gentleness quotes

Crist wole we claym of him oure gentilleesse, Nat of oure eldres for hire old richesse.

- Geoffrey Chaucer
  Canterbury  Tales,'The Wife of Bath's Tale', l.1117^8.

   Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears, whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.

- Mary also known as Mrs Godwin Wollstonecraft
  AVindication of the Rights ofWoman, pt.1, ch.2.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea: Listen! the mighty being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thundereverlastingly.

-William Wordsworth
  'It is a beauteous evening calm and free', l.1^8 (published 1807).

   But all is turned, through my gentleness, Into a strange fashion of forsaking.

- SirThomas (the Elder) Wyatt
  'They Flee from Me'.