Anne Dufourmantelle

true enemy of gentleness is … gentleness. Fake gentleness, mawkishness, this passivity sold to us via every New Age commercial technique, of relaxation or of an overused meaning of “zen.”

is all of this simultaneously without being any one of these elements more than the other.

When they are not despised, the gentle are persecuted or sanctified. We abandon them because gentleness as power shows us the reality of our own weakness.

Aristotle’s idea of potentiality—the power to change,

Aristotle’s idea of potentiality—the power to change,

appears on the threshold of passages signed off by birth and death.