Sight before hearsay. [ Danish Proverb ]
Look before you leap. [ Proverb ]
Before honour is humility. [ Bible ]
With roses musky-breathed,
And drooping daffodilly.
And silver-leaved lily,
And ivy darkly-wreathed,
I wove a crown before her.
For her I love so dearly. [ Tennyson ]
Not lost, but gone before. [ Matthew Henry ]
Not dead, but gone before. [ Samuel Rogers ]
Sweep before your own door. [ Proverb ]
We look before and after,
And sigh for what is not.
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught:
Our sweetest songs are those
that tell of saddest thought [ Shelley ]
The reverend are ever before. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Learn to say before you sing. [ Proverb ]
Beat the dog before the lion. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Set the cart before the horse. [ John Heywood ]
Make a model before you build. [ Proverb ]
Let thy vices die before thee. [ Franklin ]
If you trust before you try,
You may repent before you die. [ Proverb ]
Self-love was born before love.
Be just before you be generous. [ Proverb ]
He cries out before he is hurt. [ Italian Proverb ]
Beggars may sing before a thief. [ Proverb ]
Fun fast the leaves are dropping
Before that wandering breath. [ William Cullen Bryant ]
You take me up before I am down. [ Proverb ]
Before the cat can lick her ear. [ Proverb ]
Praise not the day before night. [ Proverb ]
Thou whom avenging powers obey.
Cancel my debt (too great to pay)
Before the sad accounting day. [ Wentworth Dillon ]
Learn to crawl before you can go. [ Proverb ]
The wide world is all before us -
But a world without a friend. [ Burns ]
The mind paints before the brush. [ James Ellis ]
As proud come behind as go before. [ Proverb ]
A precipice before, a wolf behind. [ Proverb ]
'Tis late before the brave despair. [ Thomson ]
The king himself has followed near.
When she has walk'd before. [ Goldsmith ]
Others set carts before the horses. [ Rabelais ]
It is late before the brave despair. [ Thomson ]
Man begins to die before he is born. [ Proverb ]
You must spoil before you spin well. [ Proverb ]
Dogs ought to bark before they bite. [ Proverb ]
Slowly, slowly falls night's curtain
Over all the wide-spread land;
And the angels of the twilight
At the gates of heaven stand.
Lo, they come, a band of angels.
Clad in robes of tender gray;
And before their gracious presence,
Fades the sun's last lingering ray. [ C. E, Charles ]
As the ancients wisely say
Have a care o' the main chance,
And look before you ere you leap;
For as you sow you are like to reap. [ Butler ]
'Tis well to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new. [ Maturin ]
The world will turn when we are earth
As though we had not come nor gone;
There was no lack before our birth.
When we are gone there will be none. [ Omar Khayyam ]
Make knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds. [ Alfred Tennyson ]
Awake before the sun is risen,
I call for my pen and papers and desk. [ Smart ]
Do well the duty that lies before you. [ Pittachus ]
Heaven
Is as the Book of God before thee set,
Wherein to read His wondrous works. [ Milton ]
It is not good fishing before the net. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
You run like teague before your errand. [ Proverb ]
A child correct behind, and not before. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before. [ Richard Baxter ]
Pride goes before, shame follows after. [ Proverb ]
You shut your budget before it is full. [ Proverb ]
Never tell your resolution before hand. [ John Selden ]
Coming events cast their shadows before. [ Thomas Campbell ]
To know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom. [ Milton ]
He's like a fox, grey before he is good. [ Proverb ]
Griefs assured are felt before they come. [ John Dryden ]
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before,
Prove false again? two hundred more. [ Butler ]
We should know (a person) before we love. [ Martial D'Auvergne ]
All men are equal before the natural law. [ Law Maxim ]
Marry a widow before she leaves mourning. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
There is, sir, a critical minute in
Every man's wooing, when his mistress may
Be won, which if he carelessly neglect
To prosecute, he may wait long enough
Before he gain the like opportunity. [ Marmion ]
You will scratch a beggar before you die. [ Proverb ]
The conditions have been laid before you. [ Horace ]
You may have worse offers before May-day. [ Proverb ]
Boil not the pap before the child be born. [ Proverb ]
A woman's thought runs before her actions. [ William Shakespeare ]
Lock the stable before you lose the steed. [ Proverb ]
Call not a surgeon before you are wounded. [ Proverb ]
Never spend your money before you have it.
Look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of gray. [ William Shakespeare ]
Beware of the stone you stumbled at before. [ Proverb ]
Riches and favour go before wisdom and art. [ Danish Proverb ]
O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no more. [ Longfellow ]
The people rate strength before everything. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
It is good tying the sack before it be full. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty, violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath. [ William Shakespeare ]
Some wits can digest before others can chew. [ Proverb ]
He that follows the Lord hopes to go before. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
We tremble all over before the bugle sounds. [ Virgil ]
Narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade
Before the unmeasured thirst for good. [ Robert Browning ]
He who paints me before, blackens me behind. [ Italian Proverb ]
Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim.
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength - a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! [ William Shakespeare ]
Oftentimes, excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse;
As patches, set upon a little breach.
Discredit more in hiding of the fault,
Than did the fault before it was so patched. [ William Shakespeare ]
So often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in today already walks tomorrow. [ Coleridge ]
A sea before
The Throne is spread; - its pure still glass
Pictures all earth-scenes as they pass.
We, on its shore,
Share, in the bosom of our rest,
God's knowledge, and are blest. [ Cardinal Newman ]
Before the curing of a strong disease,
Even in the instant of repair and health,
The fit is strongest; evils that take leave.
On their departure most of all show evil. [ William Shakespeare ]
Draw not your bow before your arrow be fixed. [ Proverb ]
You saw out your tree before you cut it down. [ Proverb ]
Everybody ought to sweep before his own door. [ French Proverb ]
The learn'd reflect on what before they knew. [ Pope ]
We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile -
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry. [ Young ]
Life is half spent before we know what it is. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The Golden Age is not behind, but before you. [ St. Simeon ]
It is good to have a hatch before one's door. [ Proverb ]
Gone before To that unknown and silent shore. [ Charles Lamb ]
Lightning and thunder (heaven's artillery)
As harbingers before th' Almighty fly:
Those but proclaim His style, and disappear;
The stiller sounds succeed, and God is there. [ John Dryden ]
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless must fall before the blasts of fate,
Sunk on the earth, defaced its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm. [ Burns ]
Let thy alms go before, and keep heaven's gate
Open for thee, or both may come too late. [ George Herbert ]
The citizen is at his business before he rise. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
How oft, when men are at the point of death.
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death. [ William Shakespeare ]
Let those love now who never loved before,
Let those that always loved now love the more. [ Parnell ]
Strange - is it not? - that of the myriads who
Before us passed the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the road
Which to discover we must travel too. [ Omar Khayyam ]
He that looks not before finds himself behind. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
All things are difficult, before they are easy. [ Proverb ]
We often weep before we have had time to smile. [ Victor Hugo ]
The heart must glow before the tongue can gild. [ W. R. Alger ]
Happy is he whose friends were born before him. [ Proverb ]
Stay till you have sheep before you shear them. [ Proverb ]
Thus, day by day, and month by month, we passed;
It pleased the Lord to take my spouse at last.
I tore my gown, I soiled my locks with dust.
And beat my breasts - as wretched widows must:
Before my face my handkerchief I spread,
To hide the flood of tears I did - not shed. [ Pope ]
Beauty? thou pretty plaything! dear deceit,
That steals so softly over the stripling's heart
And gives it a new pulse unknown before! [ Blair ]
He passes sentence before he hears the evidence. [ Proverb ]
Be charitable before wealth maket thee covetous. [ Sir Thomas Browne ]
Count not your chickens before they are hatched. [ Proverb ]
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet ]
Every man must eat a peck of dirt before he dies. [ Proverb ]
Cowards die many times before their deaths:
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come. [ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar ]
First on thy friend deliberate with thyself;
Pause, ponder, sift; not eager in the choice;
Nor jealous of the chosen; fixing, fix;
Judge before friendship, then confide till death. [ Young ]
None knows what will happen to him before sunset. [ Proverb ]
Did you ever before hear an ass play upon a lute? [ Proverb ]
Most women caress sin before embracing penitence. [ Fontanelle ]
Pluck not a courtesy in the bud before it is ripe. [ Proverb ]
Before employing a fine word, find a place for it. [ Joubert ]
Sell not the bear-skin before you have caught him. [ Proverb ]
There is a strength
Deep-bedded in our hearts, of which we reck
But little, till the shafts of heaven have pierced
Its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent
Before her gems are found? [ Mrs. Hemans ]
He that reckons before his host must reckon again. [ Proverb ]
A fool loses his estate before he finds his folly. [ Proverb ]
Love is never lasting which flames before it burns. [ Feltham ]
Where villainy goes before vengeance follows after. [ Proverb ]
One always wishes to be happy before becoming wise. [ Mme. Necker ]
Look before you, or you'll have to look behind you. [ Proverb ]
All argument will vanish before one touch of Nature. [ Colman ]
Before you trust a man, eat a peck of salt with him. [ Proverb ]
He that gives all before he dies provides to suffer. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Make not your sauce before you have caught the fish. [ Proverb ]
One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two after. [ Proverb ]
I have heard they are the most lewd impostors,
Made of all terms and shreds, no less beliers
Of great men's favours than their own vile medicines,
Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths;
Selling that drug for two pence ere they part.
Which they have valued at twelve crowns before. [ Ben Jonson ]
It becomes a wise man to try negotiation before arms. [ Terence ]
When the barn's full, you may thresh before the door. [ Proverb ]
Before daybreak. Before noon. Before everything else.
Fine dressing is a foul house swept before the doors. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. [ Lowell ]
One hour's sleep before midnight is worth three after. [ Herbert ]
Slow seems their speed whose thoughts before them run. [ Sir William Davenant ]
There must first be seducing men before seduced women. [ Jean Paul ]
Wine that costs nothing is digested before it be drunk. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The traveler without money will sing before the robber. [ Juvenal ]
Fingers were made before forks and hands before knives. [ Swift ]
For they say, if money go before, all ways do lie open. [ William Shakespeare ]
Some would play a tune before you can tune your fiddle. [ Proverb ]
He is miserable that dies not before he desires to die. [ Proverb ]
Before you make a friend eat a bushel of salt with him. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Great events have sent before them their announcements. [ Calderon ]
Who spends before he thrives, will beg before he thinks. [ Proverb ]
Wait till night before saying that the day has been fine. [ French Proverb ]
In the kingdom of a cheater the wallet is carried before. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Flatterers are cats that lick before, and scratch behind. [ German Proverb ]
No man is bound to accuse himself unless it be before God. [ Law Max ]
Try whether the ice will bear, before you venture upon it. [ Proverb ]
One is quick to suspect where one has suffered harm before. [ Publius Syrus ]
Be silent before a great man, or speak what may please him. [ Proverb ]
Courage, conduct and perseverance, conquer all before them. [ Proverb ]
No one should be called happy before he is dead and buried. [ Ovid ]
Fine dressing is usually a foul house swept before the door. [ Proverb ]
He that marries before he is wise will die before he thrive. [ Scotch Proverb ]
Before marriage, woman is a queen; after marriage, a subject.
You should ask the world's leave before you commend yourself. [ Proverb ]
Woman divine that they are loved long before it is told them. [ Marivaux ]
What thou intendest to do, speak not of before thou doest it. [ Pittacbus ]
No one sees what is before his feet: we all gaze at the stars. [ Cicero ]
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give before a sleeping giant. [ William Shakespeare ]
That falls out sometimes in a day which never fell out before. [ Proverb ]
Men and women existed before creeds; love is the only religion. [ Mrs. Campbell Praed ]
Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim Death, my son and foe. [ Milton ]
The desire to please is born in woman before the desire to love. [ Ninon de Lenclos ]
Lay your hand upon your halfpenny twice before you part with it. [ Proverb ]
No party should fear to go before the people for their decision. [ Robert Yates ]
Conscience warns us as a friend before it punishes us as a judge. [ Stanislaus ]
Old houses mended cost little less than new before they're ended. [ Gibber ]
Music! - O, how faint, how weak, language fades before thy spell! [ Moore ]
Be sure you can obey good laws before you seek to alter bad ones. [ John Ruskin ]
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred. [ Jefferson ]
As soon as the soul sees any object, it stops before that object. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Let him say what he will, men have spoken well of God before now. [ Proverb ]
As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works. [ Whately ]
Deeds of lowly virtue fade before the glare of lofty ostentation. [ Klopstock ]
Rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man. [ Bible ]
The man whose purse is empty can cheerfully sing before the robber. [ Juvenal ]
Before you begin, consider well; and when you have considered, act. [ Sall ]
He declares himself guilty who justifies himself before accusation. [ Proverb ]
Our ancestors have travelled the iron age; the golden is before us. [ Bernardin de St. Pierre ]
Sampson was a strong man, yet could not pay money before he had it. [ Proverb ]
Tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers. [ Sheridan ]
An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before. [ Swift ]
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. [ Bible ]
Take heed of an ox before, of a horse behind, of a monk on all sides. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Behind every individual closes organisation; before him opens liberty. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Before God can deliver us from ourselves, we must undeceive ourselves. [ St. Augustine ]
He who grieves before it is necessary, grieves more than is necessary. [ Seneca ]
The man comes before the citizen, and our future is greater than both. [ Jean Paul ]
Why must we first weep before we can love so deep that our hearts ache. [ Richter ]
He that finds something before it is lost will die before he falls ill. [ Dutch Proverb ]
Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings. [ Bible ]
Flatter not the rich; neither do thou appear willingly before the great. [ Thomas à Kempis ]
Before the revelations of the soul, Time, Space, and Nature shrink away. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
He who gives of his wealth before dying, prepares himself to suffer much. [ Italian Proverb ]
The sun passeth through pollutions, and itself remains as pure as before. [ Bacon ]
Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness. [ Plato ]
Before decay's effacing fingers have swept the lines where beauty lingers. [ Byron ]
A quiet mediocrity is still to be preferred before a troubled superfluity. [ Suckling ]
The quarter of an hour before dinner is the worst that suitors can choose. [ Zimmermann ]
When pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very closely. [ Louis the Eleventh ]
Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. [ Isaac Disraeli ]
Steve McQueen looks good in this movie. He must have made it before he died. [ Yogi Berra ]
It is cowardly to quit the post the gods elect for us before they permit us. [ Pythagoras ]
The loss of a beloved connection awakens an interest in heaven before unfelt. [ Bovee ]
Such eyes as may have looked from heaven, but never were raised to it before! [ Moore ]
We must laugh before we are happy, lest we should die without having laughed. [ La Bruyere ]
The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before. [ Sir E. Coke ]
Those whose tongues are gentlemen ushers to their wit, and still go before it. [ Ben Jonson ]
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward to what they were before. [ William Shakespeare ]
My son, be not now negligent, for the Lord hath chosen thee to stand before Him. [ Apoc ]
We think poverty to be infinitely desirable before the torments of covetousness. [ Jeremy Taylor ]
Little ones are taught to be proud of their clothes before they can put them on. [ Locke ]
To discuss an opinion with a fool is like carrying a lantern before a blind man. [ De Gaston ]
A conscience void of offence before God and man, is an inheritance for eternity. [ Daniel Webster ]
To place wit before good sense is to place the superfluous before the necessary. [ M. de Montlosier ]
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. [ Bible ]
Before old age, it was my chief care to live well; in old age, it is to die well. [ Seneca ]
If we stretch our thoughts as far as they can reach, eternity is still before us. [ J. Edmondson ]
Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine. [ Jesus ]
God wishes to exhaust all means of kindness before His hand takes hold on justice. [ Henry Ward Beecher ]
Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. [ Holmes ]
Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace. [ Cowper ]
Why Mammon sits before a million hearths Where God is bolted out from every house. [ Bailey ]
Thou tremblest before anticipated ills, and still bemoanest what thou never losest. [ Goethe ]
I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me. [ Nelson ]
Nature is good, but intellect is better, as the law-giver is before the law-receiver. [ Emerson ]
That genius is feeble which cannot hold its own before the masterpieces of the world. [ T. W. Higginson ]
Ten Things To Do.
Do good to all.
Speak evil of none.
Hear and know the facts before judging.
Think before speaking.
Hold an angry tongue.
Be kind to the distressed.
Ask pardon for all wrongs.
Be patient toward everybody.
Stop the ears to a tale-bearer.
Disbelieve most of the ill reports concerning friends, neighbors, and people in general.
A friend should be like money, tried before being required, not found faulty in our need. [ Plutarch ]
For my own part, I had rather be old only a short time than be old before I really am so. [ Cicero ]
The Italians are wise before the deed, the Germans in the deed, the French after the deed. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word, - faith. [ Napoleon I ]
Man should ever look to his last day, and no one should be called happy before his funeral. [ Ovid ]
Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or, rather, have made it desired. [ Amiel ]
Take heed of a speedy professing friend; love is never lasting which flames before it burns. [ Feltham ]
A woman is a well-served table, that one sees with different eyes before and after the meal.
When one writes of woman, he must reserve the right to laugh at his ideas of the day before. [ A. Ricard ]
Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before it was neither rhyme nor reason. [ Sir Thos. More ]
There is scarcely a crime before me that is not directly or indirectly caused by strong drink. [ Judge Coleridge ]
Men declare their love before they feel it; women confess theirs only after they have proved it. [ Latena ]
Before promising a woman to love only her, one should have seen them all, or should see only her. [ A. Dupuy ]
The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it. [ Mme. Roland ]
Error, when she retraces her steps, has farther to go before she can arrive at truth than ignorance. [ Colton ]
Contention, like a horse full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose, and bears down all before him. [ William Shakespeare ]
I have been reasoning all my life, and find that all argument will vanish before one touch of Nature. [ Colman ]
Imagination has more charm in writing than in speaking: great wings must fold before entering a salon. [ Prince de Ligne ]
People who love each other most before marriage, are sometimes those who love each other least after it. [ A. Dupuy ]
Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven. [ Jonathan Edwards ]
Before we passionately wish for anything, we should carefully examine into the happiness of its possessor. [ Rochefoucauld ]
He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. [ Bovee ]
Stern duties need not speak sternly. He who stood firm before the thunder worshipped the still small voice.
[ Sidney Dobell ]
Wit is, in general, the finest sense in the world. I had lived long before I discovered that wit was truth. [ Dr. Richard Porson ]
A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterwards. [ Richter ]
The friends of the present day are of the nature of melons; we must try fifty before we meet with a good one. [ Claude-Mermet ]
Now learn what and how great benefits a moderate diet brings with it. Before all, you will enjoy good health. [ Horace ]
The root of sanctity is sanity. A man must be healthy before he can be holy. We bathe first, and then perfume. [ Mme. Swetchine ]
The little (achieved) is soon forgotten by him who looks before him and sees how much still remains to be done. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
The term of man's life is half wasted before he has done with his mistakes and begins to profit by his lessons. [ Jane Taylor ]
True bravery is shown by performing, without witnesses, what one might be capable of doing before all the world. [ Rochefoucauld ]
Wisdom consists not in seeing what is directly before us, but in discerning those things which may come to pass. [ Terence ]
Happy is the boy whose mother is tired of talking nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the sense of it. [ Hare ]
Character, like porcelain ware, must be printed before it is glazed. There can be no change after it is burned in. [ Beecher ]
I only look straight before me at each day as it comes, and do what is nearest me, without looking further afield. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
I would not anticipate the relish of any happiness, nor feel the weight of any misery, before it actually arrives. [ Spectator ]
Sleep brings dreams; and dreams are often most vivid and fantastical before we have yet been wholly lost in slumber. [ Robert Montgomery Bird ]
Life is before you, - not earthly life alone, but life - a thread running interminably through the warp of eternity. [ J. G. Holland ]
Before every one stands an image (Bild) of what he ought to be; so long as he is not that, his peace is not complete. [ Rückert ]
Cure oneself as far as possible of a trick common to almost every one, of using four or five adjectives before a noun. [ Ada Ellen Bayly, a.k.a. Edna Lyall, English novelist and early feminist, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]
It is only before those who are glad to hear it, and anxious to spread it, that we find it easy to speak ill of others. [ J. Petit-Senn ]
He who loves not books before he comes to thirty years of age will hardly love them enough afterward to understand them. [ Earl of Clarendon ]
A man who does not learn to live while he is getting a living is a poorer man after his wealth is won than he was before. [ J. G. Holland ]
An idea, like a ghost (according to the common notion of ghosts), must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. [ Charles Dickens ]
The last day must always be awaited by man, and no man should be pronounced happy before his death and his final obsequies. [ Ovid ]
Adversity is a great schoolmistress, as many a poor fellow knows that has whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair. [ Thackeray ]
There is no tomorrow; though before our face the shadow named so stretches, we always fail to overtake it, hasten as we may. [ Margaret J. Preston ]
There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it in expecting evil before it arrives? [ Seneca ]
When you have formed your plans, be quick to execute them; one will catch his fish before another shall have baited his hook. [ E. Rich ]
Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before marriage, which is never advisable. [ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest ]
Before the immense possibilities of man, all mere experience, all past biography, however spotless and sainted, shrinks away. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Know, he that foretells his own calamity, and makes events before they come, twice over doth endure the pains of evil destiny. [ Sir W. Davenant ]
With poetry, as with going to sea, we should push from the shore and reach a certain elevation before we unfurl all our sails. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Women dress less to be clothed than to be adorned. When alone before their mirrors, they think more of men than of themselves. [ Rochebrune ]
Our souls must become expanded by the contemplation of Nature's grandeur, before we can fully comprehend the greatness of man. [ Heine ]
There are three things in speech that ought to be considered before some things are spoken - the manner, the place and the time. [ Southey ]
There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them. [ Swift ]
Houses are built to live in more than to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. [ Bacon ]
Men are so accustomed to lie, that one can not take too many precautions before trusting them - if they are to be trusted at all. [ Marguerite de Valois ]
Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
One lamp, thy mother's love, amid the stars shall lift its pure flame changeless, and before the throne of God burn through eternity. [ N. P. Willis ]
It is a fine observation of Plato, in his Laws, that atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of the understanding. [ Wm. Fleming ]
However bright the comedy before, the last act is always stained with blood. The earth is laid upon our head, and there it lies forever. [ Pascal ]
The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. [ Johnson ]
Before wondering at the degradation of a soul, one should know what blows it has received, and what it has suffered from its own grandeur. [ Mme. Louise Colet ]
In describing things, I always try to see the whole scene before beginning to write it, and specially to realise the colour of everything. [ Ada Ellen Bayly, a.k.a. Edna Lyall, English novelist and early feminist, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]
The winter's frost must rend the burr of the nut before the fruit is seen. So adversity tempers the human heart, to discover its real worth. [ Balzac ]
Before the birth of Love, many fearful things took place through the empire of Necessity; but when this god was born, all things rose to men. [ Socrates ]
Logic is the art of thinking well; the mind, like the body, requires to be trained before it can use its powers in the most advantageous way. [ Kames ]
Death is as near to the young as to the old; here is all the difference: death stands behind the young man's back, before the old man's face. [ Rev. T. Adams ]
Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed. [ Colton ]
In Nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it, and over it. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must never undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. [ Washington ]
What better can we do than prostrate fall before Him reverent, and there confess humbly our faults, and pardon beg with tears watering the ground? [ Milton ]
Science cannot grapple with the problem of women. It can never grapple with the irrational. That is why there is no future before it in this world. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]
Tom hinted at his dislike at some trifle his mistress had said; she asked him how he would talk to her after marriage if he talked at this rate before. [ Addison ]
His last day places man in the same state as he was before he was born; nor after death has the body or soul any more feeling than they had before birth. [ Pliny the Elder ]
Every man's experience of today is that he was a fool yesterday and the day before yesterday. Tomorrow he will most likely be of exactly the same opinion. [ Charles Mackay ]
Never build after you are five and forty; have five years' income in hand before you lay a brick; and always calculate the expense at double the estimate. [ Kett ]
Before Greece, every thing in human literature and art was a rude and imperfect attempt. Since Greece, every thing has been a rude and imperfect imitation. [ James Freeman Clarke ]
Flowers never emit so sweet and strong a fragrance as before a storm. Beauteous soul! when a storm approaches thee, be as fragrant as a sweet-smelling flower. [ Richter ]
When a man dies, they who survive him ask what property he has left behind. The angel who bends over the dying man asks what good deeds he has sent before him. [ Koran ]
Thrice happy they, and more than thrice, whom an unbroken link binds together, and whom love, unimpaired by evil rancour, will not sunder before their last day. [ Horace ]
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 learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
The human mind is to be treated like a skein of ravelled silk, where you must cautiously secure one free end before you can make any progress in disentangling it. [ Scott ]
The eternity, before the world and after, is without our reach; but that little spot of ground which lies betwixt those two great oceans, this we are to cultivate. [ Burnet ]
A man does not wonder at what he sees frequently, even though he be ignorant of the reason. If anything happens which he has not seen before, he calls it a prodigy. [ Cicero ]
Shakespeare says, we are creatures that look before and after; the more surprising that we do not look around a little, and see what is passing under our very eyes. [ Carlyle ]
The heart must be at rest before the mind, like a quiet lake under an unclouded summer evening, can reflect the solemn starlight and the splendid mysteries of heaven. [ Macdonald Clarke ]
Jupiter has laid two wallets on us; he has placed one behind our backs filled with our own faults, and has hung another before, heavy with the faults of other people. [ Phaedr ]
The poet's delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]
Knowledge partakes of infinity; it widens with our capacities: the higher we mount in it, the vaster and more magnificent are the prospects it stretches out before us. [ J. C. and A. W. Hare ]
The way out of our narrowness may not be so easy as the way in. The weasel that creeps into the corn-bin has to starve himself before he can leave by the same passage. [ Bartol ]
Reality surpasses imagination; and we see, breathing, brightening, and moving before our eyes sights dearer to our hearts than any we ever beheld in the land of sleep. [ Goethe ]
It is delightful to transport one's self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last reached. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
The young mind is naturally pliable and imitative, but in a more advanced state it grows rigid, and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression. [ Joshua Reynolds ]
Truth is always consistent with itself and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware. [ Tillotson ]
The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes. [ De La Bruyere ]
Who can look down upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb that he should have warred with the poor handful of dust that lies mouldering before him? [ Washington Irving ]
There is no employment in the world so laborious as that of making to one's self a great name; life ends before one has scarcely made the first rough draught of his work. [ Bruyere ]
Not to know what happened before we were born is always to remain a child; to know, and blindly to adopt that knowledge as an implicit rule of life, is never to be a man. [ Chatfield ]
To elevate and surprise is the great art of quackery and puffing; to raise a lively and exaggerated image in the mind, and take it by surprise before it can recover breath. [ Hazlitt ]
That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
When the painter wishes to represent an event, he cannot place before us too great a number of personages; but he cannot employ too few when he wishes to portray an emotion. [ Joubert ]
Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ever lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return. [ Hillard ]
A good deal depends upon luck as well as care, and sometimes a writer must wait, or even leave off and return to work again, before he can hit upon the turn of words required. [ Richard D. Blackmore, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]
Man loves before he sees; his heart is open before his eyes; love must irradiate his world for him before he well knows he is in it, what it is made of, and what to make of it. [ Ed ]
But the sublime, when it is introduced at a seasonable moment, has often carried all before it with the rapidity of lightning, and shown at a glance the mighty power of genius. [ Longinus ]
The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read over a book I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one. [ Goldsmith ]
The churchyard is the market-place where all things are rated at their true value, and those who are approaching it talk of the world and its vanities with a wisdom unknown before. [ Baxter ]
Oh, if the loving, closed heart of a good woman should open before a man, how much controlled tenderness, how many veiled sacrifices and dumb virtues, would be seen reposing there! [ Richter ]
Men of great learning or genius are too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them. [ Spectator ]
This century boasts of progress! Have they invented a new mortal sin? Unfortunately there are but seven, as before - the number of the daily falls of a saint, which is very little. [ T. Gautier ]
And now he shook away the snow of time from the winter-green of memory, and beheld the fair years of his childhood uncovered, fresh, green, and balmy, standing afar off before him. [ Richter ]
Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which who listen had need bring docile thoughts and purged ears. [ Lamb ]
Let parents who hate their offspring rear them to hate labor, and to inherit riches; and before long they will be stung by every vice, racked by its poison, and damned by its penalty. [ H. W. Beecher ]
There is strength deep bedded in our hearts, of which we reck but little till the shafts of heaven have pierced its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent before her gems are found? [ Mrs. Hemans ]
Whenever I am in doubt about a sentence I read it aloud to see how it sounds, and indeed, always read the whole book through aloud, sometimes more than once, before it goes to the press. [ Ada Ellen Bayly, a.k.a. Edna Lyall, English novelist and early feminist, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]
When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever. [ Johnson ]
Let death and exile, and all other things which appear terrible, be daily before your eyes, but death chiefly; and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything. [ Epictetus ]
Some men's censures are like the blasts of rams horns before the walls of Jericho; all a man's fame they lay level at one stroke, when all they go upon is only conceit, without any certain basis. [ J. Beaumont ]
A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy: the smile that accepts the lover before the words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first-born baby, and assures it of a mother's love. [ Haliburton ]
The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Sow the seeds of life - humbleness, pure-heartedness, love; and in the long eternity which lies before the soul, every minutest grain will come up again with an increase of thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. [ F. W. Robertson ]
If a crooked stick is before you, you need not explain how crooked it is. Lay a straight one down by the side of it, and the work is well done. Preach the truth, and error will stand abashed in its presence. [ Spurgeon ]
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 ]
However powerful one may be, whether one laughs or weeps, none can make thee speak, none can open thy hand before the time, O mute phantom, our shadow! specter always masked, ever at our side, called Tomorrow. [ Victor Hugo ]
Don't waste your life in doubts and fears: spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
There is always the possibility of beauty where there is an unsealed human eye; of music where there is an unstopped human ear; and of inspiration where there is a receptive human spirit, a spirit standing before. [ C. H. Parkhurst ]
Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and husbands when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. [ Macaulay ]
He that will often put eternity and the world before him, and who will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that the more often he contemplates them, the former will grow greater, and the latter less. [ Colton ]
Doubtless botany has its value; but the flowers knew how to preach divinity before men knew how to dissect and botanize them; they are apt to stop preaching, though, so soon as we begin to dissect and botanize them. [ H. N. Hudson ]
I can see why it would be prohibited to throw most things off the top of the Empire State Building, but what's wrong with little bits of cheese? They probably break down into their various gases before they even hit. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
Pride is the common forerunner of a fall. It was the devil's sin. and the devil's ruin; and has been, ever since, the devil's stratagem, who, like an expert wrestler, usually gives a man a lift before he gives him a throw. [ South ]
Much depends upon when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faerie Queen for a stopgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrews's Sermons? [ Lamb ]
He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it. [ Montaigne ]
It is not ease, but effort - not facility, but difficulty, that makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved. [ Samuel Smiles ]
When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect; the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face, - compare notes and chat the hour away. [ Hazlitt ]
Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked path looks straighter as we approach the end. [ Richter ]
Whoever can make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. [ Jonathan Swift ]
Perhaps God does with His heavenly garden as we do with our own. He may chiefly stock it from nurseries, and select for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age - flowers before they have bloomed, and trees ere they begin to bear. [ Rev. Dr. Guthrie ]
There is before the eyes of men, on the brink of dissolution, a glassy film, which death appears to impart, that they may have a brief prospect of eternity when some behold the angels of light, while others have the demons of darkness before them. [ Cockton ]
It is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit in Westminster and Washington, or in the editorial rooms of the leading journals, - so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and responsible debaters get on their legs. [ Lowell ]
We proudly say we are equal. In the largest sense before God we are, but in every other sense we are not. No two persons have the same gifts, the same tastes, the same habits. One must complement the other. It is a mutual life we lead in a mutual world. [ Caroline Hazard ]
I may grieve with the smart of an evil as soon as I feel it, but I will not smart with the grief of an evil as soon as I hear of it. My evil, when it Cometh, may make my grief too great; why, then, should my grief, before it comes, make my evil greater? [ Arthur Warwick ]
We are born for a higher destiny than earth; there is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]
An era is fast approaching when no writer will be rend by the majority, save and except those than can effect that for bales of manuscript that the hydrostatic screw performs for bales of cotton, by condensing that matter into a period that before occupied a page. [ Cottar ]
People travel the world over to visit untouched places of natural beauty, yet modern gardens pay little heed to the simplicity and beauty of these environments... those special places we all must preserve and protect, each in his own way, before they are lost forever. [ Mary Reynolds, 2002 Gold Medal Winner of the Chelsea Flower Show, November 2001 Application Form. Dare to Be Wild movie ]
The eye observes only what the mind, the heart, and the imagination are gifted to see: and sight must be reinforced by insight before souls can be discerned as well as manners, ideas as well as objects, realities and relations as well as appearances and accidental connections. [ Whipple ]
Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed. That nation cannot be free, where reform is a common hack, that is dismissed with a kick the moment it has brought its rider to his place. [ Colton ]
With a clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you have friends in plenty; but let fortune frown, and the firmament be overcast, and then your friends will prove like the strings of the lute, of which you tighten ten before you find one that will bear the stretch and keep the pitch. [ Gotthold ]
Before this century shall run out, journalism will be the whole press. Mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page. Thought will spread abroad with the rapidity of light - instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood at the extremeties of the earth. [ Lamartine ]
Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. [ William Shakespeare ]
If you attempt to beat a man down and to get his goods for less than a fair price, you are attempting to commit burglary, as much as though you broke into his shop to take the things without paying for them. There is cheating on both sides of the counter, and generally less behind it than before it. [ Beecher ]
Addison acknowledged that he would rather inform than divert his reader; but he recollected that a man must be familiar with wisdom before he willingly enters on Seneca and Epictetus. Fiction allures him to the severe task by a gayer preface. Embellished truths are the illuminated alphabet of larger children. [ Willmott ]
Deliberate long before thou consecrate a friend; and when thy impartial judgment concludes him worthy of thy bosom, receive him joyfully, and entertain him wisely; impart thy secrets boldly, and mingle thy thoughts with his; he is thy very self; and use him so; if thou firmly think him faithful, thou makest him so. [ F. Quarles ]
His eloquent tongue so well seconds his fertile invention that no one speaks better when suddenly called forth. His attention never languishes; his mind is always before his words; his memory has all its stock so turned into ready money that, without hesitation or delay, it supplies whatever the occasion may require. [ Erasmus ]
It is necessary to look forward as well as backward, as some think it is always necessary to regulate their conduct by things that have been done of old times, but that past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on an alternative of some past that went before it. [ Madame De Stael ]
From numberless books the fluttering reader, idle and inconstant, bears away the bloom that only clings to the outer leaf; but genius has its nectaries, delicate glands, and secrecies of sweetness, and upon these the thoughtful mind must settle in its labor, before the choice perfume of fancy and wisdom is drawn forth. [ Willmott ]
The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late. [ Goethe ]
Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk; when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects. [ Johnson ]
Most people give up before they start because they think it is too hard, there is too much against me here, I can’t do this on my own, I don’t have the resources. I was on the back to work scheme when I applied. I didn’t have resources... It never occurred to me to fail. I always knew it was part of my destiny to do that thing. [ Mary Reynolds, 2002 Gold Medal Winner of the Chelsea Flower Show ]
A time will come when the science of destruction shall bend before the arts of peace; when the genius which multiplies our powers, which creates new products, which diffuses comfort and happiness among the great mass of the people, shall occupy in the general estimation of mankind that rank which reason and commonsense now assign to it. [ Arago ]
All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them; even Homer's originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics; and if our own countryman. Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings. [ Colton ]
The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it, whether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep us delightful company all day, and who will make us feel at evening that the day was well worth its fatigues. [ Lucy Larcom ]
Nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. There is no sixth commandment in art. The poet dare help himself wherever he lists, wherever he finds material suited to his work. He may even appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he thus supports be a beautiful one. Goethe understood this very well, and so did Shakespeare before him. [ Heinrich Heine ]
If there were no readers there certainly would be no writers. Clearly, therefore, the existence of writers depends upon the existence of readers; and, of course, as the cause must be antecedent to the effect, readers existed before writers. Yet, on the other hand, if there were no writers there could be no readers, so it should appear that writers must be antecedent to readers. [ Paul Chatfield, M.D ]
In former days various superstitious rites were used to exorcise evil spirits, but in our times the same object is attained, and beyond comparison more effectually, by the press; before this talisman, ghosts, vampires, witches, and all their kindred tribes are driven from the land, never to return again; the touch of holy water is not so intolerable to them as the smell of printing ink. [ J. Bentham ]
Since I have known God in a saving manner, painting, poetry, and music have had charms unknown to me before. I have received what I suppose is a taste for them, or religion has refined my mind and made it susceptible of impressions from the sublime and beautiful. O, how religion secures the heightened enjoyment of those pleasures which keep so many from God, by their becoming a source of pride! [ Henry Martyn ]
Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood. [ Rogers ]
We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in preference to another; we give no offence to the most illustrious by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence: each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silent, and we adjourn or decide the business at our leisure. [ Landor ]
Calumny is a monstrous vice: for, where parties indulge in it, there are always two that are actively engaged in doing wrong, and one who is subject to injury. The calumniator inflicts wrong by slandering the absent; he who gives credit to the calumny before he has investigated the truth is equally implicated. The person traduced is doubly injured - first by him who propagates, and secondly by him who credits the calumny. [ Heroidotus ]
A town, before it can be plundered and deserted, must first be taken; and in this particular Venus has borrowed a law from her consort Mars. A woman that wishes to retain her suitor must keep him in the trenches; for this is a siege which the besieger never raises for want of supplies, since a feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation. Inanition may cause it to die a slow death, but repletion always destroys it by a sudden one. [ Colton ]
We see a world of pains taken and the best years of life spent in collecting a set of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life, and after all the man so qualified shall hesitate in his speech to a good suit of clothes, and want commonsense before an agreeable woman. Hence it is that wisdom, valour, justice and learning cannot keep a man in countenance that is possessed with these excellencies, if he wants that inferior art of life and behaviour called good-breeding. [ Steele ]
How the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb; all these are appropriate uses. Flowers should deck the brow of the youthful bride, for they are in themselves a lovely type of marriage; they should twine round the tomb, for their perpetually renewed beauty is a symbol of the resurrection; they should festoon the altar, for their fragrance and their beauty ascend in perpetual worship before the Most High. [ Mrs. L. M. Child ]
It is to be hoped that, with all the modern improvements, a mode will be discovered of getting rid of bores: for it is too bad that a poor wretch can be punished for stealing your pocket handkerchief or gloves, and that no punishment can be inflicted on those who steal your time, and with it your temper and patience, as well as the bright thoughts that might have entered into your mind (like the Irishman who lost the fortune before he had got it), but were frightened away by the bore. [ Byron ]
When the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place, - when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it seemed to them) upon her quiet grave, - in that calm time, when all outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them, - then, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with God. [ Dickens ]
Pride looks back upon its past deeds, and calculating with nicety what it has done, it commits itself to rest; whereas humility looks to that which is before, and discovering how much ground remains to be trodden, it is active and vigilant. Having gained one height, pride looks down with complacency on that which is beneath it; humility looks up to a higher and yet higher elevation. The one keeps us on this earth, which is congenial to its nature; the other directs our eye, and tends to lift us up to heaven. [ James McCosh ]
If thy mother be a widow, give her double honor, who now acts the part of a double parent; remember her nine month's burden, and her tenth month's travel; forget not her indulgence, when thou didst hang upon her tender breast; call to mind her prayers for thee before thou earnest into the world; and her cares for thee when thou wert come into the world; remember her secret groans, her affectionate tears, her broken slumbers, her daily fears, her nightly frights; relieve her wants, cover her imperfections, comfort her age, and the widow's husband will be the orphan's father. [ F. Quarles ]
The loss of a mother is always severely felt; even though Her health may incapacitate her from taking any active part in the care of her family, still she is a sweet rallying-point, around which affection and obedience, and a thousand tender endeavors to please concentrate; and dreary is the blank when such a point is withdrawn! It is like that lonely star before us; neither its heat nor light are anything to us in themselves; yet the shepherd would feel his heart sad if he missed it, when he lifts his eye to the brow of the mountain over which it rises when the sun descends. [ Lamartine ]
Morals are an acquirement - like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis - no man is born with them. I wasn't myself, I started poor. I hadn't a single moral. There is hardly a man in this house that is poorer than I was then. Yes, I started like that - the world before me, not a moral in the slot. Not even an insurance moral. I can remember the first one I ever got. I can remember the landscape, the weather, the - I can remember how everything looked. It was an old moral, an old second-hand moral, all out of repair, and didn't fit, anyway. But if you are careful with a thing like that, and keep it in a dry place, and save it for processions, and Chautauquas, and World's Fairs, and so on, and disinfect it now and then, and give it a fresh coat of whitewash once in a while, you will be surprised to see how well she will last and how long she will keep sweet, or at least inoffensive. When I got that mouldy old moral, she had stopped growing, because she hadn't any exercise; but I worked her hard, I worked her Sundays and all. Under this cultivation she waxed in might and stature beyond belief, and served me well and was my pride and joy for sixty-three years; then she got to associating with insurance presidents, and lost flesh and character, and was a sorrow to look at and no longer competent for business. She was a great loss to me. Yet not all loss. I sold her - ah, pathetic skeleton, as she was - I sold her to Leopold, the pirate King of Belgium; he sold her to our Metropolitan Museum, and it was very glad to get her, for without a rag on, she stands 57 feet long and 16 feet high, and they think she's a brontosaur. Well, she looks it. They believe it will take nineteen geological periods to breed her match. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]