Qui jacet in terra non habet unde cadat. He who is lying on the ground has nowhere to fall.

-Alan of Lille also known as  'Alanus de Insulis'
  Liber Parabolarum, ch.2, l.18.

Oft seldan hw×r ×fter leodhyre lytle hwile bongar bugeth. It is very rare that, after the fall of a prince, the deadly spear rests for long.

-Anonymous
c.800  Beowulf, l.2029^31.

If only we might fall Like cherry blossoms in the spring So pure and radiant.

-Anonymous
c.1945  Quoted in Ivan Morris The Nobility of Failure (1975).

Rome seule pouvait a'   Rome ressembler, Rome seule pouvait Rome fait trembler. Only Rome can resemble Rome, And Rome alone can make Rome fall.

-Bellay,Joachim du
  Antiquitez de Rome, no.6.

   In the Garden City Cafe¤   with its murals on the wall Before a talk on'Sex and Civics' I meditated on the Fall.

-Betjeman, SirJohn
  A Few Late Chrysanthemums,'Huxley Hall'.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Proverbs16:18.

The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again. Song of Solomon

-Bible (Old Testament)
Isaiah 24:20.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built hishouseupona rock: And theraindescended, and thefloodscame, and thewindsblew, and beat uponthat house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew 7:24^7.

   Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.

-Bible (NewTestament)
Corinthians10:12.

He that is down needs fear no fall, He that is low no pride. He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide.

-Bunyan,John
  The Pilgrim's Progress, pt.2.

A dead man is the best fall guy in the world. He never talks back.

-Chandler, Raymond
  The Long Good-Bye, ch.10.

Vivre est une chute horizontale. Life is a horizontal fall.

-Cocteau,Jean
  Opium.

The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober: not always, but most of the time.

-Day, Clarence Shepard
The Crow's Nest,'In His Baby Blue Ship'.

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans allö By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.

-Dickinson,John
  'The Liberty Song'.

For I have known them all already, known them allö Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  'The Love Song of  J  Alfred Prufrock' (first published in Poetry magazine, collected in Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917).

She who trifles with all Is less likely to fall Than she who but trifles with one.

-Gay,John
  'The Coquet Mother and the Coquet Daughter'.

It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind.

-Gibbon, Edward
Memoirs of My Life (published1796), ch.6, note. Variations of the lines can be found in the various drafts of Gibbon's autobiography and in the last lines of the Decline and Fall:'It was among the ruins of the Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has amused and exercised near twenty years of my life, and which, however inadequate to my own wishes, I finally deliver to the curiosity and candour of the public' (vol.6, ch.71).

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.

-Golding, Sir William (Gerald)
  Lord of the Flies, ch.12.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky: The dew shall weep thy fall tonight, For thou must die.

-Herbert, George
'Virtue', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

Je ne veux pas tomber, non, je veux dispara|"tre. I do not want to fall; I want to disappear.

-Hugo,Victor Marie
  Ruy Blas, act1, sc.1.