The tired ox plants his foot more firmly. [ Proverb ]

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know. [ Montaigne ]

He led on; but thoughts
Seem'd gathering round which troubled him. The veins
Grew visible upon his swarthy brow,
And his proud lip was press'd as if with pain.
He trod less firmly; and his restless eye
Glanc'd forward frequently, as if some ill
He dared not meet were there. [ Willis ]

There is not a single spot between Christianity and atheism, upon which a man can firmly fix his foot. [ Emmons ]

If a traveler does not meet with one who is his better or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with a fool. [ Max Muller ]

I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes. [ O. W. Holmes ]

A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and unquestionable truth. Good maxims are the germs of all excellence. When firmly fixed on the memory, they nourish the will. [ Joseph Joubert ]

Friendship is more firmly secured by lenity toward failings than by attachment to excellence; the former is valued as a kindness, which cannot be claimed; the latter is exalted to the payment of a debt to merit. [ W. B. Clulow ]

Commerce is one of the daughters of Fortune, inconstant and deceitful as her mother. She chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her abode when her continuance is, in appearance, most firmly settled. [ Johnson ]

I pick up favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence. Of these there is a very favourite one from Thomson: Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds
And offices of life; to life itself,
With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose. [ Burns ]

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 ]

It has become a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but that the effect ultimately is to establish more firmly, and to spread more widely, that which it was designed to overthrow. It has long since passed into a proverb that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. [ Albert Barnes ]