Careful Words

deity (n.)

But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,

Half dust, half deity, alike unfit

To sink or soar.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Manfred. Act i. Sc. 2.

An atheist's laugh's a poor exchange

For Deity offended!

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Epistle to a Young Friend.

  A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852): Argument on the Murder of Captain White. Vol. vi. p. 105.