Softens Quotes & Sayings

It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper; so cry away. — Charles Dickens

Even success softens not the heart of the envious. — Pindar

My voice softens. "But you're right; I should have told you where I was going. I'm sorry to make you worry." "Damn it, Sara." He twines his fingers in my hair and lowers his mouth one hot breath from mine. "You are the reason I take my next breath," he whispers. "Why can't you see that?" His question steals the last of my anger. I soften against him, my fingers curving around his jaw. "Let's go home, baby." He kisses my forehead. "I have something to show you. — Lisa Renee Jones

Katczinsky says it is all to do with education - it softens the brain. — Erich Maria Remarque

I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception. — Mark Twain

As such, there is no one-size-fits-all approach that anyone can offer you. The hot water that softens a carrot will harden an egg. — Clayton M Christensen

The consciousness of being loved softens the keenest pang even at the moment of parting; yea, even the eternal farewell is robbed of half of its bitterness when uttered in accents that breathe love to the last sigh. — Joseph Addison

Extreme excellence in music is liable to yet stronger objections; to attain it, almost every other accomplishment must be neglected; and, when attained, it leads to an improper degree of intimacy with professional people. Music softens the mind - and if a master and his pupil are continually together, bad consequence may ensure: nevertheless, I would have you know and love music; but I would not have you doat upon it. — Eliza Parsons

I really like the old stuff that I cut my musical teeth on, and I loved it when the industry was just like that, without really a genre. Today, country radio's more aimed at a demographic than a genre. It just softens everything. — Gary Allan

Art, I subsequently realised, is like that. It softens by association and implication. It renders the hard pliable. It creates gaps, gaping holes really, in possibility. — Andrew Miller

Frigid bitch,' he seizes her hair, pulls back her head. He is strong: she is helpless: if he wishes to rape her, he could, he would. It is in the air. The little girls fall quiet: terror silences them. Ben makes love to Lucy, these days, with hatred, not with love. The love he feels for her (and he does) weakens him, softens him, makes him impotent. He feels it. She is far from frigid: she is ashamed of her response to his violence: frightened of being out of her own control - if she not a mother? — Fay Weldon

The glory of victory softens our view of past frailties. — Marian Deegan

Love and Loyalty
If ever men and women are their simplest, sincerest selves, it is when suffering softens the one, and sympathy strengthens the other. — Louisa May Alcott

I've found that no matter what life throws at me, music softens the blow. — Bryce Anderson

This kind of beauty softens you and expands you, which is good, but of course it makes you vulnerable to all sorts of horrible things, like, oh, feelings. And being in your body. — Anne Lamott

Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.
But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it. — Cameron Dokey

I notice that when I feel the most disconnected, once I'm done blaming the moon and everything else, I can see that I am so mired in identification with form and ego and story and identity, and that if I want to, I can read some scripture or read some spiritual book or pray or meditate or sit in the sun or hang around the birds and the dogs, and get a real objective sense of what's really going on here. That usually softens things. — Alanis Morissette

The confinement she feels is spreading, becoming intolerable, because in a hostile mind limitations grow to a maddening degree. Moreover, God had strongly warned, "You shall surely die." But the woman now softens it to ". . . lest you die." Now that her view of the consequences is less alarming, Satan springs on that very point: — Raymond C. Ortlund Jr.

Only this is true, that beauty is very beautiful, and softens, and inspires, and rouses, and lifts up, and never fails. — Edward Burne-Jones

If you were a butterfly, what color would you bleed?" I ask.
He looks at me like I just asked him to pluck his eyeballs out. Then his face softens a bit.
"Blue," he answers. "And you, Ms. Branson?"
I think about my own question for a moment. I don't want to be typical and say my favorite color like he did.
"Orange," I say.
He studies my face. "Why orange?"
"Because blue burns orange," I say. "I figure no two colors could ever be closer than those igniting a flame. — Nikki Godwin

Our Father's commitment to us, His children, is unwavering. Indeed He softens the winters of our lives, but He also brightens our summers. — Thomas S. Monson

Life Lesson 8: Change is always hard, but time softens the rough edges and eases the pull of the past. Eventually, we all climb out from under the bed, and even the most unfamiliar places begin to feel like home. — Patti Davis

For all of the advice in the magazines on "How to Keep your Love Alive," the salvation of love is not the prolongation of sexual desire but the shared lifelong cultivation of a romantic lightheartedness that softens conflicts and anxieties and focuses serious attention even as it undermines seriousness as such. It's hard to fall out of love so long as you're laughing together. — Robert C. Solomon

Don't think being 'religious' means becoming harsh or hard. When Allah enters a heart, He softens it
He doesn't harden it. — Yasmin Mogahed

Kindness is the music that softens every heart and fills it with ineffable joy. — Debasish Mridha

AS the falling rain prepares the earth for the future crops of grain and fruit, so the rains of many sorrows showering upon the heart prepare and mellow it for the coming of that wisdom that perfects the mind and gladdens the heart. As the clouds darken the earth but to cool and fructify it, so the clouds of grief cast a shadow over the heart to prepare it for nobler things. The hour of sorrow is the hour of reverence. It puts an end to the shallow sneer, the ribald jest, the cruel calumny; it softens the heart with sympathy, and enriches the mind with thoughtfulness. Wisdom is mainly recollection of all that was learned by sorrow. Do not think that your sorrow will remain; it will pass away like a cloud. Where self ends, grief passes away. — James Allen

I see the way you look at me. I feel the way you touch me. I hear the hidden messages in your voice. Unlike you, I've been blessed knowing the warmth that comes with love. The way a person's eyes glow and body softens. You love me! And if you can stand there and deny it - when it's so blatantly obvious - then there really is no hope for us. You might as well march me outside and complete the Final Debt, because I'd rather you kill me quickly than live through this endless death!-Nila — Pepper Winters

Cold stabilization has these benefits, however: it gets rid of the crystals, which is nice in a cosmetic sense. It reduces the acidity slightly and softens the wine. The latter benefit is the chief one. — Jeff Cox

Longing, because I miss her. I miss talking to her as me.
Lust greater than I've ever known, because we're like this, it's the only time she softens and changes and gives me an inch, and it's a need that's in my head just as much as my body. It keeps me on my toes. — Penelope Douglas

Art is the subjective, preferential treatment of certain elements of reality; it selects and resets, distributes light and shade, omits and underlines, softens and emphasises. — Egon Friedell

His deep chuckle curls up on a tail of smoke. "Does it ever disarm you, Alyssa ... how well we see through one another? It does me." His voice softens on the admission - a depth of vulnerability he doesn't often use. — A.G. Howard

I pu my finger to her lips. "You have to hush a minute so that I can tell you something."
"What?" she says, bites my finger.
I look at her. "I love you."
She gets quiet, the kind of quiet that sinks into her, softens her. "Well that works out," she finally says, her voice deeper and breathless, her eyes moist, "because I love you too." She turns, leans against my arm, and settles into me. — Brad Barkley

In a revolutionary age talk of equality may well have represented a passion to provide full human dignity to those who had previously been denied it by systems of political and economic domination; but in the present age it softens the spiritual requirements that are an essential ingredient in human dignity. Thus the slogans of equality serve not so much to elevate individuals to the dignity of being human as to free them from the responsibility of rising to this vocation. — Merold Westphal

Rope-a-dope boxers and quarterbacks and hockey enforcers continue to shake off concussions on the theory of no blood, no harm. But each concussion effectively softens up the brain and ups the chances of more concussions. After multiple blows, neurons start to die and spongy holes open up; people's personalities then disintegrate, leaving them depressed, diminished, suicidal. Four centuries have passed, but macho modern athletes* might as well trade pads for armor and go joust with — Sam Kean

The word of God protects the soul, it deepens the roots of faith and it softens the hearts of His people. — Euginia Herlihy

I report as a machine; I write as a person. That clear dichotomy softens the transition. — Dave Barry

Master to slave: when he says "Fuck me," my body softens and I get wet. It's visceral. Inescapable. I love the way he says "Fuck me," as if his body will explode if I don't touch him, slam down on him and take him inside me, meld our flesh together in that place we both find the only peace we ever know. Out of bed, we're a storm. In bed, we find the eye. — Karen Marie Moning

His expression softens, his hand running through my hair, over my shoulder, down my arm. "Stop pretending I'm not what you need. — Karina Halle

Your sentimentality softens all the edges, you're misremembering. Take a moment to recall it as it really was: fucking hell. — Miranda July

Civilization changes man on the outside. Meditation softens him within, through and through. — Henepola Gunaratana

Of all the ills that circumstance forces upon man, separation from a beloved object is, perhaps, the most salutary. Separation is the crucible wherein love undergoes the test absolute; in the fire of loss, grief softens to indifference or hardens to enduring need. — Katherine Cecil Thurston

The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God's own stamp. — Pierre Bayle

Abruptly the drumbeat softens into heartbeat. The camera becomes his eye. This was what had summoned him - a human heart beating from within a ripped-off, rolled-up tiny piece of cloth. A discarded newborn. Black. A useless, half-dead, famished, thrown-away boy. The madwoman's? No, she's beyond childbearing years. He approaches, his steps making no sound at all. When he reaches down to turn it over, the thing quivers. Suddenly Milo's brain fills with a soft cascade of men and women's voices from the past in French and English, German and Dutch, Cree and Gaelic. They gurgle and babble and blend as he stares at the unwanted infant. Is it breathing? Yes, — Nancy Huston

Raising one hand, he tilts his hat to that sexy slant. "You want me. Admit it."
Even if he's partly right, I'll never tell him. "Why would I want you?"
He lifts three fingers to countdown. "Mysterious. Rebellious. Troubled. All those qualities women find irresistible."
"Such an optimist."
"My cup is never empty."
"Too bad your brain is." The words bite, but my smile softens with affection. — A.G. Howard

Someone wake me when it's over When the evening silence softens golden Just lay me on bed of dover Oh, I need help with this burden Hush — Gayle Forman

As a woman of color you have little more permission to go deeper and question things because your identity, in a way, is a shield. But if you come at it from a minority status, my person, who I am, softens the blow of whatever it is that I'm saying, because I am that. — Margaret Cho

Memories are often pruned and shaped by an ego-enhancing bias that blurs the edges of past events, softens culpability, and distorts what really happened. — Jonathan Gottschall

Surrender - the letting go of mental-emotional resistance to what is - also becomes a portal into the Unmanifested. The reason for this is simple: inner resistance cuts you off from other people, from yourself, from the world around you. It strengthens the feeling of separateness on which the ego depends for its survival. The stronger the feeling of separateness, the more you are bound to the manifested, to the world of separate forms. The more you are bound to the world of form, the harder and more impenetrable your form identity becomes. The portal is closed, and you are cut off from the inner dimension, the dimension of depth. In the state of surrender, your form identity softens and becomes somewhat "transparent," as it were, so the Unmanifested can shine through you. — Eckhart Tolle

As self-possessed as he is, when he's tired from working too hard, his whole demeanor softens with vulnerability ... which makes me want to tuck him right beneath my heart and hold on tight. — Nina Lane

Long may it remain in this mixed world a question not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness, the soft white hand formed for the ministrations of sympathy and tenderness, or the rough hard hand which the heart softens, teaches, and guides in a moment. — Charles Dickens

Trauma never goes away completely, it changes perhaps, softens some with time, but never completely goes away. — Mark Epstein

It is always beneficial to praise the Lord; it cheers the day and brightens the night; it lightens toil and softens sorrow; and over earthly gladness it sheds a sanctifying radiance which makes it less liable to blind us with its glare. Have we not something to sing about at this moment? Can we not weave a song out of our present joys, or our past deliverances, or our future hopes? — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

When your heart softens and opens, your being becomes matter in your self. That is the change of matter and what matters to you in your self will change. — John De Ruiter

His angry expression softens, and then he shoves my shoulder playfully.
"Hey!" I push him back, to which he retaliates until I'm finally smiling.
I love how we can do that
break through the misery to always find each other. — Suzanne Young

Every failure, every adversity, every heartache may be a blessing in disguise providing it softens the animal portion of our nature. — Napoleon Hill

Things can be funny when people are uneasy. It softens them up and stops them falling asleep on the sofa. I like those moments where people half-smile and half-wince. — Mark Haddon

Every midwife knows
that not until a mother's womb
softens from the pain of labor
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart,
it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones,
like trusted midwives are saying,
'welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace. — Rumi

The best thing I have always liked about photographers is that they perceive beauty in everything. Beautify everything with clicks; Sonam was that way, looking for beauty everywhere in every place, in every person, may be it was just a practice of photographers. What if all people really appreciate beauty in the world, themselves and other people, the beauty which makes them fall in love with who they truly are, when love of beauty arouses from hearts even the toughest dreams softens their way. — Shaikh Ashraf

Love softens the hardest edges of life's tumult. — Bryant McGill

Time softens memories, sanding down the rough edges of death. — Amy Harmon

He thinks of the rotten parachute they played with as kids in Arcadia: they hurtle through life aging unimaginably fast, but each grasps a silken edge of memory that billows between them and softens the long fall. — Lauren Groff

If you look back at history or you look at any place in the world where religious groups or ethnic groups or racial groups or political groups are killing each other, or families have been feuding for years and years, you can see - because you're not particularly invested in that particular argument - that there will never be peace until somebody softens what is rigid in their heart. — Pema Chodron

Time helps too, you know. It softens the edges, but memories almost always slice you open a little. — Joe Hart

Truth takes the stamp of the souls it enters. It is rigorous and rough in arid souls, but tempers and softens itself in loving natures. — Joseph Joubert

Woman softens her own troubles by generously solacing those of others. — Francoise D'Aubigne, Marquise De Maintenon

We usually say things we mean when we speak without thinking; they just tend to get us in more trouble because they lack the editing that softens the blow or avoids the point. — Christin Lovell

The sun by the action of heat makes wax moist and mud dry, hardening the one while it softens the other, by the same operation producing exactly opposite results; thus, from the long-suffering of God, some derive benefit, and others harm; some are softened, while others are hardened. — Theodoret

Don't let yourself forget that God's grace rewards not only those who never slip, but also those who bend and fall. So sing! The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts. It makes tears of godly sorrow flow from them. Singing summons the Holy Spirit. Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord. Don't stop singing. — Hildegard Of Bingen

Gratitude makes the world a softer, kinder place. It softens that brittle shell of defence. There is always something to be grateful for, no matter how small or simple. — Janey Colbourne

Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the temper, cheers the spirit, and promotes health. — Thomas Jefferson

Bea is the only good thing I've ever done in my life,' he said. 'Take care of her for me.'
My father went with him to the door and watched him walk away down Calle Santa Ana, with that sadness that softens men who are aware that they are growing old together. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Love surrounds, softens and tires violence and force. — Bryant McGill

Music so softens and disarms the mind That not an arrow does resistance find. — Edmund Waller

I didn't know if his art was helping. But Moses's pictures were like that, glorious and terrible. Glorious because they brought memory to life, terrible for the same reason.
Time softens memories, sanding down the rough edges of death.
But Moses's pictures dripped with life and reminded us of our loss. — Amy Harmon

To all who suffer- to all who feel discouraged, worried, or lonely- I say with love and deep concern for you, never give in. Never surrender. Never allow despair to overcome your spirit. Embrace and rely upon the Hope of Israel, for the love of the Son of God pierces all darkness, softens all sorrow, and gladdens every heart. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Pets bring vital energy to our homes and lives. Pets communicate many messages about love and connection. Care tenderly for all pets throughout their precious lives. The interspecies dance of love softens and expands the heart. — Laura Staley

Grief doesn't kill, love doesn't kill; but time kills everything, kills desire, kills sorrow, kills in the end the mind that feels them; wrinkels and softens the body while it still lives, tots it like a medlar, kills it too at last. — Aldous Huxley

Time softens all griefs, they say, and it is useless to dwell on lives that might have been. We are granted only one life, and one is enough. Whom do such regrets profit? What do they achieve, except to bring us unhappiness? — Peter Hobbs

Summer softens lines that winter cruelly shows ... — John Geddes

Nat's face softens, her lips tilt at the corner and she speaks full of awe, "Wow."
Still chuckling, I ask, "What?"
She shifts from one foot to the other, looks to the ground and says softly, "That's the first time I've heard you laugh." She nervously plays with a ring on her finger. "That's one of the nicest sounds I've ever heard, Ghost. You should do it more often. — Belle Aurora

Suffering softens the soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Snow ... blots and softens the top of every object like ice on a plum pudding. Hedges, telegraph wires, cars, postboxes, recycling bins. The world is losing its edges. Look upwards and it seems as if the stars themselves are being poured from the sky and turn out not to be vast and fiery globes after all but tiny, frozen things which melt in the palm of your hand. — Mark Haddon

The sun which warms the plant can under other conditions also wither it. The rain which nourishes the flower can under other conditions rot it. The same sun shines upon mud that shines upon wax. It hardens the mud but softens the wax. The difference is not in the sun, but in that upon which it shines. The Divine Life which shines upon a soul that loves Him, softens it into everlasting life; that same Divine Life which shines upon the slothful soul, neglectful of God, hardens it into everlasting death. — Fulton J. Sheen

I guess it could be seen as a form of rebellion, but (my dad) is pretty supportive. He's knows I'm just an idiot, so I think that softens it a little bit. — Daniel Tosh

At my age, turning gray is kind of a blessing, where it softens all of the other horrible things it does to you, but it is what it is. — Tom Selleck

My voice softens. 'How old are you?'
'I'll be eleven next year.'
I grin. 'So you're ten years old?'
He crosses his arms. Frowns. 'I'll be twelve in two years.'
I think I already love this kid. — Tahereh Mafi

Some part of me remembers what snow is, but this is the first time my new mind has seen it. It softens the crumbled sidewalks and turns rusty rooftops white. It's beautiful. It crunches under my feet as I move toward the house, longing to understand. — Isaac Marion

If you don't meet resistance with resistance, it dissipates dramatically. It just softens. Try it! Next time somebody says to you, "I'm right, and you're wrong," say, "Pfftt, you're right. You are right. You are right." And mean t. In other words, don't mock them. don't be sarcastic. "You're right." And then watch how, all the sudden, their legs almost go right out from under them. They don't have the energy to blast you, because you just took the fuel away from the fire. — Abraham Hicks

A well-composed song strikes the mind and softens the feelings, and produces a greater effect than a moral work, which convinces our reason, but does not warm our feelings, nor effect the slightest alteration in our habits — Napoleon Bonaparte

Have I heard that grief softens the mind, and makes it fearful and degenerate; think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.'" Veronica wasn't sure which play the quote was from, but she knew exactly what it meant: You get tough. You get even. You get tough. Had Mars Investigations been the sort of outfit that bothered to draft a list of its "Core Values," that would've been a top fiver. — Rob Thomas

Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. the world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world. — Marianne Williamson

Against firelight, he sees the face of the woman / Lean over, and the lips purse sweet as to bestow a kiss, but / This is not true, and the great glob of spit / Hangs there, glittering, before she lets it fall.
The spit is what softens like silk the passage of steel / On the fine-grained stone. It whispers. — Robert Penn Warren

First things first, my silence last night had nothing to do with you, but also had everything to do with you. You were not good last night, Lily, and I'm not the kind of guy that's filled with sweet words." Shaking his head, he adds, "That's not me."
I'm trying to undertand where this is going so I simply nod.
He nods, too. "But I get you. And I know that nothing I said last night would've helped. So I shut my trap, knowing that whatever I could've said would've only made things worse. That wasn't something we needed. So, rather than using words, I showed you how I could take care of you. So now you know. We can go from there." His face softens as he says, "You didn't ruin anything, baby. Got to taste you in every way, take care of you, and hold you all night. That's not bad."
Shaking his head slowly, he utters, "That's fucking phenomenal. — Belle Aurora

I love the idea that more people would read short fiction. I think it's such a humanizing form. It softens the boundaries between people. — George Saunders

No love is lost even though the lover turns away from us or life. Within us are the people we have loved, not as they were but as we wanted them to be. As our fresh grief softens to sorrow, we suddenly discover the lover's eyes in our mirror the lover's words on our lips, even the beloved's jokes have become ours. What reality has taken, we have taken for our own. Nothing is ever lost. Layers of our being contain all that has lived for us or that we imagined. We exude the strength of our losses and our gains glow even in the dark. — Ruth H. Jacobs

Maybe he sees it on my face, that fraction of a second when
I let my guard down, because in that moment his expression softens and his eyes
go bright as flame and even though I barely see him move, suddenly he has
closed the space between us and he's wrapping his warm hands over my
shoulders - fingers so warm and strong I almost cry out - and saying, "Lena. I
like you, okay? That's it. That's all. I like you." His voice is so low and hypnotic
it reminds me of a song. I think of predators dropping silently from trees: I think
of enormous cats with glowing amber eyes, just like his. — Lauren Oliver

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart — John Adams

Charles Dickens said, It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens the temper - so cry away. — Jan Karon

'Tis certain that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions in which true virtue and honor consist. It rarely, very rarely happens that a man of taste and learning is not, at least, an honest man, whatever frailties may attend him. — David Hume

For the rest of my life?" His voice softens. "Do you want that, Ella May? Do you want me eternally, infinitely, forever, till death do us part? — Jessica Sorensen