Close mouth. [ Proverb ]
A close mouth catches no flies. [ Proverb ]
Follow close on those who precede. [ Motto ]
A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet. [ Monckton Milnes ]
Suspicion follows close on mistrust. [ Lessing ]
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen.
Fallen from his high estate.
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need.
But those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes. [ Dryden ]
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed be lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes. [ John Dryden ]
Keep your purse and your mouth close. [ Proverb ]
A wise head hath a close mouth to it. [ Proverb ]
Night is the time for rest;
How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose.
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Down on our own delightful bed. [ James Montgomery ]
She thought our good-night kiss was given.
And like a lily her life did close;
Angels uncurtain'd that repose,
And the next waking dawn'd in heaven. [ Gerald Massey ]
After the close of the account; after all. [ French ]
Within the rose I found a trembling tear,
Close curtained in a gloom of crimson night
By tender petals from the outer light. [ Boyesen ]
O comfort-killing Night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
Vast, sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
Blind, muffled bawd! dark harbor for defame!
Grim cave of death! whispering conspirator,
With close-tongued treason and the ravisher! [ William Shakespeare ]
When at the close of each sad, sorrowing day,
Fancy restores what vengeance snatched away. [ Pope ]
And to hie him home, at evening's close.
To sweet repast, and calm repose.
* * *
From toil he wins his spirits light.
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health. [ Gray ]
Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day. [ Lyte ]
God's plans like lilies pure and white unfold;
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart;
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold. [ Mary R. Smith ]
Your thoughts close and your countenance loose. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Language is the close-fitting dress of Thought. [ R. C. Trench ]
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, lip and sense,
In one close system of benevolence. [ Pope ]
No barber shaves so close but another finds work. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Birds, the free tenants of earth, air, and ocean,
Their forms all symmetry, their motion grace,
In plumage delicate and beautiful,
Thick without burthen, close as fish's scales.
Or loose as full blown poppies on the gale;
With wings that seem as they'd a soul within them.
They bear their owners with such sweet enchantment. [ James Montgomery ]
Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope,
And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath
In that close kiss and drank her whispered tales.
They say that Love would die when Hope was gone.
And Love mourned long, and sorrowed after Hope;
At last she sought out Memory, and they trod
The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope,
And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears. [ Tennyson ]
One barber shaves not so close but another finds work. [ Proverb ]
Twine round thee threads of steel, like thread on thread,
That grow to fetters, or bind down thy arms
With chains concealed in chaplets. Oh, not yet
Mayst thou embrace thy corselet, nor lay by
Thy sword; not yet, O Freedom, close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps.
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven. [ Bryant ]
Whenever you find Humor, you find Pathos close by its side. [ Whipple ]
Close up the sluices now, lads; the meadows have drunk enough. [ Virgil ]
The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase. [ Yogi Berra ]
A brave man is clear in his discourse, and keeps close to truth. [ Aristotle ]
Where there is smoke there is fire (flame is very close to smoke). [ Plaut ]
Poverty treads close upon the heels of great and unexpected wealth. [ Rivarol ]
The drowsy frightened steeds that draw the litter of close-curtained sleep. [ Milton ]
With us law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion. [ Wendell Phillips ]
To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flames from wasting by repose. [ Goldsmith ]
Vanity and pride sustain so close an alliance as to be often mistaken for each other. [ Gladstone ]
The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops were close against the sky. [ Hood ]
By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen. I hope I see things from a greater distance. [ Dr. Johnson ]
The covetous man explores the whole world in pursuit of a subsistence, and fate is close at his heels. [ Saadi ]
It is vain for the coward to fly; death follows close behind; it is by defying it that the brave escape. [ Voltaire ]
To close the eyes, and give a seemly comfort to the apparel of the dead, is poverty's holiest touch of nature. [ Dickens ]
Let us cling to our principles as the mariner clings to his last plank when night and tempest close around him. [ Adam Woolever ]
Truth is a good dog; but beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out. [ Coleridge ]
Circles and right lines limit and close all bodies, and the mortal rightlined circle must conclude and shut up all. [ Sir Thomas Browne ]
To a close shorn sheep God gives wind by measure. (This is probably the origin of God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
) [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
It is not expedient or wise to examine our friends too closely; few persons are raised in our esteem by a close examination. [ Rochefoucauld ]
A woman who plays with the love of a loyal man is a curse; she may close his heart forever against all confidence in her sex.
We disregard the things which lie under our eyes; indifferent to what is close at hand, we inquire after things that are far away. [ Pliny ]
We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone. [ Landor ]
In our judgment of human transactions the law of optics is reversed; we see the most indistinctly the objects which are close around us. [ Whately ]
False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade. [ Bovee ]
O Love! when thou findest thy true apostles on earth united in kisses, thou commandest their eyelids to close like veils, that they may not see their happiness! [ A. de Musset ]
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him. [ Emerson ]
When the age of the Vikings came to a close, they must have sensed it. Probably, the gathered together one evening, slapped each other on the back and said, Hey, good job.
[ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
One of the amusements of idleness is reading without the fatigue of close attention; and the world, therefore, swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied, but to be read. [ Johnson ]
Our souls sit close and silently within. And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch. [ Dryden ]
Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all hands alike, and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one. [ Richter ]
Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over the funeral urn. [ Schiller ]
Well was it said by a man of sagacity that dancing was a sort of privileged and reputable folly, and that the best way to be convinced of this was to close the ears and judge of it by the eyes alone. [ Gotthold ]
Close thine ear against him that shall open his mouth secretly against another; if thou receive not his words, they fly back and wound the reporter; if thou receive them, they flee forward and wound the receiver. [ Quarles ]
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 ]
Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disc of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust. [ Chapin ]
It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted according to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable. Let us begin where she begins, go her pace, and close always where she ends, and we cannot miss of being good naturalists. [ William Penn ]
Some are so close and reserved that they will not show their wares but by a dark light, and seem always to keep back somewhat; and when they know within themselves they speak of that which they do not well know, would nevertheless seem to others to know of that which they may not well speak. [ Bacon ]
If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson, called New York. Cosmopolitan they call it, you bet. So's a piece of fly-paper. You listen close when they're buzzing and trying to pull their feet out of the sticky stuff. Little old New York's good enough for us
- that's what they sing. [ O. Henry, A Tempered Wind ]
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art. in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts made by successive generations of men - the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid. [ Samuel Smiles ]
Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, been a close student, and used to advise young people never to be without a book in their pocket, to be read at bye-times, when they had nothing else to do. It has been by that means,
said he to a boy at our house one day, that all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by running about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue ready to talk.
[ Mrs. Piozzi ]