Cruelty is softened by fear, not pity.
Duty itself is supreme delight when love is the inducement and labor. By such a principle the ignorant are enlightened, the hard-hearted softened, the disobedient reformed, and the faithful encouraged.
I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts - facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.
Oh, my fellow men, do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn, we have apples bending down the branches with their weight, and grapes swelling on the vines. There are sweet-flavored herbs, and vegetables which can be cooked and softened over the fire, nor are you denied milk or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter; only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass.
You have to have some level of attachment, you can still have passion and believe but it has to be softened somewhat.
Ready?" Despite the grim mood, I smiled and cracked my knuckles. "Ready to wrestle with my gorgeous boyfriend? Oh, I'd say I'm ready for that. " Amusement softened his eyes. "I'll try to control where I put my hands, but in the heat of things, who knows what could happen?" I added. Patch grinned. "Sounds promising.
The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, and still fluttered down the snow.
But the close withdrew: the hand softened. It was over-- the moment.
Cruelty isn't softened by tears; it feeds on them.
He pressed himself into me and kissed my neck, and it was as if everything strong and solid inside me, heart and bones and muscle and gut, softened and melted from the heat of him.
In the past the need for a hierarchal form of society has been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of an imaginary world beyond the grave.
The human mind is never better disposed to gratitude and attachment than when softened by fear.
Karrin smiled faintly and shook her head. "He always said you knew ghosts. You're sure it was really him?" Mort eyed her. "Me and everyone else, yeah. " Karrin scowled and stared into the middle distance. Mort frowned and then his expression softened. "You didn't want it to be his ghost. Did you?" Murphy shook her head slowly, but said nothing. "You needed everyone to be wrong about it. Because if it really was his ghost," Mort said, "it means that he really is dead. " Murphy's face. . . just crumpled. Her eyes overflowed and she bowed her head. Her body shook in silence.
The light of genius never sets, but sheds itself upon other faces, in different hues of splendor. Homer glows in the softened beauty of Virgil, and Spenser revives in the decorated learning of Gray.
You can be who you will,” he repeated. His voice softened. “And if you will have me, I will be the one beside you.
The liberals have not softened their view of actuality to make themselves live closer to the dream, but instead sharpen their perceptions and fight to make the dream actuality.
This is a private home. " "And?" "And I can't enter without an invitation. " She jerked her head up. "You're kidding me?" "No. " "You don't live in a crypt and you can't turn into a bat, but you have to have an invitation to enter a house?" Abby hissed. A reluctant amusement softened the flat eyes. "You wanted me to be vampirish. " "Not when it's inconvenient.
Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their mothers.
Let there be nothing within thee that is not very beautiful and very gentle, and there will be nothing without thee that is not beautiful and softened by the spell of thy presence.
