Mediocrity is beneath a brave soul. [ Lady Blessington ]

And the dancing has begun now,
And the dancers whirl round gaily
In the waltz's giddy mazes.
And the ground beneath them trembles. [ Heine ]

Dust, to its narrow house beneath!
Soul, to its place on high!
They that have seen thy look in death,
No more may fear to die. [ Mrs. Hemans ]

Yet, all beneath the unrivalled rose,
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Tho' large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,
Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows,
Adown the glade. [ Burns ]

Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. [ Edward Bulwer Lytton ]

How calm - how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms have gone,
When warring winds have died away
And clouds, beneath the dancing ray
Melt off and leave the land and sea,
Sleeping in bright tranquillity. [ Moore ]

Even thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine - no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the farrow's weight
Shall be thy doom. [ Burns ]

True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven;
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy.
The silver link, the silken tie.
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind. [ Walter Scott ]

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. [ Byron ]

Far beneath a soul immortal is a mortal joy. [ Young ]

Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch enchanter's wand! itself a nothing!
But taking sorcery from the master hand.
To paralyze the Caesars, and to strike
The loud earth breathless! [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]

For where's the state beneath the Firmament,
That doth excell the Bees for Government? [ Du Bartas ]

To live beneath sorrow, one must yield to it. [ Mme. de Stael ]

There's not a wind but whispers of thy name,
And not a flower that grows beneath the moon,
But in its hues and fragrance tells a tale
Of thee, my love. [ Barry Cornwall ]

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn. [ Oliver Goldsmith ]

But should you lure
From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,
Behooves you then to ply your finest art. [ Thomson ]

Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe.
That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath. [ Pope ]

In genial spring, beneath the quivering shade,
Where cooling vapors breathe along the mead,
The patient fisher takes his silent stand.
Intent, his angle trembling in his hand;
With looks unmoved, he hopes the scaly breed.
And eyes the dancing cork and bending reed. [ Pope ]

Beneath the loveliest dream there coils a fear. [ T. Watts ]

O days remembered well! remembered all!
The bitter sweet, the honey and the gall;
Those garden rambles in the silent night.
Those trees so shady, and that moon so bright.
That thickset alley by the arbor closed.
That woodbine seat where we at last reposed;
And then the hopes that came and then were gone.
Quick as the clouds beneath the moon past on. [ Crabbe ]

Too low they build, who build beneath the stars. [ Edward Young ]

Words are like leaves, and when they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. [ Alexander Pope ]

Is there a crime
Beneath the roof of heaven, that stains the soul
Of man, with more infernal hue, than damn'd
Assassination? [ Cibber ]

How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air.
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain
Breaks the serene heaven:
In full-orb'd glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night! [ Southey ]

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. [ Gray ]

Dreams, which, beneath the hov'ring shades of night.
Sport with the ever-restless minds of men.
Descend not from the gods. Each busy brain
Creates its own. [ Thomas Love Peacock ]

Under this sod, beneath these trees,
Lyeth the pod of Solomon Pease.
Pease is not here, but only his pod,
He shelled out his soul, which went straight to his God. [ An old American epitaph ]

Beneath closed lids and folds of deepest shade we think we see. [ N. L. Frothingham ]

When our hatred is too keen it places us beneath those we hate. [ La Rochefoucauld ]

The steps of faith fall on the seeming void, and find the rock beneath. [ Whittier ]

Pain is the great teacher of mankind. Beneath its breath souls develop. [ Marie Ebner-Eschenbach ]

The world is satisfied with words: few care to dive beneath the surface. [ Pascal ]

My languid numbers have forgot to flow, and fancy sinks beneath a weight of woe. [ Pope ]

The vulgar refuse or crouch beneath their load; the brave bear theirs without repining. [ Mallet ]

Many individuals have, like uncut diamonds, shining qualities beneath a rough exterior. [ Juvenal ]

I love the soul that dares tread the temptations of his years beneath his youthful feet. [ Dr. Watts ]

Vulgar minds refuse to crouch beneath their load; the brave bear theirs without repining. [ Thomson ]

Her feet beneath her petticoat like little mice stole in and out, as if they feared the light. [ Suckling ]

Though cast off, I have not fallen so low as to be beneath thee, than which nothing can be lower. [ Ovid ]

How true it is that, sooner or later, the most rebellious must bow beneath the yoke of misfortune! [ De Stael ]

Equality is the share of every one at their advent upon earth, and equality is also theirs when placed beneath it. [ Ninon de Lenclos ]

The man who will live above his present circumstances is in great danger of living, in a little, much beneath them. [ Addison ]

Beneath her drooping lashes slept a world of eloquent meaning; passionate but pure, dreamy, subdued, but, oh, how beautiful! [ Mrs. Osgood ]

The work you are treating is one full of dangerous hazard, and you are treading over fires lurking beneath treacherous ashes. [ Horace ]

No age, sex, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one is vastly beneath the rank of man. [ Barton ]

Gradual as the snow, at heaven's breath, melts off and shows the azure flowers beneath, her lids unclosed, and the bright eyes were seen. [ Moore ]

Men and communities in this world are often in the position of Arctic explorers, who are making great speed in a given direction, while the ice-floe beneath them is making greater speed in the opposite. [ John Burroughs ]

A few years hence and he will be beneath the sod; but those cliffs will stand, as now, facing the ocean, incessantly lashed by its waves, yet unshaken, immovable; and other eyes will gaze on them for their brief day of life, and then they, too, will close. [ H. P. Liddon ]

Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of God, and secret passages running deep beneath external Nature give their thoughts intercourse with higher intelligences, which strengthens and consoles them, and of which the labourers on the surface do not even dream. [ Longfellow ]

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposing beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field. [ Burke ]

Surely you will not calculate any essential difference from mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over brackish depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace. You know that the bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches; and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool! [ Chapin ]

It is like the Greek fire used in ancient warfare, which burnt unquenched beneath the water; or like the weeds which, when you have extirpated them in one place, are sprouting forth vigorously in another spot, at the distance of many hundred yards; or, to use the metaphor of St. James, it is like the wheel which catches fire as it goes, and burns with fiercer conflagration as its own speed increases. [ F. W. Robertson ]

Do you wish to become rich? You may become rich, that is, if you desire it in no half way, but thoroughly. A miser sacrifices all to his single passion; hoards farthings and dies possessed of wealth. Do you wish to master any science or accomplishment? Give yourself to it and it lies beneath your feet. Time and pains will do anything. This world is given as the prize for the men in earnest; and that which is true of this world is truer still of the world to come. [ F. W. Robertson ]

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 ]