Calm

“ Be calm, be calm—for you have suffered, wandered through the dark abyss—truly you have been chastened enough in this world. But while your heart is only bruised and sore, mine is stung deep and lacerated. ”

“ When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon you, and you chafe under the friction,--be calm. Stop, rest for a moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. ”

“ Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
⁠The beauty of Thy peace.
Breathe through the pulses of desire
⁠Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, its heats expire:
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
⁠O still small voice of calm!⁠ Amen. ”

“ There are times, when calm reigns all around him, and peace blossoms in his heart, that he suddenly is apprised that Calamity is flapping her way toward him through the terrible nebulous gloom of the Future. ”

“ It dreams a rest, if not more deep,
More grateful than this marble sleep;
It hears a voice within it tell,—
Calm's not life's crown, though calm is well
'Tis all, perhaps, which man acquires,
But 'tis not what our youth desires. ”

“ There is the same impenetrable calm, the same simultaneous purring and sharpening of claws, the same abrupt transition from an attitude of the utmost friendliness to one of the most humiliating disdain. ”

“ Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
The Kine are couched upon the dewy grass;
The Horse alone, seen dimly as I pass,
Is up, and cropping yet his later meal:
Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal
O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky. ”

“ We love this universal calm which surrounds Nature before it sleeps. We love this unchangeable peace which descends from the rising stars! The starry sky which lights up the Earth which falls asleep, these are the spectacles which draw us away from a world of clamorous passions—pleasures of the soul which we enjoy in peace. ”

“ There is a celestial calm—an elevated joy, in the trance of mind; it is a pure and quiet sense of nobler being. There is a sweet serenity—a bliss divine, in the simple and noiseless expressions of virtuous esteem and friendship. ”

“ And for a long while then his mind reposed itself in such a dignified calm that no thought stirred there at all, from which when he was aroused he cast off his lethargy as a man emerges from the baths, refreshed, cleansed and contented, and put away from his musings the things he had seen on the plain as being evil and of the nature of dreams, or futile illusion, the results of activity which troubleth calm. ”

“ Can calm despair and wild unrest
Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?
Or doth she only seem to take
The touch of change in calm or storm;
But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake
That holds the shadow of a lark
Hung in the shadow of a heaven? ”

“ O ye who fall on calmer times!
The perils of the calm
Are yours—the swell, the sloth, the sleep,
The carelessness of harm,
The keel that rides the gale, to strike
Where the warm waves are still;
Ours were the surf, the stir, the shock,
The tempest and the thrill.
Comrades, be yours that vigor old,
Be yours the elected power
That fits a man, like rock to tide,
To his appointed hour ”

“ A dead, oppressive calm had settled on the sea; not a breeze rustled, not a ripple broke the glassy surface of the water, and from the town, instead of the loud babel of cries, came only a low murmur like a distant waterfall. A strange calm indeed, the calm that serves as precursor to the unseen storm. ”

“ Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all the struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present; its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of the past! ”

“ What is this in two words but Science and Art, or passion or calm?—Ah! well, every human passion wrought up to its highest pitch in the struggle for existence comes to parade itself before me—as I live in calm. ”

“ It is so; and, when the dreadful repast is over, then again the pulse beats healthfully, and the wasted energies of a strange kind of vitality are restored to us, we become calm again, but with that calmness comes all the horror, all the agony of reflection, and we suffer far more than tongue can tell. ”

“ 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. ”

“ I think that my intellects, unable to sustain, sunk under it, and that the artificial calm that followed was the effect of the agonies in which I passed this melancholy day, and the night that followed it. ”

“ Be of good strength and courage, poor bruised one. This is nature’s kindly season; here is forgetfulness, calm, and rest. Faults and troubles, anxieties and regrets, cares and wrongs, are but one and the same burden. We make no distinctions; we comfort all sorrows, we bring peace, and with us is consolation. ”

“ To a landsman a calm is no joke. It not only revolutionizes his abdomen, but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him. ”

“ Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life ”

“ But I rather hope it is likely that through such restlessness you will come to a far quieter frame of mind. The disturbed mind and affections, like the tossed sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion and trouble. ”

“ Through many toils and much suffering, she has come to meet things with the calm assurance which life brings to men and women of high thinking and large hearts. She sits there in her arm-chair, enjoying the silence of long meditative hours. ”

“ Calm is my soul, and clear, like the mountains in the morning. But they think me cold, and a mocker with terrible jests. ”

“ When the soul rests in undisturbed tranquillity, the features of the face are calm and composed; but when agitated by emotions, and tossed by contending passions, the countenance becomes a living picture, in which every sensation is depicted with equal force and delicacy. ”

“ No matter what happens these babes remain serenely calm; they may be left for hours without food or drink, they may be hung upside down, dropped, trodden on,—in fact, any calamity may befall them,—but still they are silent. ”

“ But all the time the eyes remain closed and the face wears the same expression of perfect and imperturbable calm. To gaze intently upon him is to feel his condition gradually communicating itself to your own brain. That spinning figure with the unmoved countenance begins to exercise a disturbing effect upon you. ”

“ Are we downhearted? No; after the struggle and stress of conflict we get our second breath; and the calm of age overtakes us. The halcyon hours set in to cheer us. I now move airily along the line of least resistance, and this brings tranquillity of mind in my advancing years. We are no longer broody. ”

“ If you have nothing to stir you up and rouse you to action, nothing which will test your resolution by its threats and hostilities; if you recline in unshaken comfort, it is not tranquillity; it is merely a flat calm. ”

“ Who dwelt with us below.
[158] I
Lord, soothe my anxious, troubled soul,
And bid its doubting cease,
Speak to the crested waves that roll,
To sink in quiet peace;
And bring me to a place of rest,
A haven calm and still,
Where every soul by sin distressed,
May dwell secure from ill. ”

“ This sense of comfort I account for from the calm clearness, smoothness, and transparency which pervade the whole of your work, and which leave nothing to disturb or to dissatisfy the mind, and the mind is not more excited than is necessary to fan and maintain a joyous life. ”

“ Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.
The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,--petrifaction is not calmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one lives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the man who is calm. ”

“ Sarah dear Be ye calm in reliance on self, amid all the changes of natural yearnings, of too keen a sense of earth joys, of too great a struggle between the material and spiritual. Be calm or you will rend your mortal and your experience which is needed for your spiritual progress lost, till taken up without the proper sphere and your spirit trials more severe. ”

“ It seeks, rather, a long and even reach of trustful calm, which shall welcome joy and sorrow with equal mind,—shall live in the present, moment by moment, passive and dependent on the will of the Well-Beloved. ”

“ The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm. ”

“ Sweet is the infant’s waking smile,
And sweet the old man’s rest—
But middle age by no fond wile,
No soothing calm is blest. ”

“ O, our feeble tests of greatness! Look for one so calm of soul
As to take the even chalice of his life and drink the whole.
Noble deeds are held in honor, but the wide world sorely needs
Hearts of patience to unravel this,—the worth of common deeds.” ”

“ I have never seen anything like the calm in the man’s face; it is not the stolidity of dulness, for his expression is sagacious and observant, but a look of such abiding tranquillity that you cannot imagine that it ever has been or 318ever will be different. ”

“ There is something pure and calm in such a spot, that influences the feelings of those who pause in it; and by reminding them of the inevitable lot of all sublunary things, renders the cares incidental to all who breathe, less acutely felt for the time. ”

“ By your heart’s calm strength in loving,
Of the fire they have had to bear.
Beat on, true heart, for ever;
Shine bright, strong golden chain;
And bless the cleansing fire,
And the furnace of living pain! ”

“ The placid calm soothes frayed nerves and works wonders in restoring balance and perspective toward family and business problems. The harassed come to realize the inner truth of "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world." ”

“ I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life. ”

“ Content, I call that calm serenity of the mind, which men enjoy while they think themselves happy, and rest satisfied with the station they are in: It implies a favourable construction of our present circumstances, and a peaceful tranquillity, which men are strangers to as long as they are solicitous about mending their condition. ”

“ Calmness and patience can become habitual in the same way—by first grasping through effort, a calm and patient thought, and then continuously thinking it, and living in it, until "use becomes second nature," and anger and impatience pass away for ever. ”