1. First you need only look: Notice and honor the radiance of Everything about you... Play in this universe. Tend All these shining things around you: The smallest plant, the creatures and objects in your care. Be gentle and nurture. Listen... ~ Anne Hillman

2. Feelings are everywhere - be gentle. ~Anonymous

4. Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. ~Kent Nerburn

5. A friend is one to whom you can pour out the contents of your heart, chaff and grain alike. Knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away. ~Anonymous

7. Let there be nothing within thee that is not very beautiful and very gentle, and there will be nothing without thee that is not beautiful and softened by the spell of thy presence. ~James Allen

8. The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. ~ Henry David Thoreau

10. Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself. ~Julia Cameron

11. All photographs courtesy of Gerard C. Burnel