Careful Words

destroyed (adj.)

With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,

Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.

Charles Churchill (1731-1764): Epistle to William Hogarth. Line 645.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,—

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,

When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 51.

And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth

Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,

This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd

So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,

He would himself have been a soldier.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.