Tenderness Quotes

“I am proud only of those days that pass in
undivided tenderness.”
― Robert Bly, A Little Book on the Human Shadow: A Poetic Journey into the Dark Side of the Human Personality, Shadow Work, and the Importance of Confronting Our Hidden Self

“She realized that Rowan saw each of those thoughts and more as he reached into his tunic and pulled out a dagger. Her dagger. He extended it to her, it's long blade gleaming as if he'd been secretly polishing and caring for it these months.
And when she grasped the dagger, it's weight lighter than she remembered, Rowan looked into her eyes, into her very core of her, and said, 'Fireheart'.”
― Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire

“lean in to kiss me
in all the places

where the ache
is
the most special.”
― Sanober Khan

“in the afterglow
of an evening rain

i lay down
in the grass
and think of you

my body aches
like an after-kiss

breaking in soft fires
and wildflowers

my dear,
i will always be
this tender for you.”
― Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingos

“Tucker strokes my hair. There's something so tender about the gesture. It might as well have been him whispering I love you.”
― Cynthia Hand, Hallowed

“It was odd, (Tessa thought), what brought out tenderness in people.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

“A man must at times be hard as nails: willing to face up to the truth about himself, and about the woman he loves, refusing compromise when compromise is wrong. But he must also be tender. No weapon will breach the armor of a woman's resentment like tenderness.”
― Elizabeth Elliot, The Mark of a Man

“tell me
of something fiercer
than the love with which
i gaze upon you

of something softer
than the tenderness
with which i hold you.”
― Sanober Khan

“Tessa was laying on her side, her brown hair spread over the pillow, watching Will, whose face was bent over the pages, with a look of tenderness in her eyes, a tenderness mirrored in the softness of Will's voice as he read.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Princess

“I peek up at his features, at the crooked grin i want to savor, at the color in his eyes i'd use to paint a million pictures.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“My father couldn't warm my frozen hands.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“When a soothing wind blows gently love through the thistledown of expectations, hope may inveigle the future for timeless care and tenderness to be anchored in a bay of good luck. ("Happiness blowing in the wind" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“You don't blast a heart open," she said. "You coax and nurture it open, like the sun does to a rose.”
― Melody Beattie, The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take

“Can I touch you?”
His lashes closed, resting on the tops of his tanned, sculpted cheeks as his smile grew broad. “You don’t have to ask.” I reached out immediately but paused within inches of contact. He must’ve sensed my hesitation because he reopened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
I swallowed, utterly overwhelmed. “I don’t know where to start.”
Mason’s gaze warmed . He wrapped strong warm fingers around my wrist and drew my palm forward, leading me where he wanted my hand to follow. When he set it on the center of his chest, right over his heart and pressed my flesh to his as if fingerprinting my soul to his. I blinked back gratified tears.
“Start here. No one’s ever touched me here before.”
― Linda Kage, Price of a Kiss

“love
wounds me
with soft pillows
with tender lips
and fingers”
― Sanober Khan, A touch, a tear, a tempest

“This is what it means to be loved... when someone wants to touch you, to be tender...”
― Banana Yoshimoto, The Lake

“There is a time in a boy’s life when the sweetness is pounded out of him; and tenderness, and the ability to show what he feels, is gone.”
― Norah Vincent

“Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.”
― Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“[The] insistence on the absolutely indiscriminate nature of compassion within the Kingdom is the dominant perspective of almost all of Jesus' teaching.
What is indiscriminate compassion? 'Take a look at a rose. Is is possible for the rose to say, "I'll offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people"? Or can you imagine a lamp that withholds its rays from a wicked person who seeks to walk in its light? It could do that only be ceasing to be a lamp. And observe how helplessly and indiscriminately a tree gives its shade to everyone, good and bad, young and old, high and low; to animals and humans and every living creature -- even to the one who seeks to cut it down. This is the first quality of compassion -- its indiscriminate character.' (Anthony DeMello, The Way to Love)...
What makes the Kingdom come is heartfelt compassion: a way of tenderness that knows no frontiers, no labels, no compartmentalizing, and no sectarian divisions.”
― Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness. Tenderness awakens within the security of knowing we are thoroughly and sincerely liked by someone...
Scripture suggests that the essence of the divine nature is compassion and that the heart of God is defined by tenderness.”
― Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

“Tender," she said again. "Tender is kind and gentle. It's also sore, like the skin around an injury.”
― Brenna Yovanoff, The Space Between

“Everything tender and melancholy - as life is sometimes, just for one moment.”
― Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight

“You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“He had tenderness in his heart — ‘a soft place,’ as Nicholas Higgins called it; but he had some pride in concealing it; he kept it very sacred and safe, and was jealous of every circumstance that tried to gain admission. But if he dreaded exposure of his tenderness, he was equally desirous that all men should recognize his justice; and he felt that he had been unjust, in giving so scornful a hearing to anyone who had waited, with humble patience, for five hours, to speak to him.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“And then I remember this morning and I wonder if it really happened or if I dreamed it. It was nice. And weird. And tender. I'm not used to tender. It's a fossil, that word. Conditions changed and it died out. Like the woolly mammoth. It just couldn't live in the same world as dick box. Ho dog. Or wiener cousins.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

“[Letter to his wife, Natalia Sedova]

In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness.

For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.

Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.”
― Leon Trotsky

“People like to warn you that by the time you reach the middle of your life, passion will begin to feel like a meal eaten long ago, which you remember with great tenderness.”
― Meg Wolitzer, The Uncoupling

“(A)t least simulated vulnerability is bearable/for those/who cannot/withstand unreasonable tenderness.”
― Chelsey Minnis, Zirconia

“You must remember that you are my prime treasure (and always have been).'
Emma Darwin to husband Charles”
― Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith

“Amid all the harsh words of a cruel world, let my voice speak out in tenderness. There is an inner light which must be nourished and cannot be replaced with a blind eye. Soft spirits are so much more than the simple result of hopeless romanticism. Each one is the soul of beauty and love combined.”
― Erin Forbes