Tenderness Quotes - Page 13

• It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.

  Samuel Johnson

  Stars, Distance, Greatness

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.217, Harvard University Press

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• Not the least of the problems in clarifying one's consciousness is developing the stoic determination to criticize one's own softness or sentimentality toward oneself. Ego, self-solicitous about its own tenderness, is the ultimate policeman over its own false consciousness, dementedly uprooting every healthy seedling of insight into the truth. As Kierkegaard remarked, most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, but the real trick and task of life is to learn to be just the very opposite.

  Kenny Smith

  Life, Determination, Truth

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• I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Believe, Giving, Desire

  W. Somerset Maugham (2006). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.84, Courier Corporation

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• He lacked tenderness; he was rude; and he had more than a streak of cruelty in him; he was a thief and a liar. He stood for everything she feared and hated and despised; but she knew she could love him... This was no choice made with the mind.

  Daphne du Maurier

  Liars, Choices Made, Rude

  Daphne du Maurier (1936). “JAMAICA INN”

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• When the boys come into my yard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into nature's game, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any moment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff. But this tenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very thick. Their young life is thatched with them. Bare and grim to tears is the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the less they hang it round with frippery romance, like the children of the happiest fortune.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Children, Boys

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2389, Delphi Classics

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• He had not breathed a word of love, or dropped one hint of tenderness or affection, and yet I had been supremely happy. To be near him, to hear him talk as he did talk, and to feel that he thought me worthy to be so spoken to - capable of understanding and duly appreciating such discourse - was enough.

  Anne Bronte

  Appreciate, Understanding, Hints

  Anne Bronte (1859). “Agnes Grey”, p.172, Library of Alexandria

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• I'm just giving you some spiel, the ludicrous plot of a novel, a story I invented to touch your heart—one-third bullshit, one-third booze, and one-third genuine tenderness, you know the kind of thing.

  Antonio Lobo Antunes

  Heart, Giving, Bullshit

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• Heimat. The word mean home in German, the place where one was born. But the term also conveys a subtler nuance, a certain tenderness. One's Heimat is not merely a matter of geography; it is where one's heart lies.

  Jenna Blum

  Lying, Home, Heart

  Jenna Blum, Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Gloss, Nicole Mones, Elizabeth Benedict (2010). “The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels”, p.466, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It is the tenderness that breaks our hearts. The loveliness that leaves us stranded on the shore, watching the boats sail away. It is the sweetness that makes us want to reach out and touch the soft skin of another person. And it is the grace that comes to us, undeserving though we may be.

  Robert Goolrick

  Heart, Grace, Skins

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• The brutality that can take place in a crime film heightens the tenderness that can also be there.

  Geoffrey S. Fletcher

  Brutality, Film, Crime

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• We are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness. We [need] to transform our minds and actions for the sake of other people and for the future of the world.

  Pema Chodron

  Gratitude, People, Promise

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• Would a soul continually eye His everlasting tenderness and compassion...[then] it could not bear an hour's absence from Him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

  John Owen

  Eye, Compassion, Soul

  John Owen (2001). “Communion with God”, p.32, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• My dearest dearest dear Albert sat on a footstool by my side and his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms and we kissed each other again and again! His beauty... his sweetness and gentleness - really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a husband! to be called names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before - was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life! May God help me to do my duty as I ought and be worthy of such blessings.

  Queen Victoria

  Husband, Blessing, Names

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• Beauty, sweet love, is like the morning dew, Whose short refresh upon tender green, Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show And straight is gone, as it had never been.

  Samuel Daniel

  Sweet, Morning, Cheer

  Samuel Daniel (1855). “Selections from the Poetical Works of Samuel Daniel: With Biographical Introd., Notes, Etc”, p.6

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• We have lost the art of public tenderness, these small gestures of wiping and washing; we have forgotten how abjectly the body welcomes a formal touch.

  Anne Enright

  Art, Small Gestures, Body

  Anne Enright (2010). “The Gathering”, p.128, Random House

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• There's no one who's ever been significantly in my life for whom I don't have a sort of tenderness because they helped to shape who I am.

  Rachel McAdams

  Who I Am, Shapes

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• You have a different kind of tenderness for everybody you know.

  Allan Gurganus

  Different, Kind, Knows

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• In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Sacrifice, Self, Abuse

  "Ficciones". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 1944.

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• It was the month of May, the month when the foliage of herbs and trees is most freshly green, when buds ripened and blossoms appear in their fragrance and loveliness. And the month when lovers, subject to the same force which reawakens the plants, feel their hearts open again, recall past trysts and past vows, and moments of tenderness, and yearn for a renewal of the magical awareness which is love.

  Thomas Malory

  Heart, Past, Tree

  Sir Thomas Malory, Keith Baines (1962). “Le morte d'Arthur”

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• From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour.

  Julia Margaret Cameron

  Lenses, Firsts, Moments

  Julia Margaret Cameron, Anita Ventura Mozley (1974). “"Mrs. Cameron's Photographs from the Life": Exhibition Held 22 January-10 March 1974, Stanford University Museum of Art”

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• After all that corrupt poets, and more corrupt philosophers, have told us of the blandishments of pleasure, and of its tendency to soften the temper and humanize the affections, it is certain, that nothing hardens the heart like excessive and unbounded luxury; and he who refuses the fewest gratifications to his own voluptuousness, will generally be found the least susceptible of tenderness for the wants of others.

  Hannah More

  Heart, Luxury, Temptation

  Hannah More (1818). “Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great, to General Society: An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World. Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont. And Tracts Written During the Riots of 1817”, p.9

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• Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; But no too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes: Disguise even tenderness if thou art wise.

  Lord Byron

  Wise, Art, Moving

  Lord Byron (1854). “Childe Harold's pilgrimage”, p.84

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• Look at these poisonous color maps where flesh trees grow from human sacrifices; listen to these sniggering half-heard words of tenderness and doom from lips spotted with decay

  William S. Burroughs

  Sacrifice, Color, Tree

  William S. Burroughs (1979). “Ah Pook is here, and other texts”, Calder Publications Limited

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• Fame is indeed beautiful and benign and gentle and satisfying, but happiness is something at once tender and brilliant beyond all things.

  Mary MacLane

  Beautiful, Brilliant, Fame

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• Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lost Friendship, And Love, Esteem

  Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.194

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