Bare walls make gadding housewives. [ Proverb ]
White walls are fool's writing paper. [ Proverb ]
Hunger will break through stone walls. [ Proverb ]
The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed.
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls,
As if that soul were fled. [ Moore ]
Stronger than thunder's winged force
All-powerful gold can speed its course;
Through watchful guards its passage make,
And loves through solid walls do break. [ Francis ]
My people too were scared with eerie sounds,
A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls,
A noise of falling weights that never fell.
Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand.
Door-handles turn'd when none was at the door.
And bolted doors that open'd of themselves;
And one betwixt the dark and light had seen
Her, bending by the cradle of her babe. [ Tennyson ]
'Tis midnight now. The bent and broken moon,
Battered and black, as from a thousand battles,
Hangs silent on the purple walls of Heaven. [ Joaquin Miller ]
I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls
The burial ground, God's Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls.
And breathes a benison over the sleeping dust.
* * * * *
Into its furrows shall we all be cast.
In the sure faith, that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain. [ Longfellow ]
If the walls were adamant, yet gold will take the town. [ Proverb ]
If you keep painting the devil on the walls, he will by and by appear to you in person. [ French Proverb ]
What is ambition? It is a glorious cheat! Angels of light walk not so dazzlingly the sapphire walls of heaven. [ Willis ]
Within the sacred walls of libraries we find the best thoughts, the purest feelings, and the most exalted imaginings of our race. [ Bovee ]
False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but time friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports. [ R. Burton ]
How beautiful it is for a man to die on the walls of Zion! to be called like a watch-worn and weary sentinel, to put his armor off, and rest in heaven. [ N. P. Willis ]
He has his Rome, his Florence, his whole glowing Italy, within the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of an antique world, and the glories of a modern one. [ Longfellow ]
Some men's censures are like the blasts of rams horns before the walls of Jericho; all a man's fame they lay level at one stroke, when all they go upon is only conceit, without any certain basis. [ J. Beaumont ]
The little flower which sprung up through the hard pavement of poor Picciola's prison was beautiful from contrast with the dreary sterility which surrounded it. So here amid rough walls, are there fresh tokens of nature. And O, the beautiful lessons which flowers teach to children, especially in the city! The child's mind can grasp with ease the delicate suggestions of flowers. [ Chapin ]
All are to be men of genius in their degree, - rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure; not dead walls encompassing dead heaps of things, known and numbered, but running waters in the sweet wilderness of things unnumbered and unknown, conscious only of the living banks, on which they partly refresh and partly reflect the flowers, and so pass on. [ Ruskin ]
The little flower which sprung up through the hard payment of poor Picciola's prison, was beautiful from contrast with the dreary sterility which surrounded it. So here, amid the rough walls, are there fresh tokens of nature; and oh, the beautiful lessons which flowers teach to children, especially in the city! The child's mind can grasp with ease the delicate suggestions of flowers. [ E. H. Chapin ]
Mother! How many delightful associations cluster around that word! The innocent smiles of infancy, the gambols of boyhood, and the happiest hours of riper years! When my heart aches and my limbs are weary travelling the thorny path of life, I sit down on some mossy stone, and closing my eyes on real scenes, send my spirit back to the days of early life; I feel afresh my infant joys and sorrows, till my spirit recovers its tone, and is willing to pursue its journey. But in all these reminiscences my mother rises; if I seat myself upon my cushion, it is at her side; if I sing, it is to her ear; if I walk the walls or the meadows, my little hand is in my mother's, and my little feet keep company with hers; when my heart bounds with its best joy, it is because at the performance of some task, or the recitation of some verses, I receive a present from her hand. There is no velvet so soft as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps. [ Bishop Thomson ]