Beginnings

point where something begins

Beginnings are points of origin. They may include the commencement of an action, state, or space of time; entrance into being or upon a course; the first act, effort, or state of a succession of acts or states.

Quotes

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  • End, begin, all the same. Big change. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
  • The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked.
    'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'
  • In omnibus autem negotiis priusquam adgrediare, adhibenda est praeparatio diligens.
    • In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made.
    • Cicero, De Officiis (44 B.C.), I. 21.
  • Like the legend of the Phoenix
    All ends with beginnings
    What keeps the planets spinning (uh)
    The force from the beginning.
  • La distance n'y fait rien; il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte.
  • A bad beginning makes a bad ending.
  • Et redit in nihilum quod fuit ante nihil.
  • All beginnings are very troublesome things.
  • Nothing great has great beginnings.
    • Joseph de Maistre, Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions (1809), XXIII, p. 73
  • The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment. When this sensation is lacking—as when one is in prison, or ill, or stupid, or when living has become a habit—one might as well be dead.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 65-66.
  • Incipe; dimidium facti est cœpisse. Supersit
    Dimidium: rursum hoc incipe, et efficies.
    • Begin; to begin is half the work. Let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.
    • Ausonius, Epigrams, LXXXI. 1.
  • Incipe quidquid agas: pro toto est prima operis pars.
    • Begin whatever you have to do: the beginning of a work stands for the whole.
    • Ausonius, Idyllia, XII. Inconnexa. 5.
  • Il n'y a que le premier obstacle qui coûte à vaincre la pudeur.
    • It is only the first obstacle which counts to conquer modesty.
    • Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Pensées Chrétiennes et Morales. LX.
  • Omnium rerum principia parva sunt.
    • The beginnings of all things are small.
    • Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, V. 21.
  • Dimidium facti qui cœpit habet.
    • What's well begun, is half done.
    • Horace, Epistles, I. 2. 40. (Traced to Hesiod).
  • Cœpisti melius quam desinis. Ultima primis cedunt.
    • Thou beginnest better than thou endest. The last is inferior to the first.
    • Ovid, Heroides, IX. 23.
  • Principiis obsta: sero medicina paratur,
    Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.
    • Resist beginnings: it is too late to employ medicine when the evil has grown strong by inveterate habit.
    • Ovid, Remedia Amoris, XCI.
  • Deficit omne quod nascitur.
    • Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
    • Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria, V. 10.
  • Quidquid cœpit, et desinit.
  • Le premier pas, mon fils, que l'on fait dans le monde,
    Est celui dont dépend le reste de nos jours.
    • The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.
    • Voltaire, L'Indiscret, I, 1.

See also

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