
Source: "Freedom to learn" (1969), p.236.
Source: A Way of Being
A collection of quotes on the topic of softening, likeness, making, other.
Source: "Freedom to learn" (1969), p.236.
Source: A Way of Being
At the funeral of his first wife, Kato Svanidze, on 25 November 1907, as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 193
Contemporary witnesses
“A woman should soften but not weaken a man.”
Ecclesiastes 8:1-4 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/ecclesiastes/8/, NWT
I-II, q. 28, art. 5
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Context: it is to be observed that four proximate effects may be ascribed to love: viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover... Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.
Book VI, chapter 3: "Conversations and Exhortations of Father Zossima; Of Prayer, of Love, and of Contact with other Worlds" (translated by Constance Garnett)
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day, and you will come at last to love the world with an all-embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and untroubled joy. So do not trouble it, do not harass them, do not deprive them of their joy, do not go against God's intent. Man, do not exhale yourself above the animals: they are without sin, while you in your majesty defile the earth by your appearance on it, and you leave the traces of your defilement behind you — alas, this is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for like the angels they too are sinless, and they live to soften and purify our hearts, and, as it were, to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child.
My young brother asked even the birds to forgive him. It may sound absurd, but it is right none the less, for everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact with everything else: touch one place, and you set up a movement at the other end of the world. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but, then, it would be easier for the birds, and for the child, and for every animal if you were yourself more pleasant than you are now. Everything is like an ocean, I tell you. Then you would pray to the birds, too, consumed by a universal love, as though in ecstasy, and ask that they, too, should forgive your sin. Treasure this ecstasy, however absurd people may think it.
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
Attributed to Irving as early as 1883. [Hit and miss : a story of real life, Angie Stewart, Manly, Chicago, J.L. Regan, 1883, i, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435018229575?urlappend=%3Bseq=7] However, it does not seem to appear in Irving's known works. Other citations from the same year leave the quotation unattributed. [Henry S. (ed.), Clubb, The Peacemaker and Court of Arbitration, Volume 1, Universal Peace Union, 1883, 125, Philadelphia, https://books.google.com/books?id=Uu84AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA125] [The Australian Women's Magazine and Domestic Journal, Vol. 2 No. 2 (May 1883), 1883, Melbourne, 435, https://books.google.com/books?id=mq0sAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA435]. A similar passage is found in a pseudonymous novel published two years earlier in 1881: "Julia knew that sacrifices to patience are not in vain. Although they often do not produce the happiness for which they are made, they will, always, flow back and soften and purify the heart of the one who makes them". [Illma, Or, Which was Wife?, Miss, M.L.A., Cornwell & Johnson, 1881, 239, New York, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435017658592?urlappend=%3Bseq=245]
Disputed
“Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”
Act I, scene i; the first lines of this passage are often rendered in modern spelling as "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast", or misquoted as: "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast".
The Mourning Bride (1697)
Context: Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!
'Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs.
Anselmo sleeps, and is at Peace; last Night
The silent Tomb receiv'd the good Old King;
He and his Sorrows now are safely lodg'd
Within its cold, but hospitable Bosom.
Why am not I at Peace?
“Katczinsky says it is all to do with education - it softens the brain.”
Source: All Quiet on the Western Front
As quoted in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 263.
“If she's cool and unwilling to be wooed,
Just take it, don't weaken; in time she'll soften her mood.
Bending a bough the right way, gently, makes
It easy; use brute force, and it breaks.
With swimming rivers it's the same—
Go with, not against, the current.”
Si nec blanda satis, nec erit tibi comis amanti,
Perfer et obdura: postmodo mitis erit.
Flectitur obsequio curvatus ab arbore ramus:
Frangis, si vires experiere tuas.
Obsequio tranantur aquae: nec vincere possis
Flumina, si contra, quam rapit unda, nates.
Book II, lines 177–182 (tr. James Michie)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
“Just as the lotus wilts, the mums bloom forth—
time softens grief, and winter turns to spring.”
Source: The Tale of Kiều (1813), Lines 1795–1796; quoted by Bill Clinton, in "Remarks at a State Dinner Hosted by President Tran Duc Luong of Vietnam in Hanoi" (17 November 2000) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=1030: "Just as the lotus wilts, the mums bloom forth; time softens grief; and the winter turns to spring."
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/may/15/corn-importation-bill-adjourned-debate in the House of Commons (15 May 1846).
1840s
Mystic Treatises, cited in Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1976), [//books.google.it/books?id=dxqvWwPSCSwC&pg=PA111 p. 111]; also cited and discussed in A. M. Allchin, The World is a Wedding (1978), p. 85. Quoted in Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology (1994), [//books.google.it/books?id=ESTjQYS_8hMC&pg=PA56 p. 56].
1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination of race and religious prejudice. We must stand for a reign of equal justice to both big and small. We must insist on the maintenance of the American standard of living. We must stand for an adequate national control which shall secure a better training of our young men in time of peace, both for the work of peace and for the work of war. We must direct every national resource, material and spiritual, to the task not of shirking difficulties, but of training our people to overcome difficulties. Our aim must be, not to make life easy and soft, not to soften soul and body, but to fit us in virile fashion to do a great work for all mankind. This great work can only be done by a mighty democracy, with these qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of mind, which will both make it refuse to do injustice to any other nation, and also enable it to hold its own against aggression by any other nation. In our relations with the outside world, we must abhor wrongdoing, and disdain to commit it, and we must no less disdain the baseness of spirit which lamely submits to wrongdoing. Finally and most important of all, we must strive for the establishment within our own borders of that stern and lofty standard of personal and public neutrality which shall guarantee to each man his rights, and which shall insist in return upon the full performance by each man of his duties both to his neighbor and to the great nation whose flag must symbolize in the future as it has symbolized in the past the highest hopes of all mankind.
2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: But I don't think God wants us to stop there. For too long, we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present. Perhaps we see that now. Perhaps this tragedy causes us to ask some tough questions about how we can permit so many of our children to languish in poverty, or attend dilapidated schools, or grow up without prospects for a job or for a career. Perhaps it causes us to examine what we’re doing to cause some of our children to hate. Perhaps it softens hearts towards those lost young men, tens and tens of thousands caught up in the criminal justice system and leads us to make sure that that system is not infected with bias; that we embrace changes in how we train and equip our police so that the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve make us all safer and more secure. Maybe we now realize the way racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it, so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal. So that we search our hearts when we consider laws to make it harder for some of our fellow citizens to vote. By recognizing our common humanity by treating every child as important, regardless of the color of their skin or the station into which they were born, and to do what’s necessary to make opportunity real for every American -- by doing that, we express God’s grace.
“Pray to soften heartened hearts, to open darkened minds.”
Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel (2019)
“Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal.”
Source: Running with Scissors
Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Context: As I trace the route to his apartment, the twists and turns, and pass once more the old tree opposite his house, I am struck by a sudden thought: memories have ways of becoming independent of the reality they evoke. They can soften us against those we were deeply hurt by or they can make us resent those we once accepted and loved unconditionally.
Source: A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last
Source: Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals
Source: The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
Kéramos http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/TheCompletePoeticalWorksofHenryWadsworthLongfellow/chap22.html, st. 29.
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
Source: A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
Manet, recorded by Philippe Burty, as cited in Manet by Himself, ed. Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Little Brown 2000, London; p. 52
1850 - 1875
Source: Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (1992), p. 49
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 147
Source: Lady of Mazes (2005), Chapter 24 (p. 265).
《望江南》 ("Immeasurable Pain"), as translated by Arthur Waley in The Temple (1923), p. 144
Quote from Tobey's Bahai lecture, 1951; as quoted in Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, pp. 66/67
1950's
"Rock for Sale"; quoted in The Sociology of Rock, Simon Frith, 1978, ISBN 0094602204
Canto II, XVII
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)
Lives of Wives (London: Cassell, 1939)
On naval timber and arboriculture (1831), Appendix F, part II
“Spring” http://www.schulzian.net/translation/sanatorium/spring01.htm
His father, The heavens
As quoted in We Hold These Truths https://books.google.com/books?id=QQH6lsN4TIIC&pg=PA72, by Randall Norman Desoto, pp. 72–73
1770s, Letter to Robert Pleasants (1773)
Nothing Created Everything: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution (2009)
Speech in 1935, as quoted by Donna E. Shalala, as Secretary of Health and Human Services, in a speech to the American Public Welfare Association (27 February 1995) http://www.hhs.gov/news/speeches/apwa.html
1930s
December 2017 interview with Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/star-wars-rian-johnson-interview-about-the-last-jedi-fan-backlash-2017-12
Speech (February 1916), quoted in War Memoirs: Volume I (London: Odhams, 1938), pp. 209-210
Minister of Munitions
“The human mind is never better disposed to gratitude and attachment than when softened by fear.”
Farwell, Byron: Queen Victoria's Little Wars, p. 27-31
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1784), Lecture XLIII: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey—Virgil's Aeneid.
The History of Freedom in Christianity (1877)
pg. xxxii
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Education
“Privilege tends to soften the brain, or so I’ve observed.”
Part 3 “The Island Out There” Chapter 2 (p. 294)
Mendoza in Hollywood (2000)
Source: Democracy Realizedː The Progressive Alternative (1998), p. 165
Italy under the Oligarchy
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2
Source: Man on His Own: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion (1959), p. 38
Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 65
Letter to his son, Webb Hayes (20 March 1890)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 67
2003-02-10
[O'Reilly: "We Do Not Speculate Here", FAIR.org, 2005-06-10, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2543, 2010-11-19]
Corot explains his making of the painting to his biographer Alfred Robaut, c. 1869; as quoted in Corot, Gary Tinterow, Michael Pantazzi, Vincent Pomarède - Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (France), National Gallery of Canada, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), 1996, p. 277
about his painting 'Landscape with Figures', also called 'La Toilette', Corot painted in 1859
1860s
Source: 'A Plea for Art Photography in America', Alfred Stieglitz, in 'Photographic Mosaics,' Vol 28, 1892: About Pictorialism.
C. McLarty, The Rising Sea: Grothendieck on simplicity and generality, in J. J. Gray and K.H. Parshall eds., Episodes in the History of Modern Algebra (1800–1950), Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2007.Link http://math.stanford.edu/~vakil/216blog/FOAGjun1113public.pdf
As quoted by Joseph Jay Deiss in "Humanity, said Edgar Allan Poe, is divided into Men, Women, and Margaret Fuller" in American Heritage magazine, Vol. 23, Issue 5 (August 1972) http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1972/5/1972_5_42.shtml.
quote from conversation with Seitz
1950's
Source: 'Reminiscence and Reverie', Mark Tobey, Magazine of Art, 44, October 1951, pp. 228, 231
Erving Goffman (1963), Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, p. 5-6, ISBN 1439188335
1950s-1960s
Love is Enough (1872), Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow
Making Things Better (2002)
Prayer, inscribed on the bronze memorial to Stevenson in St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland
“Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade.”
Source: Hymn (1730), line 25.
Gebir, Book I (1798). It is reported that "these lines were specially singled out for admiration by Shelley, Humphrey Davy, Scott, and many remarkable men"; Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), citing Forster, Life of Landor, vol. i. p. 95.
“Thus when the names of heroes we declare,
Names, whose unpolished sounds offend the ear,
We add, or lop some branches which abound,
Till the harsh accents are with smoothness crowned
That mellows every word, and softens every sound.”
Idcirco si quando ducum referenda virumque
Nomina dura nimis dictu, atque asperrima cultu,
Illa aliqui, nunc addentes, nunc inde putantes
Pauca minutatim, levant, ac mollia reddunt.
Book III, line 320
De Arte Poetica (1527)
As mentioned in the Atlantic interview http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/hacktivists-advocate-meet-the-lawyer-who-defends-anonymous/263202/