Careful Words

faint (n.)

faint (v.)

faint (adj.)

Why should we faint and fear to live alone,

Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?

Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,

Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.

John Keble (1792-1866): The Christian Year. Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.

  Remember the old saying, "Faint heart never won fair lady."

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

  If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small.

Old Testament: Proverbs xxiv. 10.

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,

Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 1.

Why should we faint and fear to live alone,

Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?

Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,

Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.

John Keble (1792-1866): The Christian Year. Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.