I have a feeling I'm falling on rare occasions but most of the time I have my feet on the ground I can't help it if the ground itself is falling.

-Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
  'Mock Confessional'.

Les vrais philosophes sont comme les e¤  le¤  phants, qui en marchant ne posent jamais le second pied a'   terre que le premier ne soit bien affermi. True philosophers are like elephants, who when walking never placetheir second footontheground untilthefirst is steady.

-Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de
  Entretiens sur la pluralite¤   des mondes, Sixie'  me soir.

If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.

-Goheen, Robert F(rancis)
  Baccalaureate address. Reported in Time magazine, 23  Jun.

He will give himseven feet of English ground, oras much more as he may be taller than other men.

-Harold II
  His offer to the invading Norse King Harald Hardrada, quoted in Snorri Sturluson Heimskringla (c.1260),'King Harald's Saga', section 91 (translated by Samuel Laing as History of the Norse Kings,1844).

But Oedipus he had the luck For when he hit the ground He bounced up like a jackinabox And knocked his Daddy down.

-Hughes,Ted (Edward James)
  'Song for a Phallus'.

I want to be progressive without getting both feet off the ground at the same time†a progressive who is prudent.

-Johnson, Lyndon B(aines) also called LBJ
  Interview,16 Mar.

Is not a Patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern ona manstruggling for life inthewater, and,whenhehas reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Letter to Lord Chesterfield,7 Feb. Quoted in  James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

It's a pity others had to leave theirs on the ground at Goose Green to prove it.

-Kinnock, Neil Gordon
  Reply to a heckler who had said Mrs Thatcher had shown 'guts' in the Falklands Crisis. Quoted in The Times, 6  Jun.

It is ambition enough to be employed as an under- labourer in clearing ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge. 514

-Locke,John
  Essay Concerning Human Understanding,'Epistle to the Reader'.

But I suppose even God was born too late to trust the old religionö all those settings out that never left the ground, beginning in wisdom, dying in doubt.

-Lowell, RobertTraill Spence,Jr
  'Tenth Muse'.

Come, knit hands, and beat the ground, In a light fantastic round.

-Milton,John
  Comus,  A Mask, l.143^4.

Ye valleys low where the mild whispers use, Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enameled eyes, That on the green turf such the honeyed showers, And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

-Milton,John
  Lycidas, l.136^41.

Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste; And all amid them stood theTree of Life, High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold; and next to life Our death theTree of Knowledge grew fast by, Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.4, l.218^24.

Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaic; underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem: other creature here Beast, bird, insect, or worm durst enter none; Such was their awe of man.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.4, l.698^705.

I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible.From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.

-Owens,JesseJames Cleveland
Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

Suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be enquired how the watch happened to be in that place† The inference, we think, is inevitable; that the watch must have had a maker, that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose whichwe find it actually toanswer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.

-Paley,William
  NaturalTheology, ch.1.

Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!

-Parker,John
  Attributed commandbefore theBattle of Lexington,19 Apr.

The Kamikaze Ground Staff Re-union Dinner.

-Parker, Stewart
  Title of play.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig- tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked.One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet†I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

-Plath, Sylvia
  The BellJar, ch.7.

Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground.

-Pope, Alexander
  'Ode on Solitude'.