Gentleness

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Gentleness is a value and Quality in one's character. Being gentle has a long history in many, but not all cultures. Gentleness plays a very important role in our lives.

The quality of gentleness is colloquially understood to be that of kindness, consideration and amiability. [1] Aristotle used it in a technical sense as the virtue that strikes the mean with regard to anger: being too quick to anger is a vice, but so is being detached in a situation where anger is appropriate; justified and properly focused anger is named mildness or gentleness.[2]

Another usage of gentleness is in its relation to the Christian virtue of kindness. It is one of the "fruits of the spirit" or defining noble characteristics of a Christian found in Galatians 5:22-23: "v22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, v23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law" (English Standard Version (ESV)).[3]

A third important usage was common in medieval times, associated with higher social classes: hence the derivation of the terms gentleman, gentlewoman and gentry. The broadening of gentle behavior from a literal sense of the gentry to the metaphorical "like a gentleman" applicable to any person was a later development.[4]

External links

  1. ↑ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gentleness
  2. ↑ Garrett, Jan. "Virtue Ethics: A Basic Introductory Essay". 
  3. ↑ http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205:22-23;&version=ESV;
  4. ↑ Lewis, C.S. (2001). Mere Christianity. San Francisco: Harper. pp. xiii. ISBN 978-0060652920. 
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