All my tattoos except my first were not planned. I would just go into the shop late at night with friends and ask for something on the spot. My first is my parents' wedding date. I thought it would soften the blow of getting a tattoo.

I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile.

I think that if your approach is one where you don't want to alienate anybody, you're going to have to soften the viewpoint or the information that you're offering to such an extent that it doesn't have the power to make any difference. You have to take that risk.

Constructive criticism is about finding something good and positive to soften the blow to the real critique of what really went on.

Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

Four hours of prosthetics every morning, the jowls and the nose, and it was very hot so they're having to attend to it all day, and you're still petrified of so many things, such as, can I speak properly? Hitchcock never quite lost those East End vowels, even though he had the softened California consonants.

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.

A spirit, breathing the language of independence, is natural to Englishmen, few of whom are disposed to brook compulsion, or submit to the dictates of others, when not softened by reason, or tempered with kindness.

Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.

I'm not a traditional politician, and I have a sense of humor. I'll try to soften it and become boring, maybe even very boring, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to.

I think my mom put it best. She said, 'Little girls soften their daddy's hearts.'

I was rejected for couple of adverts for sounding too sad. One was for Diet Coke, but it's a good thing it didn't happen because it probably would have been a big blight on my soul. It also happened with a fabric softener called Downy, and I guess the way I sang 'Only Downy' made people weep.

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

"David had every right to be angry and take vengeance upon such a character as Nabal, who insulted him and his men, yet God had something different in mind. In Romans 12 verse 19 we read that it is God who will avenge, He will repay. It is not our job. And God knows exactly how to get through to people. God had a very specific purpose in this whole event ? He was getting David ready to move into kingship and David had some character building left to do which he did by giving heed to Abigail's words of wisdom. Abigail, in wisdom, asked for forgiveness from David for her husband's foolish words but she also appealed to him to be gracious to her and her household while reminding him of what God had promised to David regarding his future as leader of Israel. God was busy softening David's hear. This was a lesson in grace. David learned how to show the grace of God to Abigail.

With Love comes a softening, a gentleness, a kindness, a joy.

"My heart was full of softening showers

What are five things you are grateful for? Right now? Open to gratitude and you will soften into joy.

Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.

Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.

Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.

"Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.

"His lips soften into a smile that cracks apart my spine. He repeats my name like the word amuses him. Entertains him. Delights him.

A woman should soften but not weaken a man.

My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.