C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Grace
Grace is the outcome of inward harmony.
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.
Beauty and grace command the world.
Beauty loses its relish; the graces never.
Graceful to sight and elegant to thought.
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
Natural graces, that extinguish art.
Every natural action is graceful.
Her step is music, and her voice is song.
Grace is to the body what good sense is to the mind.
Let grace and goodness be the principle loadstone of thy affections.
Grace has been defined, the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.
Every natural movement is graceful. Did you ever watch a kitten at play?
The mother grace of all the graces is Christian good-will.
There is no such way to attain to greater measures of grace, as for a man to live up to that little grace he has.
Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom.
He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.
A pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.
Beauty, devoid of grace, is a mere hook without the bait.
God appoints our graces to be nurses to other men’s weaknesses.
To some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies.
Whatever is graceful is virtuous, and whatever is virtuous is graceful.
That word “grace” in an ungracious mouth is but profane.
In effective womanly beauty form is more than face, and manner more than either.
Till all grace be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, in every gesture dignity and love.
As prodigal of all dear grace as Nature was in making graces dear.
Her walk was like no mortal thing, but shaped after an angel’s.
The light of love, the purity of grace, the mind, the music, breathing in her face.
With countenance demure, and modest grace.
Grace comes often clad in the dusky robe of desolation.
A beautiful form is the finest of the fine arts.
The loveliest hair is nothing, if the wearer is incapable of a grace.
God giveth true grace to but a chosen few, however many aspire to it.
The king-becoming graces—devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.
Oh, mickle is the powerful grace that lies in plants, herbs, stones and their qualities!
It is the very nature of grace to make a man strive to be most eminent in that particular grace which is most opposed to his bosom sin.
Strength is natural, but grace is the growth of habit. This charming quality requires practice if it is to become lasting.
The grace will carry us, if we do not willfully betray our succors, victoriously through all difficulties.
The grace of the spirit comes only from heaven, and lights up the whole bodily presence.
Grace is in garments, in movements, in manners; beauty in the nude, and in forms. This is true of bodies; but when we speak of feelings, beauty is in their spirituality, and grace in their moderation.
There are true graces, which, as Homer feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are so firmly united to each other.
The most divine light only shineth on those minds which are purged from all worldly dross and human uncleanliness.
All actions and attitudes of children are graceful because they are the luxuriant and immediate offspring of the moment—divested of affectation and free from all pretence.
She was the pride of her familial sphere—the daily joy of all who on her gracefulness might gaze, and in the light and music of her way have a companion’s portion.
Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love, which hath ends, will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue will always continue.
True grace is natural, not artificial, because, however strenuously you strive to gain it, when it is gained it never gives the impression of effort or straining for effect.
Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal than accused of deficiency in the graces.
Every degree of recession from the state of grace Christ first put us in is a recession from our hopes.
Her grace of motion and of look, the smooth and swimming majesty of step and tread, the symmetry of form and feature, set the soul afloat, even like delicious airs of flute and harp.
The feminine graces of Madame de Sévigné’s genius are exquisitely charming; but the philosophy and eloquence of Madame de Staël are above the distinction of sex.
Riches may enable us to confer favors; but to confer them with propriety and with grace requires a something that riches cannot give. Even trifles may be so bestowed as to cease to be trifles.
Gracefulness cannot subsist without ease; delicacy is not debility; nor must a woman be sick in order to please. Infirmity and sickness may excite our pity, but desire and pleasure require the bloom and vigor of health,
Grace is a quality different from beauty, though nearly allied to it, which is never observed without affecting us with emotions of peculiar delight, and which it is, perhaps, the first object of the arts of sculpture and painting to study and to present.
Grace can never properly be said to exist without beauty; for it is only in the elegant proportions of beautiful forms that can be found that harmonious variety of line and motion which is the essence and charm of grace.
It is graceful in a man to think and to speak with propriety, to act with deliberation, and in every occurrence of life to find out and persevere in the truth. On the other hand, to be imposed upon, to mistake, to falter, and to be deceived, is as ungraceful as to rave or to be insane.
Know you not, master, to some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies? No more do yours; your virtues, gentle master, are sanctified and holy traitors to you. Oh, what a world is this, when what is comely envenoms him that bears it!
Virtue, without the graces, is like a rich diamond unpolished—it hardly looks better than a common pebble; but when the hand of the master rubs off the roughness, and forms the sides into a thousand brilliant surfaces, it is then that we acknowledge its worth, admire its beauty, and long to wear it in our bosoms.
Grace in women has more effect than beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on its own sensations, and derives pleasure from all around it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons, “in their eyes, in their arms, and their hands, and their face,” which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a secret sympathy towards them.
Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation, or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them “elegant” animals would be absurd.