Careful Words

born (n.)

born (v.)

born (adj.)

And better had they ne'er been born,

Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): The Monastery. Chap. xii.

'T is better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,

Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,

And wear a golden sorrow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 3.

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.

What then remains but that we still should cry

For being born, and, being born, to die?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The World.

  I never saw a more dreadful battle in my born days.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. viii.

Where music dwells

Lingering and wandering on as loth to die,

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof

That they were born for immortality.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. xliii. Inside of King's Chapel, Cambridge.

Born for success he seemed,

With grace to win, with heart to hold,

With shining gifts that took all eyes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): In Memoriam.

Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;

Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat

To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.

Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining,

And thought of convincing while they thought of dining:

Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;

Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Retaliation. Line 31.

  Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 5.

  For many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas.

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Consolation to Apollonius.

How happy is he born or taught,

That serveth not another's will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill!

Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639): The Character of a Happy Life.

  I, too, was born in Arcadia.

Bartholomew Schidoni (1560-1616):

I 'd be a butterfly born in a bower,

Where roses and lilies and violets meet.

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839): I 'd be a Butterfly.

  I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.

William Congreve (1670-1729): Love for Love. Act ii. Sc. 7.

Born in a cellar, and living in a garret.

Samuel Foote (1720-1777): The Author. Act ii.

  Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;

And, born in bed, in bed we die.

The near approach a bed may show

Of human bliss to human woe.

Isaac De Benserade (1612-1691):

A green old age, unconscious of decays,

That proves the hero born in better days.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiii. Line 929.

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.

Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): To Delia. Sonnet 51.

  As he said in Machiavel, omnes eodem patre nati, Adam's sons, conceived all and born in sin, etc. "We are by nature all as one, all alike, if you see us naked; let us wear theirs and they our clothes, and what is the difference?"

Robert Burton (1576-1640): Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2.

Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: A Sketch.

  "I knew that before you were born." Let him who would instruct a wiser man consider this as said to himself.

Phaedrus (8 a d): Book v. Fable 9, 4.

How happy is he born or taught,

That serveth not another's will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill!

Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639): The Character of a Happy Life.

For a good poet's made as well as born.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): To the Memory of Shakespeare.

  Angling is somewhat like poetry,—men are to be born so.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683): The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.

The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.

Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Table Talk. Line 28.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 14.

One of the few, the immortal names,

That were not born to die.

Alfred Bunn (1790-1860): Marco Bozzaris.

This is the thing that I was born to do.

Samuel Daniel (1562-1619): Musophilus. Stanza 100.

  We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book iii. Chap. viii. Of the Art of Conversation.

The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,

That ever I was born to set it right!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.

But to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.

I was not born under a rhyming planet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 2.