C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Delicacy
Delicacy is the genuine tint of virtue.
Delicacy in woman is strength.
Delicacy is an attribute of heaven.
Delicacy is to affectation what grace is to beauty.
Delicacy is to the affections what grace is to the beauty.
If you destroy delicacy and a sense of shame in a young girl, you deprave her very fast.
Delicacy is the coquetry of truth; fastidiousness is the prudery of falsehood.
Delicacy is to the mind what fragrance is to the fruit.
The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little consults his own tranquillity.
An appearance of delicacy is inseparable from sweetness and gentleness of character.
The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
An appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to beauty.
Love lessens woman’s delicacy, and increases man’s.
In delicate souls love never presents itself but under the veil of esteem.
It is against womanhood to be forward in their own wishes.
True delicacy, that most beautiful heart-leaf of humanity, exhibits itself most significantly in little things.
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling.
To a woman of delicate feeling the most persuasive declaration of love consists in the embarrassment of the lover.
A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs and small notions; about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest.
Women could take part in the processions, the songs, the dances, of old religion; no one fancied their delicacy was impaired by appearing in public for such a cause.
Weak men often from the very principle of their weakness derive a certain susceptibility, delicacy and taste which render them, in those particulars, much superior to men of stronger and more consistent minds, who laugh at them.
The commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference in her presence.
Friendship, love, and piety ought to be handled with a sort of mysterious secrecy; they ought to be spoken of only in the rare moments of perfect confidence, to be mutually understood in silence. Many things are too delicate to be thought; many more, to be spoken.
There is a certain delicacy which in yielding conquers; and with a pitiful look makes one find cause to crave help one’s self.