Careful Words

annals (n.)

  Happy the people whose annals are blank in history-books.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881): Life of Frederick the Great. Book xvi. Chap. i.

  The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers, is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln, 1864.

Some to church repair,

Not for the doctrine, but the music there.

These equal syllables alone require,

Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;

While expletives their feeble aid to join,

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 142.

If you have writ your annals true, 't is there

That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I

Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli:

Alone I did it. Boy!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Coriolanus. Act v. Sc. 6.