Behind a frowning providence
God hides a shining face. [ William Cowper ]
The devil's behind the cross. [ Proverb ]
Slander leaves a score behind. [ Proverb ]
God hides Himself behind causes. [ Charles Rollin ]
Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of Time. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die. [ Thomas Campbell ]
There must be a man behind a book. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Behind every mountain lies a vale. [ Dutch Proverb ]
As proud come behind as go before. [ Proverb ]
A precipice before, a wolf behind. [ Proverb ]
The wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away
Than what it leaves behind. [ Wordsworth ]
The withered frame, the ruined mind.
The wreck by passion left behind,
A shrivelled scroll, a scattered leaf,
Seared by the autumn blast of grief! [ Byron ]
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight.
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged arrows of light. [ Cowper ]
Irony is jesting hidden behind gravity. [ John Weiss ]
A child correct behind, and not before. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
I'm called away by particular business.
But I leave my character behind me. [ Sheridan ]
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind. [ Lucrece ]
We see not what is in the wallet behind. [ Proverb ]
Eyes bright, with many tears behind them. [ Carlyle, on his Wife ]
Sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind. [ Gray ]
Who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being ever resigned;
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? [ Gray ]
He who paints me before, blackens me behind. [ Italian Proverb ]
And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke
From the red-ribbed hollow behind the wood.
And thundered up into heaven. [ Tennyson ]
The Golden Age is not behind, but before you. [ St. Simeon ]
Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,
To build a college, or to found a race,
An hospital, a church - and leave behind
Some dome surmounted by his meagre face,
Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind
Even with the very ore which makes them base;
Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,
Or revel in the joys of calculation. [ Byron ]
When the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murthers and in outrage boldly here. [ William Shakespeare ]
Guilt is the source of sorrow; 'tis the fiend,
The avenging fiend that follows us behind
With whips and stings. [ Rowe ]
When peace and mercy, vanished from the plain,
Sprung on the viewless winds to heaven again,
All, all forsook the friendless guilty mind;
But Hope, the charmer, lingered still behind. [ Thomas Campbell ]
He that looks not before finds himself behind. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hills, a humbler heaven. [ Pope ]
Pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind,
And count each birthday with a grateful mind. [ Pope ]
The further you run, the further you are behind. [ Proverb ]
Don't choose me because I am faithful,
Don't choose me because I am kind,
If your heart settles on me, I'm for the taking,
Take me for longing or leave me behind. [ Mark Simos, Take Me for Longing ]
And glory long has made the sages smile;
It is something, nothing, words, illusion, wind -
Depending more upon the historian's style
Than on the name a person leaves behind. [ Byron ]
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind. [ Hawthorne ]
Pride had rather go out of the way than go behind. [ Proverb ]
O wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? [ Shelley ]
Look before you, or you'll have to look behind you. [ Proverb ]
Even doubtful accusations leave a stain behind them. [ Proverb ]
He's my friend that speaks well of me behind my back. [ Proverb ]
He that rides behind another must not think to guide. [ Proverb ]
There can be no profanity where there is no fane behind. [ Thoreau ]
Flatterers are cats that lick before, and scratch behind. [ German Proverb ]
He who would pry behind the scenes oft sees a counterfeit. [ Dryden ]
What is death, after all? We leave only mortals behind us. [ Ninon de Lenclos ]
Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength. [ Hazlitt ]
Take the sweet poetry of life away, and what remains behind? [ Wordsworth ]
Intellect lies behind genius, which is intellect constructive. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
If you be angry, you may turn the buckle of your girdle behind you. [ Proverb ]
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 ]
Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
That cause is strong which has not a multitude, but one strong man behind it. [ Lowell ]
Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do afar off. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
A bitter jest, when it comes too near the truth, leaves a sharp sting behind it. [ Tacitus ]
With us law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion. [ Wendell Phillips ]
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the cloud is the sun still shining. [ H. W. Longfellow ]
Try it, ye who think there is nothing in it; try what it is to speak with God behind you. [ Ward Beecher ]
The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye. [ Emerson ]
Though fear should lend him pinions like the wind, yet swifter fate will seize him from behind. [ Swift ]
Clouds are the veil behind which the face of day coquettishly hides itself, to enhance its beauty. [ Richter ]
Ideas are the great warriors of the world, and a war that has no ideas behind it is simply brutality. [ James A. Garfield ]
It is vain for the coward to fly; death follows close behind; it is by defying it that the brave escape. [ Voltaire ]
A man behind the times is apt to speak ill of them, on the principle that nothing looks well from behind. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]
Coercion is the basis of every law in the universe, - human or divine. A law is not law without coercion behind it. [ James A. Garfield ]
Everything that happens to us leaves some trace behind; everything contributes imperceptibly to make us what we are. [ Goethe ]
Comedies acted on life's stage, behind the scenes, are much more spirited than those acted in sight of the audience. [ De Finod ]
Some men so dislike the dust kicked up by the generation they belong to, that, being unable to pass, they lag behind it. [ Hare ]
To educate a man is to form an individual who leaves nothing behind him; to educate a woman is to form future generations. [ E. Laboulaye ]
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 ]
It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one, behind one's back, that are absolutely and entirely true. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]
I'm proof against that word "failure." I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. [ George Eliot ]
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 ]
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 ]
Is it not a thing divine to have a smile which, none know how, has the power to lighten the weight of that enormous chain which all the living in common drag behind them? [ Victor Hugo ]
Opportunity has hair in front; behind she is bald. If you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her; but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again. [ Seneca ]
It is a bitter thought to an avaricious spirit that by and by all these accumulations must be left behind. We can only carry away from this world the flavor of our good or evil deeds. [ Beecher ]
My own firm conviction is that no education can make a writer. The heart must be hot behind the pen. Out of the abundance of life and its manifold experiences comes the power to touch life. [ Amelia E. Barr, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]
The day of life spent in honest and benevolent labor comes in hope to an evening calm and lovely; and though the sun declines, the shadows that he leaves behind are only to curtain the spirit unto rest. [ Henry Giles ]
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 ]
Speak not in high commendation of any man to his face, nor censure any man behind his back: but if thou knowest anything good of him, tell it unto others; if anything ill, tell it privately and prudently to himself. [ Burkitt ]
There are evil spirits who suddenly fix their abode in man's unguarded breast, causing us to commit devilish deeds, and then, hurrying back to their native hell, leave behind the stings of remorse in the poisoned bosom. [ Schiller ]
If once a woman breaks through the barriers of decency, her case is desperate; and if she goes greater lengths than the men, and leaves the pale of propriety farther behind her, it is because she is aware that all return is prohibited, and by none so strongly as by her own sex. [ Colton ]
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 ]
Honor is not a virtue in itself, it is the mail behind which the virtues fight more securely. A man without honor is as maimed in his equipment as an accoutred knight without helmet. Honor is not simply truthfulness; it is truthfulness sparkling with the fire of a suspective personality. It is something more than an ornament even to the loftiest. [ George H. Calvert ]
Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaut on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, Think again, bat man.
[ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
I never had the courage to talk across a long, narrow room I should be at the end of the room facing all the audience. If I attempt to talk across a room I find myself turning this way and that, and thus at alternate periods I have part of the audience behind me. You ought never to have any part of the audience behind you; you never can tell what they are going to do. [ Mark Twain, from his speech Courage ]
There have been many men who left behind them that which hundreds of years have not worn out. The earth has Socrates and Plato to this day. The world is richer yet by Moses and the old prophets than by the wisest statesmen. We are indebted to the past. We stand in the greatness of ages that are gone rather than in that of our own. But of how many of us shall it be said that, being dead, we yet speak? [ Beecher ]
The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems. [ Coleridge ]
The first being that rushes to the recollection of a soldier or a sailor, in his heart's difficulty, is his mother; she clings to his memory and affection in the midst of all the f orgetf ulness and hardihood induced by a roving life; the last message he leaves is for her; his last whisper breathes her name. The mother, as she instills the lessons of piety and filial obligation into the heart of her infant son, should always feel that her labor is not in vain. She may drop into the grave, but she has left behind her influences that will work for her. The bow is broken, but the arrow is sped, and will do its ofiice. [ A. H. Motte ]