someone else can be conjured up in our minds, to look to us as if they're doing it on purpose to irritate us -as if they're involved in some diabolical plot to hurt us further. What they may be doing may have no connection to their past actions that hurt us in the first place but our resentful feelings against them can often taint our perception of what's really taking place. — Cindy Wright

Everything changed when I met the girl. She penetrated a corner of my soul that had been kept sealed and even I didn't know was there. With her gestures, the scent of her skin, her sudden, intense glances that filled me with overwhelming tenderness, with her dependence that was a kind of unthinking, absolute acceptance, she could rescue me instantly from my confusions and obsessions, my discouragement and failure, or my simple daily routine, and leave me inside a radiant circle made of throbbing energy and powerful certainty, like the effects of an unknown drug that produces unconditional happiness. — Alvaro Mutis

We must open our eyes to admire God who hides and at the same time reveals himself in things and introduces us into the realms of mystery ... we must be pure and simple like children, capable of admiring, being astonished, of marveling, and being enchanted by the divine gestures of love and closeness we witness. — Pope John Paul II

Let us dig our gardens and not be elsewhere;
Let us take long walks in the open air ...
Let us bathe in the rivers and lakes ...
Let us indulge in games ...
Let us be more simple: simple and true in our gestures, in our words,
and simple and true in our minds above all. Let us be ourselves. — Robert Linssen

We can all make a difference in the lives of others in need, because it is the most simple of gestures that make the most significant of differences. — Miya Yamanouchi

Her eyes were glistening, but for some reason he couldn't reach out and touch her. It was like some gestures were so simple they were beyond him. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Daniel, I'd trade a thousand grand gestures for that simple 'I love you' from your lips. You make me the happiest woman in the world. — Nadia Lee

Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile. Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace ... and care properly for this planet we all share. — Bo Lozoff

Be simple in words, manners, and gestures. Amuse as well as instruct. If you can make a man laugh, you can make him think and make him like and believe you. — Al Smith

I quickly realized that friendships without tomorrows, and the little anguishes of parting, were part of the pleasures of traveling. I resolutely avoided bores, saw only those who amused me. We spent afternoons taking long walks, nights drinking and talking, and then we would leave each other, never to meet again, and there were no regrets. How simple life was. No regrets, no obligations, my acts and gestures counted for nothing, no one asked my advice, and I knew no other rule but my whims. — Simone De Beauvoir

Over time, the life of a productive artist becomes filled with useful conventions and practical methods, so that a string of finished pieces continues to appear at the surface. And in truly happy moments those artistic gestures move beyond simple procedure, and acquire an inherent aesthetic all their own. They are your artistic hearth and home, the working-places-to-be that link form and feeling. They become - like the dark colors and asymmetrical lilt of the Mazurka - inseparable from the life of their maker. They are canons. They allow confidence and concentration. They allow not knowing. They allow the automatic and unarticulated to remain so. Once you have found the work you are meant to do, the particulars of any single piece don't matter all that much. — David Bayles