Careful Words

blessed (adj.)

  Her children arise up and call her blessed.

Old Testament: Proverbs xxxi. 28.

Never elated when one man's oppress'd;

Never dejected while another's bless'd.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 323.

For all we know

Of what the blessed do above

Is, that they sing, and that they love.

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): While I listen to thy Voice.

In those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd

For our advantage on the bitter cross.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 1.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;

And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

Matthew Prior (1664-1721): Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book iii. Line 240.

  Blessed is he that considereth the poor.

Old Testament: Psalm xli. 1.

  Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Letter to Gay, Oct. 6, 1727.

I die,—but first I have possess'd,

And come what may, I have been bless'd.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 1114.

  Blessed is the healthy nature; it is the coherent, sweetly co-operative, not incoherent, self-distracting, self-destructive one!

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881): Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.

He is the half part of a blessed man,

Left to be finished by such as she;

And she a fair divided excellence,

Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;

Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.

That blessed mood,

In which the burden of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

  It is more blessed to give than to receive.

New Testament: Acts xx. 35.

We thinke no greater blisse then such

To be as be we would,

When blessed none but such as be

The same as be they should.

William Warner (1558-1609): Albion's England. Book x. chap. lix. stanza 68.

He gave his honours to the world again,

His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.

  Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

Old Testament: Deuteronomy xxviii. 5.

A spring of love gush'd from my heart,

And I bless'd them unaware.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Ancient Mariner. Part iv.

Meek and lowly, pure and holy,

Chief among the "blessed three."

Charles Jefferys (1807-1865): Charity.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;

And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

Matthew Prior (1664-1721): Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book iii. Line 240.