Magnanimity Quotes

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe. ~ Virginia Woolf

How magnanimous was a gesture if one were constantly aware of its magnanimity? ~ Laura Lippman

How I snuffed that Tartar air!
how I spurned that turnpike earth!
that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records. ~ Herman Melville

You have to have a habitual vision of greatness ... you have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won't confuse your financial security with your personal integrity, you won't confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity ... believe in fact that living is connected to giving. ~ Cornel West

If there were no magnanimity in war, we'd go to it only when it was worth going to certain death, as now. . . . We must take this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. That's the whole point: to cast off the lie, and if it's war it's war, and not a game. ~ Leo Tolstoy

A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious ... When conducted with magnanimity, justice and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But if sullied by crimes and extravagancies, it loses its respectability. ~ Alexander Hamilton

If you happened to be born on third base, you didn't rub it in the face of the guy who wasn't even born in the stadium. Self-interest was generally checked at the door with your coat and hat. ~ Ron Suskind

„The Prophet had a universal soul. He had an oceanic soul. One that embraced all other Souls and our masters in our tradition talk about that. They talk about the magnanimity of the Prophet. The great souledness of our Prophet. That meant that he had the ability to relate to every single human being: as they are, where they are, to feel and suffer with them if they had harm and to feel joy with them if they had good and to be intent on their well-being in all things that they did. This is an incredible capacity. And as we grow spiritually this must be one of the gauges by which growth is measured. You are able to embrace people as a whole, not just your own group, not just your own family, not just your own country, but to embrace all people. And not just the good ones but also the bad ones as well. The more that we grow spiritually, the greater this quality becomes. That's why the community that embodies that becomes a mercy to the worlds like the Prophet himself. Then that community is a mercy for everyone around it. For the trees, for the animals, for all the people no matter who they are. For the homeless, for the down-and-out, for the people that have nothing. This is the way the community got to be. It's got to be a community with open arms, a community that is here to serve and to love. That's the way the Prophet was, isn't it? The Prophet who is the greatest thing that God created in creation, the greatest of all the human beings, of all the Jin, greater than all the ~ Dr. Umar Faruq Abd Allah

When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure. ~ Alexander Hamilton

In forgiving an injury be somewhat ceremonious, lest your magnanimity be construed as indifference. ~ Ambrose Bierce

For me and my friends, for people who think the way I do over there, for all ordinary Soviet citizens, America evokes a mixture of admiration and compassion...You're a country of the future, a young country, with yet untapped possiblities, enormous territory, great breadth of spirit, generosity, magnanimity. But these qualities - strength, generosity, and magnanimity - are usually combined in a man and even in a whole country with trustfulness. And this has already done you a disservice several times. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I learned a lot, when I was a child, from novels and stories, even fairytales have some point to them--the good ones. The thing that impressed me most forcibly was this: the villains went to work with their brains and always accomplished something. To be sure they were "foiled" in the end, but that was by some special interposition of Providence, not by any equal exertion of intellect on the part of the good people. The heroes and middle ones were mostly very stupid. If bad things happened, they practised patience, endurance, resignation, and similar virtues; if good things happened they practised modesty and magnanimity and virtues like that, but it never seemed to occur to any of them to make things move their way. Whatever the villains planned for them to do, they did, like sheep. The same old combinations of circumstances would be worked off on them in book after book--and they always tumbled.

It used to worry me as a discord worries a musician. Hadn't they ever read anything? Couldn't they learn anything from what they read--ever? It appeared not. And it seemed to me, even as a very little child, that what we wanted was good people with brains, not just negative, passive, good people, but positive, active ones, who gave their minds to it.

"A good villain. That's what we need!" I said to myself. "Why don't they write about them? Aren't there ever any?"

I never found any in all my beloved story books, or in real life. And gradually, I made ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There are good points about all ... wars. People forget self. The virtues of magnanimity, courage, patriotism, etc., are called into life. People are more generous, more sympathetic, better, than when engaged in the more selfish pursuits of peace. ~ Rutherford B. Hayes

For a house,
the good thing is level ground.
In thinking,
depth is good.
The good of giving is magnanimity;
of speaking, honesty;
of government, order.
The good of work is skill,
and of action, timing.

No competition,
so no blame. ~ Lao Tzu

In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will. ~ Winston S. Churchill

What matters is the need to move from the rigidity of national stereotypes towards something more truly human; what matters is to discover the riches of human hearts and souls; what matters is the human content of poetry and science, the universal charm and beauty of architecture; what matters is the magnanimity of a nation's leaders and historical figures. only by exalting what is truly human, only by fusing the national with what is universally human, can try dignity - and true freedom - be achieved.
It is the struggle for freedom of thought and expression, the struggle for a peasant's freedom to sow what he wants to sow, for everyone's freedom to enjoy the fruits of their own work - this is the true struggle for national dignity.
The only real triumph of national freedom is one that brings about the triumph of all human freedom.
For small nations and large nations alike, this is the only way forward.
And it goes without saying that the Russians too - as well as Armenians, Georgians, Kazakhs, Kalmyks and Uzbeks - must understand that it is precisely through renouncing the idea of their own national superiority that they can truly affirm the grandeur and dignity of their own people, of their own literature and science. ~ Vasily Grossman

portrayed, in the most glowing and impassioned hues, their virtue and magnanimity, the imperishable honor they acquired for themselves, and the great services ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

If appeasing our enemies is not the answer, neither is hating them ... Somewhere between the extremes of appeasement and hate there is a place for courage and strength to express themselves in magnanimity and charity, and this is the place we must find. ~ Alfred Whitney Griswold

Exploding many things under the name of trifles is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions with regard to fame. ~ Jonathan Swift

It would be judicious to act with magnanimity towards a prostrate foe. ~ Zachary Taylor

If you desire to be magnanimous, undertake nothing rashly, and fear nothing thou undertakest; fear nothing but infamy; dare anything but injury; the measure of magnanimity is neither to be rash nor timorous. ~ Francis Quarles

Stars shine even for those who refuse to look up. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The pop star, "Michael Jackson" was believed by some to be a member of the illuminati cult sect and a paedophile, but i'm totally indifferent about this rumor, and i truly love him for his magnanimity towards humanity, and if i was God, i will not hesitate to let him into heaven. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

The bond between husband and wife is a strong one. Suppose the man had hunted her out and brought her back. The memory of her acts would still be there, and inevitably, sooner or later, it would be cause for rancor. When there are crises, incidents, a woman should try to overlook them, for better or for worse, and make the bond into something durable. The wounds will remain, with the woman and with the man, when there are crises such as I have described. It is very foolish for a woman to let a little dalliance upset her so much that she shows her resentment openly. He has his adventures--but if he has fond memories of their early days together, his and hers, she may be sure that she matters. A commotion means the end of everything. She should be quiet and generous, and when something comes up that quite properly arouses her resentment she should make it known by delicate hints. The man will feel guilty and with tactful guidance he will mend his ways. Too much lenience can make a woman seem charmingly docile and trusting, but it can also make her seem somewhat wanting in substance. We have had instances enough of boats abandoned to the winds and waves.
It may be difficult when someone you are especially fond of, someone beautiful and charming, has been guilty of an indiscretion, but magnanimity produces wonders. They may not always work, but generosity and reasonableness and patience do on the whole seem best. ~ Murasaki Shikibu

To be great in our times too often means to have great prosperity and no moral magnanimity at all. ~ Cornel West

Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have played at war - that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's ~ Leo Tolstoy

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Humility, meekness, magnanimity, and love to preserve unity! These, these are the roads, the true roads of the Church. Let us listen to this again. Humility against vanity, against arrogance - humility, meekness, magnanimity, and love preserve unity. ~ Pope Francis

The duty of Republicans in the current crisis, he told them, was "simply that of magnanimity. We have learned, heretofore, the practice of patience under political defeat. It now remains to show the greater virtue of moderation in triumph." Americans of different parties, he said, "are not, never can be, never must be, enemies, or even adversaries. We are all fellow-citizens, Americans, brethren."3 ~ Walter Stahr

We have not sought this conflict; we have sought too long to avoid it; our forbearance has been construed into weakness, our magnanimity into fear, until the vindication of our manhood, as well as the defence of our rights, is required at our hands. ~ Robert Toombs

For all I know,he may be a prince in disguise; he rather looks like one, by the way- like a prince who has abdicated in a fit of magnanimity, and has been in a state of disgust ever since. ~ Henry James

You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

What pages did I write?
What bellicosity!
What words did I bite?
What ferocity!
This ink, in magnanimity, as I took,
Find me a humble name in your stale book,
This hour, from shrewdness, as I steal
My scars heal, my imaginations kneel;
These musings around your benevolent brook
Find me a humble name in your stale book,
Find me a humble name in your stale book. ~ Ashfaq Saraf

Bush is almost always clear when he's speaking cruelly. For example, when the subject is the punitive infliction of great pain, there is no problem with his syntax, grammar, or vocabulary, even if he happens to be lying ... On the other hand, our president is extraordinarily tongue-tied when he's trying, off the cuff, to sound a note of idealism, magnanimity or
especially
compassion. ~ Mark Crispin Miller

The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. Revolution is the festival of the oppressed. For a long time there may be no perceptible reward for women other than their new sense of purpose and integrity. Joy does not mean riotous glee, but it does mean the purposive employment of energy in a self-chosen enterprise. It does mean pride and confidence. It does mean communication and cooperation with others based on delight in their company and your own. To be emancipated from helplessness and need and walk freely upon the earth that is your birthright. To refuse hobbles and deformity and take possession of your body and glory in its power, accepting its own laws of loveliness. To have something to desire, something to make, something to achieve, and at last something genuine to give. To be freed from guilt and shame and the tireless self-discipline of women. To stop pretending and dissembling, cajoling and manipulating, and begin to control and sympathize. To claim the masculine virtues of magnanimity and generosity and courage. It goes much further than equal pay for equal work, for it ought to revolutionise the conditions of work completely. It does not understand the phrase 'equality of opportunity', for it seems that the opportunities will have to be utterly changed and women's souls changed so that they desire opportunity instead of shrinking from it. ~ Germaine Greer

To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him ~ Eric Hoffer

Unlike economic migrants, refugees have no agency; they are no threat. Often, they are so broken, they beg to be remade into the image of the native. As recipients of magnanimity, they can be pitied. (...) But if you are born in the Third World and you dare to make a move before you are shattered, your dreams are suspicious. You are a carpetbagger, an opportunist, a thief. You are reaching above your station. ~ Dina Nayeri

What does magnanimity look like applied to daily life? How can you be magnanimous every day? Well, it looks like resisting the urge to take offense in other people's lives and in their words or actions (people are not fashioned for your feelings); it looks like not having to launch an emotional reaction to every perceived action or inaction (you are not just a tall toddler with inferiority issues); it looks like letting people go more easily than they thought you could (you have time for more important things other than their tactics); It looks like treading lightly but thundering gently. That's magnanimous. ~ C. JoyBell C.

We can not communicate with the Lord if we do not communicate with each other. If we want to present ourselves to him, we must take a step towards meeting one another. To do this we must learn the great lesson of forgiveness: we must not let the gnawings of resentment work in our soul but must open our hearts to the magnanimity of listening to others, open our hearts to understanding them, eventually to accepting their apologies, to generously offering our own. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity, for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation. ~ George Canning

They prefer a God of an altogether softer flavor. Nothing too extreme. Complaisance, not magnanimity. They do not think upon the "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God." They prefer to think in terms of "God liking them." That's the God they've conjured for themselves. ~ Geoffrey Wood

It was one of those ridiculous arrangements that couples make when they are separating, but before they are divorced - when they still imagine that children and property can be shared with more magnanimity than recrimination. ~ John Irving

Magnanimity consists in enduring tactlessness with mildness. ~ Democritus

Cheerfulness consists in not regarding things as our own, but as entrusted to us by God for the benefit of our fellow-servants. It consists in scattering them abroad generously with joy and magnanimity, not reluctantly or under compulsion. ~ Symeon The New Theologian

What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; as, even in the morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, high-mindeness, personal dignity, even the sense of honor, is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of our education, and never could have grown out of a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience. ~ John Stuart Mill

Religious practice in the Land of the Bible tends to encourage exclusivity and discrimination rather than love and magnanimity. There is no place like the Holy Land to make one cynical about religion. ~ Raja Shehadeh

I was born, I think, with the desire to make beautiful books - brave books that would preserve the glories of the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people, and re-awaken joy and magnanimity. ~ James Branch Cabell

I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor ... Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger. ~ Winston Churchill

Only lovers know the value and magnanimity of truth. ~ Henry David Thoreau

There are many respects in which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the world. ~ J. William Fulbright

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. ~ Edmund Burke

The true mark of greatness is not stridency but magnanimity. ~ J. William Fulbright

Never expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect. ~ Washington Allston

Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Often I felt that these men were play-acting: the unreality of their role was their security, even their own destinies were to them saga and folk-tale rather than a private matter; these were men under a spell, men who had been turned into birds or even more likely into some strange beast, and who bore their magic shapes with the same unflurried equanimity, magnanimity, and dignity that we children had marvelled at the beasts of fairy tale. Did they not suspect, moreover, with the wordless apprehension of animals, that if their magic shapes were to be stripped from them the fairy tale would be at an end and their security gone, too, while real life would begin with all it's problems, perhaps in some town where there was neither nature or mirage, no link with the folk-tale and the past, no ancient path to the far side of the mountains and down to the river gullies and out beyond the grass plains, no landmarks from the Sagas? - Only a restless search for sterile, deadening enjoyment. ~ Halldor Laxness

It is a poor conclusion, is it not?' he observed, having brooded awhile on the scene he had just witnessed: 'an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don't care for striking: I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case: I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.'Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I'm in its shadow at present. I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly remember to eat and drink. Those two who have left the room are the only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and that appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony. About HER I won't speak; and I don't desire to think; but I earnestly wish she were invisible: her presence invokes only maddening sensations. HE moves me differently: and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I'd never see him again! You'll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so,' he added, making an effort to smile, ' ~ Emily Bronte

see, now, that it was wrong for me to curse your particular blood to a diseased eternity of suffering. In an attempt at magnanimity I extend an apology and retract my sanguinary execration. ~ Joseph Fink

There is nothing so charming as the knowledge of literature; of that branch of literature, I mean, which enables us to discover the infinity of things, the immensity of Nature, the heavens, the earth, and the seas; this is that branch which has taught us religion, moderation, magnanimity, and that has rescued the soul from obscurity; to make her see all things above and below, first and last, and between both; it is this that furnishes us wherewith to live well and happily, and guides us to pass our lives without displeasure and without offence. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Unfortunately, magnanimity is often seen as weakness by those on the receiving end. It's easy to be sensitive, tolerant, and multicultural--it's the default mode of the age---yet, when you persist in being sensitive to the insensitive, tolerant of the intolerant, and impeccably multicultural about the avowedly unicultural, don't be surprised if they take it for weakness. ~ Mark Steyn

At finding ourselves, and without having committed any crime, thus introduced into one of the legal fortresses of a country celebrated throughout the world for the freedom, equality, and magnanimity of its laws, I could not help reflecting on the strange ideas of right and justice that seemed to have usurped a place in public opinion, since the mere accident of birth, and what persons were the lease capable of changing or modifying was made a reason for punishing and imprisoning them. ~ Hannah Crafts

The magnanimity and sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed, she is so kind hearted that she can't look at the blood, but enjoys serving the calf up with sauce ~ Leo Tolstoy

There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence which in times of contention for principle was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party communion. ~ John Quincy Adams

Amnesty, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish. ~ Ambrose Bierce

This is the magnanimity of authorship, when a writer having a topic presented to him, fruitful of beauties for common minds, waives his privilege, and trusts to the judicious few for understanding the reason of his abstinence. ~ Charles Lamb

The whole point of her action - the whole grandeur - would lie in taking it without the King's knowledge, in leaving him utterly free to repudiate it, so that all benefits should be his, and all the risk hers, and with the risk, of course, all the magnanimity, the pathos, the tragedy, and the originality. And also, the Tempter hinted, it would be no use asking the King, for he would certainly not approve the action: men were like that. ~ C.S. Lewis

As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors. ~ William James

Very sad to hear about the passing of Nelson Mandela. He was a true inspiration for human rights and equality for South Africa and the reason apartheid no longer exists there. The world will never forget his capacity for forgiveness and magnanimity. RIP ~ Bryan Adams

Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another. ~ William Hazlitt

At thirty a man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought
Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same. ~ Edward Young

The scenery of mountains painted on the ever-changing azure canvas of the sky, the mysterious mechanism of the human body, the rose, the green grass carpet, the magnanimity of souls, the loftiness of minds, the depth of love - all these things remind us of a God who is beautiful and noble. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

The beloved of the Almighty are: the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnanimity of the rich. ~ Saadi

Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them? that it was a vain endeavor? ~ Henry David Thoreau

The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination, which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks. She spent half her time in thinking of beauty, bravery, magnanimity; she had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible action, she thought it would be detestable to be afraid or ashamed. She had an infinite hope that she would never do anything wrong. She had resented so strongly, after discovering them, her mere errors of feeling. ~ Henry James

In a contest with a weaker party it is more honorable to yield than to force concession. Magnanimity becomes the strong. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

The author of IRR, who worshipped the King, said he had the valor of Hector, the magnanimity of Achilles, the liberality of Titus, the eloquence of Nestor, and the prudence of Ulysses; that he was the equal of Alexander and not inferior to Roland. But later historians tend to picture him rather as a remorseless, kindless villain. He was probably not a pleasant or a lovable character; none of the Plantagenets were. But a great soldier and a great commander he certainly was. He possessed that one quality without which nothing else in a commander counts: the determination to win. To this everything else - mercy, moderation, tact - was sacrificed. The avarice that so horrifies his critics was not simple greed: it was a quartermaster's greed for his army. His massacre of the prisoners was not simple cruelty, but a deliberate reminder to Saladin to keep faith with the terms agreed to, which that great opponent understood and respected. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

The way I was raised and the people that I grew up around for the most part were very humble people, and I appreciate all that they taught me, and their energy and their magnanimity help keep me grounded. ~ Lenny Kravitz

What is the importance of human lives? Is it their continuing alive for so many years like animals in a menagerie? The value of a man cannot be judged by the number of diseases from which he escapes. The value of a man is in his human qualities: in his character, in his conscience, in the nobility and magnanimity, of his soul. Torturing animals to prolong human life has separated science from the most important thing that life has produced - the human conscience. ~ John Cowper Powys

If hindrances obstruct the way, Thy magnanimity display. And let thy strength be seen: But O, if Fortune fill thy sail With more than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in. ~ William Cowper

The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth. ~ Frederick Law Olmsted

I recollected that [the rattlesnake's] eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids. She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal; and even when those weapons are shown and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal. Conscious of this, she never wounds 'till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her. ~ Benjamin Franklin

For present-day politicians there are only political points to be made from such statements, and the larger the sin the larger the outrage, the larger the apology and the larger the potential political gain for sorrow expressed. Through such statements political leaders can gain the benefits of magnanimity without the stain of involvement: the person making the apology had done nothing wrong and all the people who could have received the apology are dead. ~ Douglas Murray

One of the magnanimities of woman is to yield. ~ Victor Hugo

What she had believed was indignation or rage or a deep intolerance for injustice came down to this: she was irreducibly in love with this bewitching planet, this thrilling life, this heartbreaking species she belonged to, with its capacity for stupefying destruction and breathtaking magnanimity. ~ Thrity Umrigar

That evening it was announced that curfew would be postponed until midnight, so that the families of those 'sent for labour' would have time to bring them blankets, a change of underwear and food for the journey. This 'magnanimity' on the part of the Germans was truly touching, and the Jewish police made much of it in an effort to win our confidence. Not until much later did I learn that the thousand men rounded up in the ghetto had been taken straight to the camp at Treblinka, so that the Germans could test the efficiency of the newly built gas chambers and crematorium furnaces. ~ Wladyslaw Szpilman

It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war, and not a game ... If there were none of this magnanimity business in warfare, we should never go to war, except for something worth facing certain death for. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I have learned that greatness is not often born at the head of armies or standing before large gatherings of people. I have learned that it is only rarely manifested in grandiose words or bold action and that it has little to do with position or title or authority. Rather, true greatness most often comes from small turnings within the soul, in quiet ways, in actions that the world will little note. Greatness is around us, below us. It is not often above us. We need to reach down for greatness, where the small things are at our feet. It comes in small, simple words and sublime magnanimity. ~ Donald S. Smurthwaite

You can notice that those who are more loving and conciliatory do not try to force their truth upon us and have learned to express their truth in ways that still allow for others' truth to be heard and felt. We can see in our daily experience that there are, in fact, many people who carry in their presence a magnanimity and life-enhancing energetic that invites tolerance, spaciousness for difference, and a capacity to be comfortable with ambiguity. ~ James O'Dea

Let your secret sympathies and your compassion be always with the under dog in the fight
this is magnanimity; but bet on the other one
this is business. ~ Mark Twain

My career as a critic still lay in the future but unconsciously I may have been preparing for it. They were not easy companions, these intellectuals I was now getting to know. They were overbearing and arrogant, excessively competitive; they lacked magnanimity and often they lacked common courtesy. But they were intellectually energetic and - this particularly attracted me - they were proof against cant. ~ Diana Trilling

Confidence in one's self is the chief nurse of magnanimity, which confidence, notwithstanding, doth not leave the care of necessary furniture for it; and therefore, of all the Grecians, Homer doth ever make Achilles the best armed. ~ Philip Sidney

What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic. ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

We, who were reduced to eating on the sidewalk , were suddenly elevated in status by this man's misery. We were the aristocrats and he the beggar. It flattered us. We were superbly above him and the comedy gave us a delusion of high self-respect. In a while, the magnanimity of the rich would complete the picture. We would feed our scraps to the poor. ~ John Howard Griffin

The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, magnanimity in decisive moments, courage, intelligence
and with all that, a generous mixture of self-love, ambition, vanity, petty personal ticklishness, and a good many of those things which a man simply cannot do without. ~ Nikolai Gogol

Thou sayest, Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.- Be it so: but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, I am not formed for them by nature. Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power, sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled through being defectively furnished by nature to murmur, and to be stingy, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, by the gods: but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting it nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness. ~ Marcus Aurelius