#tenderness

As she stooped over him, her tears fell upon his forehead. The boy stirred, and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known; as a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or even the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were, in this life; which vanish like a breath; and which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened, for no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall them. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#memory #tenderness #dreams

You must remember that you are my prime treasure (and always have been).' Emma Darwin to husband Charles ↗

— Deborah Heiligman

#marriage #tenderness #way-to-be #faith

Tenderness is a virtue. ↗

— Oliver Goldsmith

#virtue

I want affection and tenderness desperately, but there's something in me that prevents me from handing it out. ↗

— Ethel Waters

#desperately #handing #i #me #out

Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table. ↗

— Alfred Hitchcock

#domestic #exquisite #homey #kitchen #kitchen table

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return. ↗

— George Eliot

#ease #ill #indifference #love #return

Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness. ↗

— Rollo May

#does #human #matter #something #source

Cows are amongst the gentlest of breathing creatures; none show more passionate tenderness to their young when deprived of them; and, in short, I am not ashamed to profess a deep love for these quiet creatures. ↗

— Thomas de Quincey

#amongst #ashamed #breathing #cows #creatures

There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise. ↗

— William James

#between #companionship #joyousness #life #need

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

#eaten #emotion #food #life #meal