“Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.”
Anatole France book The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
Source: The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
"The Erring" (1844).
Context: Speak kindly to the erring;
Thou yet may'st lead them back,
With holy words and tones of love,
From misery's thorny track.
Forget not thou hast often sinned.
And sinful yet must be;
Deal gently with the erring one,
As God hath dealt with thee.
“Time deals gently only with those who take it gently.”
Anatole France book The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
Source: The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard
Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) American political scientist
After the Revolution? (1970; 1990), Ch. 2 : Varieties of Democratic Authority
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
Tablet to the First Letter of the Living
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, Thanksgiving Proclamation (1863)
Context: In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson book Ulysses
Source: Ulysses (1842), l. 46-53
Context: Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Tales of Power" (Chapter 10)
Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist
Sermon (1899)
“On the Disc the gods dealt severely with atheists.”
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Source: The Color of Magic
Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith
Epistle to Muhammad Sháh