Hind Quotes & Sayings

The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. — William Shakespeare

The mouse is a fair treat but this one would talk the hind legs off a donkey. — C.S. Lewis

Total?" I said when he was close. "Can you talk?" He flopped down on the grass, panting slightly. "Yeah. So?" Jeezum. I mean, mutant weirdos are nothing new to me, you know? But a talking dog? "Why didn't you mention this before?" I asked him. "It's not like I lied about it," said Total, reaching up with a hind leg to scratch behind one ear. "Between you and me, I'm still trying to get used to the whole flying-kid thing. — James Patterson

The moth's enormous wings are velveted in a rich, warm, brown, and edged in bands of blue and pink delicate as a watercolour wash. A startling 'eyespot,' immense, and deep blue melding to an almost translucent yellow, luxuriates in the centre of each hind wing. The effect is one of a masculine splendour foreign to the butterflies, a fragility unfurled to strength — Annie Dillard

Papa, ain't it a caution that we can only eat two legs off a frog, 'stead of four."
And he said: "Rob, here's what you do. You catch a real big bullfrog and make friends with him. And teach him to jump backwards. That'll make his front legs big as the hind. — Robert Newton Peck

On the fifth night of this solitude, she falls asleep with a candle burning and dreams herself a mermaid with a thick and golden tail, a crown of shimmering conch shells, then awakens with a start. Whether the ship hit something or something hit the ship, another change has come. The ship is dying; she can feel it slipping away. She waits beneath the blanket for icy water to greet her. But instead of the sea, it's a bear that opens the door.

A great white bear up on its hind legs steps across the threshold.

'Good morning,' he says, and reaches out a paw. — Danielle Dutton

Make a lap. Near the fire. The assertive little voice rang in my mind. I looked down at him and he looked up at me. For an instant, our gazes brushed, then we both looked aside in instinctive courtesy. But he had already seen the ruins of my soul. He rubbed his cheek against my leg. Hold the cat. You'll feel better. I don't think so. He rubbed against my leg insistently. Hold the cat. I don't want to hold the cat. He reared up suddenly on his hind legs, and hooked his vicious little front claws into both flesh and leggings. Don't talk back! Pick up the cat. — Robin Hobb

He was sitting in front of the kitchen fire, and after Elizabeth's taunt he cocked up a hind leg and carefully, ostentatiously, groomed his private parts, a habit which he often used with great effect to annoy his women folk. — Olaf Stapledon

know enough of the world now, to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything; but it is matter of some surprise to me, even now, that I can have been so easily thrown away at such an age. A child of excellent abilities, and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt bodily or mentally, it seems wonderful to me that nobody should have made any sign in my behalf. But none was made; and I became, at ten years old, a little labouring hind in the service of Murdstone and Grinby. — Charles Dickens

It may have been characteristic of Mr. Dombey's pride, that he pitied himself through the child. Not poor me. Not poor widower, confiding by constraint in the wife of an ignorant Hind* who has been working "mostly underground" all his life, and yet at whose door Death had never knocked, and at whose poor table four sons daily sit - but poor little fellow! — Charles Dickens

Even the tail of the Sphinx is wrapped around its right hind paw signaling thereby the Earth's direction of rotation as we see with Menkaure's spatial lag (i.e., longitudinal and hence related to the Sunrise) in reference to the other two pyramids. With all other clues popping up in my research, this adds up to the evidence that there were a certain type of knowledge which the later generations of the ancient Egyptians were not aware of even though the structures and monuments of Egypt testified for its presence as we especially observe on the Sphinx. This is an unequivocal manifestation of the loss of that knowledge as a consequence of rebellion and revolution instead of uninterrupted inheritance and authentic tradition. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

If I had a Boy Scout I could make a fire by rubbing his hind legs together. — Robert A. Heinlein

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal. — Agnes Repplier

He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. — William Shakespeare

At Madame's suggestion, they lie down in the weeds, and Marie-Laure listens to honeybees mine the flowers and tries to imagine their journeys as Etienne described them: each worker following a rivulet of odor, looking for ultraviolet patterns in the flowers, filling baskets on her hind legs with pollen grains, then navigating, drunk and heavy, all the way home. How — Anthony Doerr

Never fear a job, always respect it, and always leave yourself a hind door to escape. May your hind door always be open. — Red Adair

He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs. — Jack London

I heard a noise on the back patio and opened the door. The rabbit was there in a black metal cage. It was big, not some fluffy little ball of fur, but a big, ugly rabbit. It stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air.

"Yes, you smell that," I told the rabbit. "That's the smell of your enemy. Get a good whiff. We are not friends." It could probably smell the apple I still held, not me. I bit off a piece and threw it into the cage, sending it a very mixed message considering the speech I'd given. "Just keeping you on your toes."

"Who are you talking to — Kasie West

There seems to be at least one common denominator to all intelligent life: it was bipedal and bimannual. Four legs was the most practical number for any animal on any planet, and it seems that nature has nothing else to work with. When she decided to give intelligence to a species, she taught him to stand on his hind legs, freeing his forefeet to become tools of his intellect. And she usually taught him by making him use his hands to climb. As a Cophian biologist had said, Life first tries to climb a tree to get to the stars. When it fails, it comes down and invents the high-C drive. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

Certain anthropologists hold that man, having discovered tools, ceased to evolve biologically. Animals, never having discovered them, continue to fashion drills out of their beaks, oars out of their hind feet, wings out of their forefeet, suits of armor out of their hides, levers out of their horns, saws out of their teeth. Whether this be true or not, all authorities agree that man is the tool-using animal. It sets him off from the rest of the animal kingdom as drastically as does speech. — Stuart Chase

Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. — Samuel Johnson

For I chase but one hind, he says, one strange deer timid and wild, and she leads me off the paths that other men have trod, and by myself into the depths of the wood. — Hilary Mantel

It is at a fair that man can be drunk forever on liquor, love, or fights; at a fair that your front pocket can be picked by a trotting horse looking for sugar, and your hind pocket by a thief looking for his fortune. — E.B. White

It's huge ears drooped over its face, and it brushed them back with one paw, then rose on its hind feet. The Pillsbury Doughboy might have something like this as his pet. — Dean Koontz

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away. it's best to let him run. — Abraham Lincoln

Where the legs have gone the hind legs must follow — Leo Tolstoy

I found her lying on her stomach, her hind legs stretched out straight, and her front feet folded back under her chest. She had laid her head on his grave. I saw the trail where she had dragged herself through the leaves. The way she lay there, I thought she was alive. I called her name. She made no movement. With the last ounce of strength in her body, she had dragged herself to the grave of Old Dan. — Wilson Rawls

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight. — James Thurber

Then the only other creature who is allowed at the Pack Council - Baloo, the sleepy brown bear who teaches the wolf cubs the Law of the Jungle: old Baloo, who can come and go where he pleases because he eats only nuts and roots and honey - rose upon his hind quarters and grunted. — Rudyard Kipling

He saw his enemies stealthily darting from rock to tree, and tree to bush, creeping through the brush, and slipping closer and closer every moment. On three sides were his hated foes and on the remaining side - the abyss. Without a moment's hesitation the intrepid Major spurred his horse at the precipice. Never shall I forget that thrilling moment. The three hundred savages were silent as they realized the Major's intention. Those in the fort watched with staring eyes. A few bounds and the noble steed reared high on his hind legs. Outlined by the clear blue sky the magnificent animal stood for one brief instant, his black mane flying in the wind, his head thrown up and his front hoofs pawing the air like Marcus Curtius' mailed steed of old, and then down with a crash, a cloud of dust, and the crackling of pine limbs. — Zane Grey

Imperio!"
Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing - everyone except Moody.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly. — J.K. Rowling

A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends; and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish; and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter. — Jonathan Swift

I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What is that gun firing for?" said Boxer. "To celebrate our victory!" cried Squealer. "What victory?" said Boxer. His knees were bleeding, he had lost a shoe and split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged themselves in his hind leg. "What victory, comrade? Have we not driven the enemy off our soil - the sacred soil of Animal Farm?" "But they have destroyed the windmill. And we had worked on it for two years!" "What matter? We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills if we feel like it. You do not appreciate, comrade, the mighty thing that we have done. The enemy was in occupation of this very ground that we stand upon. And now - thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon - we have won every inch of it back again!" "Then we have won back what we had before," said Boxer. "That is our victory," said Squealer. — George Orwell

When we stand, the Azad Hind Fauz has to be like a wall of granite; when we march, the Azad Hind Fauz has to be like a steamroller. — Subhas Chandra Bose

We can try to kill all that is native, string it up by its hind legs for all to see, but spirit howls and wildness endures. — Terry Tempest Williams

When people generally are aware of a problem, it can be said to have entered the public consciousness. When people get on their hind legs and holler, the problem has not only entered the public consciousness
it has also become a part of the public conscience. At that point, things in our democracy begin to hum. — Hubert H. Humphrey

She thought, He's afraid I'll make a mess of it. She was sure she had been careful to think that on the safe, private side of the silent border, but Ebon turned on her and said, Don't ever think that. About anything. You're my heart's sister, even if you are a funny shape and walk on your hind legs all the time and rattle away out loud like a donkey or a bird. I'm frightened because you're frightened, and because it's hard-it can be hard-the first time going into the Caves, and you're old for it-you can't do ssshuuwuushuu and the ssshasssha will be like ... being thrown in a cold dark lake when you can't swim and you've never seen water before. — Robin McKinley

The stallion's crest was arched, his nose was perpendicular to the floor, and his hind legs were gathered underneath him, showing off the powerfully developed muscles in his massive hindquarters. His ears cocked back toward his rider - he was concentrating. — Elizabeth Letts

In hind sight, telling him all strangers wanted to eat him wasn't my finest hour. Having to explain to a bunch of crying children in line to see Santa why my kid was screaming 'DON'T GO NEAR HIM! HE'LL EAT YOUR FINGERS!' was no picnic. — Tara Sivec

He did not feel the ground under his feet - he thrust himself into the capriole, rose high in the air-forelegs and hind legs horizontal. He soared above the ground, he head in jubilation. Conquering! — Felix Salten

The wolf stands on its hind legs, places its forelegs on the scientist's shoulders, and places its jaws around the scientist's head. This is just the wolf's way of being friendly. If you're an animal who doesn't know how to talk, a very clear signal is communicated: See my teeth? Feel them? I could hurt you, I really could. But I won't. I like you. — Carl Sagan

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. — Max Beerbohm

Why did humans lose their body hair? Why did they start walking on their hind legs? Why did they develop big brains? I think that the answer to all three questions is sexual selection. — Richard Dawkins

Another group tried putting a new type of protective boot onto the hind leg of a mule deer for testing. Given that deer lack toes and heels and people lack hooves, and that no country I know of employs mule deer in land mine clearance, it is hard - though mildly entertaining - to try to imagine what the value of such a study could have been. — Mary Roach

Insistent advice may develop into interference, and interference, someone has said, is the hind hoof of the devil. — Carolyn Wells

I worry when I'm not called to save your cute little hind end at least once a week." "I don't have a cute little hind end," I groused. "I know, it's more medium to large, but I was trying to be kind," he replied, dodging the Pocket Guide to Poltergeist Activity I chucked at him. — Molly Harper

Earth and sky, rock and wind, bear witness!
By the power of the Swift Sure Hand, I claim this ground and sain it with a name: Bwgan Bwlch!

Power of fire I have over it,
Power of wind I have over it,
Power of thunder I have over it,
Power of wrath I have over it,
Power of heavens I have over it,
Power of earth I have over it,
Power of worlds I have over it!

As tramples the swan upon the lake,
As tramples the horse upon the plain,
As tramples the ox upon the meadow,
As tramples the boar upon the track,
As tramples the forest host of heart and hind,
As tramples all quick things upon the earth,
I do trample and subdue it,
And drive all evil from it!

In the name of the Secret One,
In the name of the Living One,
In the name of the All-Encircling One,
In the name of the One True Word, it is Bwgan Bwlch,
Let it so remain as long as men survive
To breath the name. — Stephen R. Lawhead

I am not an Englishman, nor are you. Nor can we ever be, regardless of our foxtrots, our straight bats, our Jolly Goods and I Says.
No more the Anglicized Percy, I.
I am now Taimur Hind. — Kamila Shamsie

When a doting person gets down on all fours and plays with the dog's rubber mouse, it only confuses the puppy and gives him a sense of insecurity. He gets the impression that the world is unstable and wonders whether he is supposed to walk on his hind legs and smoke cigars. — Corey Ford

Animals that escape go from the known into the unknown - and if there is one thing an animal hates above all else, it is the unknown. Escaping animals usually hind in the very first place they find that gives them a sense of security, and they are dangerous only to those who happen to get between them and their reckoned safe spot. — Yann Martel

Whoever would like to cherish such adders and puny devils - who are the worst enemies of Christ and us all - to befriend them and to do them honour simply in order to be cheated, plundered, robbed, disgraced, and forced to howl and curse and suffer every kind of evil, to him I would commend the Jews. And if this is not enough, let him tell the Jews to use his mouth as a privy, or else crawl into the Jew's hind parts, and there worship the holy thing, so as afterwards to be able to boast of having been merciful, and of having helped the Devil and his progeny to blaspheme our dear Lord. — Martin Luther

For words are magical formulae. They leave finger marks be hind on the brain, which in the twinkling of an eye become the footprints of history. One ought to watch one' s every word. — Franz Kafka

Cat. No doubled vision: it's a cat, singular. A solitary diurnal ambush hunter with good hearing and binocular vision and a predilection for biting the neck of its prey in half while disemboweling it with the scythe-like claws on its hind legs. Basically it's a velociraptor with a fur coat and an outsize sense of entitlement. Right — Charles Stross

Whoso List to Hunt
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, helas! I may no more.
The vain travail hath worried me so sore,
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means, my worried mind
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I, may spend his time in vain;
And graven in diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about,
"Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,
And wild to hold, though I seem tame."
Sir Thomas Wyatt — Thomas Wyatt

(On literary festivals) When you go and see a band play live, you are watching it do on stage what it is meant to do. When you watch an author perform live, you are, most of the time, watching a dog walk on its hind legs. — Nicholas Lezard

The dog rose on his hind legs in front of Philip Philipovich and performed obeisance to him. — Mikhail Bulgakov

The Pension Dressler stood in a side street and had, at first glance, the air rather of a farm than of a hotel. Frau Dressler's pig, tethered by one hind trotter to the jamb of the front door, roamed the yard and disputed the kitchen scraps with the poultry. He was a prodigious beast. Frau Dressler's guests prodded him appreciatively on the way to the dining-room, speculating on how soon he would be ripe for killing. The milch-goat was allowed a narrower radius; those who kept strictly to the causeway were safe, but she never reconciled herself to this limitation and, day in, day out, essayed a series of meteoric onslaughts on the passers-by, ending, at the end of her rope, with a jerk which would have been death to an animal of any other species. One day the rope would break; she knew it, and so did Frau Dressler's guests. — Evelyn Waugh

Mother why does the River not rise
It is not the River's time
Why does the seed not sprout
It is not the seed's time
Why does the rain not fall
the leaf not unfurl itself
Where is the hind and why does she not graze the fields before us
it is not their time

The River knows its time
The seed knows its time
The rain the leaf and the hind
They know their time

The River will rise the seed will sprout
The rains come down and the leaves unfurl
The hind will bring her children to graze before us
All in their time — Megan Whalen Turner

Old friend, there are people - young and old - that I like, and people that I do not like. The former are always in short supply. I am turned off by humorless fanaticism, whether it's revolutionary mumbo-jumbo by a young one, or loud lessons from scripture by and old one. We are all comical, touching, slapstick animals, walking on our hind legs, trying to make it a noble journey from womb to tomb, and the people who can't see it all that way bore hell out of me. — John D. MacDonald

I know how it is to live your life like a dream. To listen and watch, to wake up and try to understand what has already happened.
You do not need a psychiatrist to do this. A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he is just another bird drinking from your misery.
My mother, she suffered. She lost her face and tried to hind it. She found only greater misery and finally could not hide that. There is nothing more to understand. that was China. That was what people did back then. They had no choice. they could not speak up. they could not run away. That was their fate. — Amy Tan

Coming down off the trail, I am lost in my own thoughts and unprepared when a bear chugs across the path just before it gives out on the gravel road. I am so distracted that I keep walking towards the bear. I only stop when it rears, stands on hind legs, and stares at me, sensitive nose pressed into the air, weak eyes searching. I have never been this close to a wild bear before, but I am not frightened. There is no menace in its stance; it is not even curious. The bear seems to know who or what I am. The bear is not impressed. — Louise Erdrich

Shall we, because we walk on our hind feet, assume to ourselves only the privilege of imperishability? — George Eliot

I love seeing teachers outside of school. It's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs. — Janis Ian

It was starting to get impatient. A hedgehog hopping irritably on its hind legs is a tragic sight. — T. Kingfisher

On my seventh birthday, my father swore, for the first of many times, that I would die facedown in a cesspool. On that same occasion, my mother, with all the accompanying mystery and elevated language appropriate for a prominent diviner, turned her cards, screamed delicately, and proclaimed that my doom was written in water and blood and ice. As for me, from about that time and for twenty years since, I had spat on my middle finger and slapped the rump of every aingerou I noticed, murmuring the sincerest, devoutest prayer that I might prove my parents' predictions wrong. Not so much that I feared the doom itself - doom is just the hind end of living, after all - but to see the two who birthed me confounded. — Carol Berg

Drenched in British purples, I have offered up my tones: pigeon breast, hind belly, balky mule lung, monkey bottom pink, lapis lazuli and malachite, excited nymph thigh, panther pee-pee, high-smelling hen hair, hedgehog in aspic, barrel-maker's brothel, revered rose, monkeybush, turkey-like white, sly violet, page's slipper, immaculate nun spring, unspeakable red, Ensor azure, affected yellow, mummy skull, rock-hard gray, brunt celadon, shop soiled smoke ring. — James Ensor

Oakheart," Crookedpaw explained. "He's my littermate." Bluepaw stretched up on her hind legs to get a better view of the tom, but could see only the reddish-brown tips of his ears. "He's great," Crookedpaw purred. "He caught a fish on his first day as an apprentice." I caught a squirrel. Bluepaw found herself competing. "He says that when he becomes leader, he'll make me deputy." How modest! "I have a sister," Bluepaw announced. She nodded toward Snowpaw, who was sitting beside Sparrowpelt, a tail-length away. "She's a brilliant hunter, too." "Maybe if they both became leader we could be deputies together," Crookedpaw mewed. Deputy? What was the point of being deputy? "I want to be the leader!" Crookedpaw looked at her in surprise, then broke into a purr. "Of course." Bluepaw — Erin Hunter

A cowboy is a hired hand on the middle of a horse contemplating the hind end of a cow. — Edward Abbey

It is part of the pholosophic dullness of our time that there are millions of rational monsters walking about on their hind legs, observing the world through pairs of flexible little lenses, periodically supplying themselves with energy by pushing organic substances through holes in their faces, who see nothing fabulous whatever about themselves. — Martin Gardner

Lady Underhill, having said all she had to say, recovered her breath and began to say it again. Frequent iteration was one of her strongest weapons. As her brother Edwin, who was fond of homely imagery, had often observed, she could talk the hind-leg off a donkey. "You — P.G. Wodehouse

Clovensport, half German shepherd, half who-knows-what, was standing on hind legs before them. — Casey Sean Harmon

I never make plans for tomorrow doesn't exist. — Archie Hind

You know how hind-sight is 20/20? Love is when you look back and wouldn't change anything. — Jodi Picoult

He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a featherhat, walking on his hind legs. — Joseph Conrad

You know the moment when fate plays a cruel joke on you, rips the rug out from beneath your feet and laughs at you after you've fallen flat on your hind end? This was like that moment. — Casey L. Bond

And it is a profound consolation, perhaps the only one, to this haunted animal that wastes most of a long and ghostly life wandering the future and the past on its hind legs, looking for meanings, only to see in the eyes of others of its kind that it must die. — Peter Matthiessen

I heard a choking sound behind me. When I looked back, Cannoli was hanging from the backpack harness with her hind legs circling frantically in the air. She looked like she was riding a bike just above ground level.
"Cannoli," I yelled. I unhooked her and made sure she was breathing on her own. When I tried to get her back in the backpack, she whimpered. I talked to her soothingly yet firmly, then tried again. This time she started howling like I was hurting her.
People turned and stared as they walked by. "What are you looking at?" I said to one couple. I suddenly felt true remorse for every time I'd stared at a parent with a toddler throwing a tantrum. I made a vow to be a better aunt to Tulia's kids if I ever made it out of this parking garage. I pleaded with Cannoli one more time. — Claire Cook

To the Greeks [the Macedonians] were uncouth, semi-civilized barbarians. The Macedonians for their part despised the Greeks as effete, wishy-washy Greeklings. Both regarded the Thracians as scarcely capable of walking on their hind legs. — Nicholas Sekunda

The Nevernever is dying, human. It grows smaller and smaller every decade. Too much progress, too much technology. Mortals are losing their faith in anything but science. Even the children of man are consumed by progress. They sneer at the old stories and are drawn to the newest gadgets, computers, or video games. They no longer believe in monsters of magic. As cities grown and technology takes over the world, belief and imagination fade away, and so do we."
"What can we do to stop it?" I whispered.
"Nothing." Grimalkin raised a hind leg and scratched an ear. "Maybe the Nevenever will hold out till the end of the world. Maybe it will disappear in a few centuries. Everything dies eventually, human. — Julie Kagawa

No, no, my dear Watson. The more deeply sunk impression is, of course, the hind wheel, upon which the weight rests. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Rather I'd choose laboriously to bear A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air, A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread, Than reign the sceptred monarch of the dead. — Homer

(Courtesy of Jeremy Johnson) Rory the Dead Raccoon stood up on his hind legs, his arms stretched out in glee. He looked like he was the most excited member of your surprise party, or like a Time Lord in the process of regenerating. — Jenny Lawson

A centipede the size of a Pontiac had once lived in the bottom-right corner of the trunk but had long since moved on once he realized that no one was ever going to bother him, so he could stand up on his hind hundred feet, hiss like a pissed cat, and deliver a deadly bite to a naked foot. — Christopher Moore

It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests - and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith - the adventurers and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change; captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned "generals" of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires. — Joseph Conrad

They returned to the gallery and circled its rim, then went down a short hall. Scrap's tail twitched angrily when they reached Tristan's door: it was shut. Daine grabbed the knob. It stung her hand, making her yelp. "Kit? This ones magicked. Can you do anything?"
Kitten stood on her hind feet and peered into the lock, then whistled two cheerful notes. Nothing happened. She scowled and whistled again, less cheerfully, more as a demand. Nothing happened.
Daine was trying to decide what to do now when the dragon moved back and croaked. The lock popped from the wood to land at Daine's feet, smoking, and the door swung open. Kitten muttered darkly and kicked the lock mechanism aside as she went in. Daine followed, trying not to laugh. — Tamora Pierce

Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything. I have never observed a chair shift from one foot to another, or a bed rear on its hind legs. And tables, even when they are tired, will not dare to bend their knees. I suspect that objects do this from pedagogical considerations, to reprove us constantly for our instability. — Zbigniew Herbert

For one brief, the great black dog reared onto its hind legs and placed its front paws on Harry's shoulders, but Mrs. Weasley shoved Harry away toward the train door hissing, For heaven's sake act more like a dog, Sirius! — J.K. Rowling

What birds were they? ( ... ) He listened to the cries: like the squeak of mice be-
hind the wainscot : a shrill twofold note. But the notes
were long and shrill and whirring, unlike the cry of
vermin, falling a third or a fourth and trilled as the
flying beaks clove the air. Their cry was shrill and
clear and fine and falling like threads of silken light
unwound from whirring spools. — James Joyce

The account in the gospel of John says three times that Jesus was angry. One of the words used is the Greek term for "furious indignation" - the word used by Aeschylus to describe war horses rearing up on their hind legs, snorting through their nostrils, and charging into battle. This was the reaction of Jesus of Nazareth when face to face with a loved one's death. The world that God created good and beautiful and whole was now broken and in ruins. In moments Jesus was going to do something, but his first response was outrage - instinctive, blazing outrage. Clearly, death was even worse in his eyes than in ours. — Os Guinness

You know they invented wheelbarrows to teach FAA inspectors to walk on their hind legs. — Martin Caidin

Anger is one of those emotions that doesn't follow the letter of the law. It speaks before it thinks. It rears up on its hind legs and charges. — Lynn Coady

I discovered a small kitten in the garden, which apparently had been abandoned by its mother. I picked it up and noticed that its hind legs were crippled in just the same way as Tsering's were when she died. I took this creature into my house and looked after it until eventually it was able to walk. Like Tsering, she was also female, but very beautiful and even more gentle. She also got along very well with the two dogs, particularly Sangye, against whose furry chest she liked to lie. — Dalai Lama XIV

If the rise of European colonisation began in 18th century India, then the rallying cry of 'Jai Hind!' also signalled its end in 1947. — Pranab Mukherjee

I have heeded the lessons of the wise in that when life kicks me in the head, I turn to it my hind section also. — Wes Fesler

The crickets were rubbing their hind legs together, unrolling that endless band of sound that when combined with the sound of the sycamore trees losing their heads in the heat-thickened breeze could cause even a girl as unsentimental as Mary to feel like she'd just left something behind on the porch stoop she couldn't bear to live without. — Kathryn Davis

The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies. — William Shakespeare

They told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came uninvited, and stood up on his hind legs and rested his fore paws upon the trestle, and took a last long look at the face that was so dear to him, then went his way as silently as he had come. HE KNOWS. — Mark Twain

While everyone adjusted themselves and their packs, Donna sniffed curiously at Louie's nose. Her attitude suggested she might want to make friends with the giant dog; Lou couldn't resist the temptation. Once Donna lured Louie in, she slowly, cautiously, turned about to align her hooves with Louie's head. Perhaps she didn't like dogs. Perhaps she didn't want a rival for Monty's attentions. Perhaps she was merely an impish tarkus much like the Dane himself. Cody watched as the Dane failed to grasp the gravity of his predicament. At the last moment, Cody smacked Louie's hind end, scuttling the devious donkey's murderous trap. — Map Whitman

Is it possible that I've suffered so that I, together with my evil deeds and sufferings, should be manure for someone's future harmony? I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion, and the murdered man rise up and embrace his murderer. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky