Mildness Quotes

• Knowledge humanizes mankind, and reason inclines to mildness; but prejudices eradicate every tender disposition.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Prejudice, Reason, Disposition

  Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, baron de, Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu (2005). “The Spirit of Laws”, p.294, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot he gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Hate, Hatred, Affection

  54 Copy quote

• In order to avoid contention, never contradict anyone, except in case of sin or some danger to a neighbor; and when necessary to contradict others, and to oppose your opinion to theirs, do it with so much mildness and tact, as not to appear to do violence to their mind, for nothing is ever gained by taking up things with excessive warmth and hastiness.

  Louis IX of France

  Anger, Order, Mind

  55 Copy quote

• Restrain thy mind, and let mildness ever attend thy tongue.

  Theognis of Megara

  Mind, Tongue

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• Magnanimity consists in enduring tactlessness with mildness.

  Democritus

  Endure, Magnanimity

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• Many appear full of mildness and sweetness as long as everything goes their own way; but the moment any contradiction or adversity arises, they are in a flame, and begin to rage like a burning mountain. Such people as these are like red-hot coals hidden under ashes. This is not the mildness which Our Lord undertook to teach us in order to make us like unto Himself.

  Bernard of Clairvaux

  Anger, Adversity, Flames

  78 Copy quote

• That energy which veils itself in mildness is most effective of its object.

  Magha

  Energy, Veils, Objects

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• A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others.

  Robert E. Lee

  Life And Love, Men, Gentleman

  "Definition of a Gentleman". Memorandum found in Lee's papers after his death. "Lee the American" by Gamaliel Bradford, p. 233, xroads.virginia.edu. 1912.

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• The wrath that on conviction subsides into mildness, is the wrath of a generous mind.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Anger, Wrath, Mind

  "Aphorisms on man. Translated from the original manuscript of the Rev. John Caspar Lavater, citizen of Zuric. ; [One line from Juvenal]" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, 1790.

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• The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others.

  Robert E. Lee

  Character, Past, Men

  "Definition of a Gentleman". Memorandum found in Lee's papers after his death. "Lee the American" by Gamaliel Bradford, p. 233, xroads.virginia.edu. 1912.

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• Old age is not one of the beauties of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Under the conditions of our climate, shadow gives light its worth; sternness enhances mildness; solemnity, splendor. Varying proportions of size support and subserve one another.

  Sophie Swetchine

  Light, Law, Giving

  10 Copy quote

• No man can expect to find a friend without faults; nor can he propose himself to be so to another. Without reciprocal mildness and temperance there can be no continuance of friendship. Every man will have something to do for his friend, and something to bear with in him. The sober man only can do the first; and for the latter, patience is requisite. It is better for a man to depend on himself, than to be annoyed with either a madman or a fool.

  Owen Feltham

  Friends, Men, Annoyed

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• To disarm a zealot, teach him truth by precept, and mildness by example.

  Al-Kindi

  Example, Teach, Zeal

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• Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,--I mean good-nature,--are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.

  John Dryden

  Good Life, Mean, Use

  John Dryden (1868). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden: With Life and Critical Dissertation”, p.185

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• We imagined that the mildness of our government and the wishes of the people were so correspondent that we were not as other nations, requiring brutal force to support the laws.

  Henry Knox

  Government, Law, People

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• You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate, And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst; But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate, For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate, Take this of me, Kate of my consolation; Hearing thy mildness praised in every town, Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded, Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs, Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

  William Shakespeare

  Lying, Wife, Hearing

  William Shakespeare, Roma Gill (2001). “The Taming of the Shrew”, p.43, Barron's Educational Series

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• But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

  Herman Melville

  Joy, Down And, Woe

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.366

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• It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Teaching, Men

  Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.221, Psychology Press

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• We have seen that the Son of God created the world for this very end, to communicate Himself in an image of His own excellency. ... When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud, or the beauteous (rain)bow, we behold the adumbrations of His glory and goodness; and in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness.

  Jonathan Edwards

  Rain, Son, Sky

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• The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the Gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Christian, Liberty, Stranger

  Charles de Secondat Montesquieu, baron de, Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu (2005). “The Spirit of Laws”, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• Long discourses, and philosophical readings, at best, amaze and confound, but do not instruct children. When I say, therefore, that they must be treated as rational creatures, I mean that you must make them sensible, by the mildness of your carriage, and in the composure even in the correction of them, that what you do is reasonable in you, and useful and necessary for them; and that it is not out of caprichio, passion or fancy, that you command or forbid them any thing.

  John Locke

  Children, Philosophical, Reading

  "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" by John Locke, (Sec. 81), 1693.

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• A victorious general must know how to employ severity, justness, and mildness by turns, if he would allay sedition or prevent it.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  War, Turns, Know How

  Napoleon Bonaparte (2012). “Napoleon's Military Maxims”, p.24, Courier Corporation

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• Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that, whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of indolence or glory, alike led to an untimely grave; and almost every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of treason and murder.

  Edward Gibbon

  Fate, Unhappy, Might

  Edward Gibbon, William George Smith (1857). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.75

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• His constant fight is with the Nafs (self-interest), the root of all disharmony and the only enemy of man. By crushing this enemy man gains mastery over himself; this wins for him mastery over the whole universe, because the wall standing between the self and the Almighty has been broken down. Gentleness, mildness, respect, humility, modesty, self-denial, conscientiousness, tolerance and forgiveness are considered by the Sufi as the attributes which produce harmony within one's own soul as well as within that of another.

  Hazrat Inayat Khan

  Crush, Wall, Humility

  48 Copy quote

• How admirable and beautiful is the simplicity of the Evangelists! They never speak injuriously of the enemies of Jesus Christ, of His judges, nor of His executioners. They report the facts without a single reflection. They comment neither on their Master's mildness when He was smitten, nor on His constancy in the hour of His ignominious death, which they thus describe: "And they crucified Jesus.

  Jean Racine

  Beautiful, Bible, Jesus

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