Careful Words

decide (v.)

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): The Present Crisis.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree,

And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 1.