But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And all his prospects bright'ning to the last,
His heaven commences, ere the world be past! [ Goldsmith ]

Better come at the latter end of a feast, than the beginning of a fray. [ Proverb ]

Good men can more easily see through bad men than the latter can the former. [ Jean Paul Richter ]

In the earliest ages science was poetry, as in the latter poetry has become science. [ Lowell ]

Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human; the latter is divine. [ Hosea Ballou ]

Youth is presumptuous, old age is timid: the former aspires to live, the latter has lived. [ Mme. Roland ]

Whosoever formeth an intimacy with the enemies of his friends, does so to injure the latter.
O wise man! wash your hands of that friend who associates with your enemies. [ Saadi ]

Want of occupation is the bane of both men and women, perhaps more especially of the latter. [ Horace Mann ]

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men. [ Schiller ]

There are female dandies as well as clothes-wearing men; and the former are as objectionable as the latter. [ Carlyle ]

Cares are often more difficult to thrown off than sorrows; the latter die with time, the former grow upon it. [ Richter ]

Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit. [ Alex. Dumas ]

A sound mind in a sound body, if the former be the glory of the latter, the latter is indispensable to the former. [ Edwards ]

Man is neither an angel nor a brute, and it is his evil destiny if he aspires to be the former, to sink into the latter. [ Pascal ]

Esteem incites friendship, but not love; the former is the twin brother of Reverence; the latter is the child of Equality. [ Lamartine ]

A wound from a tongue is worse than a wound from the sword; the latter affects only the body - the former, the spirit, the soul. [ Pythagoras ]

Instruction is to the proletary what liberty is to the slave: the latter emancipates the body, the former emancipates the intelligence. [ E. de Girardin ]

There are two ways of attaining an important end - force and perseverance; the silent power of the latter grows irresistible with time. [ Mme. Swetchine ]

Jails and state prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former. [ Horace Mann ]

Patience is very good, but perseverance is much better; while the former stands as a stoic under difficulties, the latter whips them out of the ring. [ Elizabeth Appleton ]

Be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep, for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter. [ Paxton Hood ]

The early and the latter part of human life are the best, or, at least, the most worthy of respect; the one is the age of innocence, the other of reason. [ Joubert ]

We derive from nature no fault that may not become a virtue, no virtue that may not degenerate into a fault. Faults of the latter kind are most difficult to cure. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

In your friendship and in your enmities let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds; make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. [ Chesterfield ]

Plays and romances sell as well as books of devotion, but with this difference, - more people read the former than buy them, and more buy the latter than read them. [ T. Hughes ]

The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury. For father, the former has intellect; the latter, genius, which itself is a kind of luxury. [ Schopenhauer ]

Grief sharpens the understanding and strengthens the soul, whereas joy seldom troubles itself about the former, and makes the latter either effeminate or frivolous. [ F. Schubert ]

A jest that makes a virtuous woman only smile, often frightens away a prude; but, when real danger forces the former to flee, the latter does not hesitate to advance. [ Latena ]

Wanting to have a friend is altogether different from wanting to be a friend. The former is a mere natural human craving, the latter is the life of Christ in the soul. [ J. R. Miller ]

How much more mothers love their children than their husbands; the latter are often selfish and cruel; but children cannot separate their mother's from their affection. [ Mme. Paterson Bonaparte ]

The art of saying well what one thinks is different from the faculty of thinking. The latter may be very deep and lofty and far-reaching, while the former is altogether wanting. [ Joubert ]

The poetry of the ancients was that of possession, ours is that of aspiration; the former stands fast on the soil of the present, the latter hovers between memory and anticipation. [ Schlegel ]

He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported by the latter. [ Fielding ]

D'Alembert tells us that Voltaire had always lying on his table the Petit Careme of Massillon and the Tragedies of Racine; the former to fix his taste in prose composition, and the latter in poetry. [ Dugald Stewart ]

Enthusiasm is an evil much less to be dreaded than superstition. Superstition is the disease of nations; enthusiasm that of individuals: the former grows inveterate by time: the latter is cured by it. [ Robert Hall ]

There are two modes of establishing our reputation - to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will be invariably accompanied by the latter. [ Colton ]

There are two ways of establishing your reputation, - to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will be invariably accompanied by the latter. [ Colton ]

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 ]

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 ]

The flatterer's object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best. [ Plutarch ]

Some read books only with a view to find fault, while others read only, to be taught; the former are like venomous spiders, extracting a poisonous quality, where the latter, like the bees, sip out a sweet and profitable juice. [ L'Estrange ]

It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is uninstructive; without the latter it is deceptive. [ Whately ]

It is the qualities of the heart, not those of the face, that should attract us in women, because the former are durable, the latter transitory. So lovable women, like roses, retain their sweetness long after they have lost their beauty. [ Lamartine ]

Local esteem is far more conducive to happiness than general reputation. The latter may be compared to the fixed stars which glimmer so remotely as to afford little light and no warmth. The former is like the sun, each day shedding his prolific and cheering beams. [ W. B. Clulow ]

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small. [ Goethe ]

Good-nature is that benevolent and amiable temper of mind which disposes us to feel the misfortunes and enjoy the happiness of others, and, consequently, pushes us on to promote the latter and prevent the former; and that without any abstract contemplation on the beauty of virtue, and without the allurements or terrors of religion. [ Fielding ]

A wound in the friendship of young persons, as in the bark of young trees, may be so grown over as to leave no scar; the case is very different in regard to old persons and old timber. The reason of this may be accountable from the decline of the social passions, and the prevalence of spleen, suspicion, and rancor toward the latter part of life. [ Shenstone ]

What caricature is in painting, burlesque is in writing; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other; as in the former, the painter seems to have the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer. For the monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and the ridiculous to describe than paint. [ Fielding ]

The study of the mathematics cultivates the reason; that of the languages at the same time the reason and the taste. The former gives power to the mind; the latter, both power and flexibility. The former, by itself, would prepare us for a state of certainties, which nowhere exists; the latter, for a state of probabilities, which is that of common life. [ T. Godfrey ]

The only difference between a genius and one of common capacity is that the former anticipates and explores what the latter accidentally hits upon. But even the man of genius himself more frequently employs the advantages that chance presents to him. It is the lapidary that gives value to the diamond, which the peasant has dug up without knowing its worth. [ Abbe Raynal ]

I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness, that I could sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a person who could be capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under meanness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under ingratitude, irreligion; and under this latter, every species of vice and immorality in human nature. [ Sterne ]

There is this difference between those two temporal blessings, health and money: Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied: and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with health for money, but that the richest would gladly part with all their money for heath. [ Colton ]

We must have books for recreation and entertainment, as well as books for instruction and for business; the former are agreeable, the latter useful, and the human mind requires both. The cannon law and the codes of Justinian shall have due honor, and reign at the universities; but Homer and Virgil need not therefore be banished. We will cultivate the olive and the vine, but without eradicating the myrtle and the rose. [ Balzac ]

The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it. But we cannot of ourselves estimate the degree of our success in what we strive for; that task is left to others. With the desire for excellence comes, therefore, the desire for approbation. And this distinguishes intellectual excellence from moral excellence; for the latter has no necessity of human tribunal; it is more inclined to shrink from the public than to invite the public to be its judge. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]

The province of music is rather to express the passions and feelings of the human heart than the actions of men, or the operations of nature. When employed in the former capacity, it becomes an eloquent language; when in the latter, a mere mimic - an imitator, and a very miserable one - or rather a buffoon, caricaturing what it cannot imitate; the idea of the different stages of a battle, or the progress of a tempest being represented to the eye or the ear, or even the imagination, by the quavering of a fiddler's elbow, or the squeaking of catgut, is preposterous. [ G. P. Morris ]