Of a good beginning cometh a good end.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.

A hard beginning maketh a good ending.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.

Pleas'd me, long choosing and beginning late.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 26.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Life's but a means unto an end; that end

Beginning, mean, and end to all things,—God.

Philip James Bailey (1816-1902): Festus. Scene, A Country Town.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,

Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.

War, he sung, is toil and trouble;

Honour but an empty bubble;

Never ending, still beginning,

Fighting still, and still destroying.

If all the world be worth the winning,

Think, oh think it worth enjoying:

Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 97.

To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast

Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. 2.

To th' end of a shot and beginning of a fray.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.

The true beginning of our end.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.