Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

Familiar as his garter: that when he speaks,

The air, a chartered libertine, is still.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act i. Sc. 1.

Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words,—

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,—

Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.

It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.

Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,

Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.

The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Cato. Act i. Sc. 4.

Clothing the palpable and familiar

With golden exhalations of the dawn.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Death of Wallenstein. Act i. Sc. 1.

I have had playmates, I have had companions,

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days.

All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834): Old Familiar Faces.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen;

Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 217.

He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"

And played familiar with his hoary locks.

Robert Pollok (1799-1827): The Course of Time. Book iv. Line 389.