Careful Words

end (n.)

end (v.)

end (adv.)

end (adj.)

O happiness! our being's end and aim!

Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:

That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,

For which we bear to live, or dare to die.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 1.

I perfectly feele even at my fingers end.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. vi.

I perfectly feele even at my fingers end.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. vi.

  At their wits' end.

Old Testament: Psalm cvii. 27.

Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;

Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Seek and Find.

They demen gladly to the badder end.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. The Squieres Tale. Line 10538.

  If the end be well, all is well.

Gesta Romanorum: Tale lxvii.

  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

New Testament: Revelation xxii. 13.

The true beginning of our end.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.

  Beginning of the end.

Bitter end.

I hate the day, because it lendeth light

To see all things, but not my love to see.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Daphnaida, v. 407.

The end crowns all,

And that old common arbitrator, Time,

Will one day end it.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Troilus and Cressida. Act iv. Sc. 5.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act ii. Sc. 2.

The time has been,

That when the brains were out the man would die,

And there an end; but now they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,

And push us from our stools.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.

My God, my Father, and my Friend,

Do not forsake me at my end.

Earl Of Roscommon (1633-1684): Translation of Dies Irae.

I am thy father's spirit,

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,

Thy knotted and combined locks to part

And each particular hair to stand an end,

Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:

But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!

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

Of a good beginning cometh a good end.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.

From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,—

Path, motive, guide, original, and end.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Motto to the Rambler. No. 7.

O happiness! our being's end and aim!

Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:

That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,

For which we bear to live, or dare to die.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 1.

Hope to the end.

New Testament: 1 Peter i. 13.

In discourse more sweet;

For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.

Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high

Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,

Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;

And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 555.

  The end is not yet.

New Testament: Matthew xxiv. 6.

That life is long which answers life's great end.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 773.

  Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.

Old Testament: Psalm xxxix. 4.

End me no ends.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Life's but a means unto an end; that end

Beginning, mean, and end to all things,—God.

Philip James Bailey (1816-1902): Festus. Scene, A Country Town.

The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.

The end must justify the means.

Matthew Prior (1664-1721): Hans Carvel.

  Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!

Old Testament: Numbers xxiii. 10.

To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast

Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. 2.

To th' end of a shot and beginning of a fray.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.

What is the end of fame? 'T is but to fill

A certain portion of uncertain paper.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 218.

  There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. iii.

Where Nature's end of language is declin'd,

And men talk only to conceal the mind.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Love of Fame. Satire ii. Line 207.

Truth is truth

To the end of reckoning.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.

Truth is truth

To the end of reckoning.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.

  And so on to the end of the chapter.

Martin Luther (1483-1546): Works. Book v. Chapter x.

O, that a man might know

The end of this day's business ere it come!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act v. Sc. 1.

  In everything one must consider the end.

J De La Fontaine (1621-1695): The Fox and the Gnat. Fable 5.

From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,—

Path, motive, guide, original, and end.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Motto to the Rambler. No. 7.

Creation sleeps! 'T is as the general pulse

Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,—

An awful pause! prophetic of her end.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Night thoughts. Night i. Line 23.

Remember Milo's end,

Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend.

Earl Of Roscommon (1633-1684): Essay on Translated Verse. Line 87.

  Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss.

Old Testament: Ecclesiasticus vii. 36.

Friend to my life, which did not you prolong,

The world had wanted many an idle song.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 27.

The long mechanic pacings to and fro,

The set, gray life, and apathetic end.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Love and Duty.

Makes a swan-like end,

Fading in music.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.

  Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say, "Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Apothegms. No. 76.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Life's but a means unto an end; that end

Beginning, mean, and end to all things,—God.

Philip James Bailey (1816-1902): Festus. Scene, A Country Town.

Let the end try the man.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,

And falls on the other.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.