Blow first and sip afterwards. [ Proverb ]

Hear first and speak afterwards. [ Spanish Proverb ]

Make every bargain clear and plain,
That none may afterwards complain. [ Proverb ]

But strong of limb
And swift of foot misfortune is, and, far
Outstripping all, comes first to every land,
And there wreaks evil on mankind, which prayers
Do afterwards redress. [ Homer ]

Every spirit makes its house, but afterwards the house confines the spirit. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

Hey! my friend, help me out of my danger first; you can make your speech afterwards. [ La Fontaine ]

The gains of the wicked bring shortlived pleasure, but afterwards long continued grief. [ Antiphanes ]

Inflict not on an enemy every injury in your power, for he may afterwards become your friend. [ Saadi ]

A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterwards. [ Richter ]

Happiness is the fine and gentle rain which penetrates the soul, but which afterwards gushes forth in springs of tears. [ M. de Guérin ]

It is the secret of the world that all things subsist, and do not die, but only retire a little from sight, and afterwards return again. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

The impulse to perform a worthy action often springs from our best nature, but is afterwards tainted by the spur of selfishness or sinister interest. [ Emile Souvestre ]

Under the veil of these curious sentences are hid those germs of morals which the masters of philosophy have afterwards developed into so many volumes. [ Plutarch ]

Make yourself thoroughly acquainted with your subject before writing, write without special attention to composition, and prune afterwards what you have written. [ Sir Austen Henry Layard, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]

The early months of marriage often are times of critical tumult, - whether that of a shrimp pool or of deeper water, - which afterwards subside into cheerful peace. [ George Eliot ]

Surely it is better to enclose the gulf and hinder all access, than by encouraging us to advance a little, to entice us afterwards a little further, and let us perceive our folly only by our destruction. [ Johnson ]

Gunpowder is the emblem of politic revenge, for it biteth first and barketh afterwards; the bullet being at the mark before the noise is heard, so that it maketh a noise not by way of warning, but of triumph. [ Fuller ]

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. He that labors in any great or laudable undertaking has his fatigues first supported by hope and afterwards rewarded by joy. [ Dr. Johnson ]

The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life. [ R. L, Stevenson ]

The first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, - a general preparation for whatever species of the art the student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The power of drawing, modelling, and using colors is very properly called the language of the art. [ Sir Joshua Reynolds ]

There is no moment like the present: not only so, but moreover, there is no moment at all, that is, no instant force and energy, but in the present. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon him can have no hope from them afterwards; they will be dissipated, lost, and perish in the hurry and skurry of the world, or sunk in the slough of indolence. [ Miss Edgeworth ]

My method has been simply this - to think well on the subject which I had to deal with and when thoroughly impressed with it and acquainted with it in all its details, to write away without stopping to choose a word, leaving a blank where I was at a loss for it; to express myself as simply as possible in vernacular English, and afterwards to go through what I had written, striking out all redundancies, and substituting, when possible, simpler and more English words for those I might have written. I found that by following this method I could generally reduce very considerably in length what I had put on paper without sacrificing anything of importance or rendering myself less intelligible. [ Sir Austen Henry Layard, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]