Careful Words

golden (n.)

golden (adj.)

Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 3.

  Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

Old Testament: Ecclesiastes xii. 6.

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,

With joy and love triumphing.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 337.

Clothing the palpable and familiar

With golden exhalations of the dawn.

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

And lives to clutch the golden keys,

To mould a mighty state's decrees,

And shape the whisper of the throne.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. lxiv. Stanza 3.

Golden lads and girls all must,

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Cymbeline. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Orange bright,

Like golden lamps in a green night.

Andrew Marvell (1620-1678): Bermudas.

His golden locks time hath to silver turned;

O time too swift! Oh swiftness never ceasing!

His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,

But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing.

George Peele (1552-1598): Sonnet. Polyhymnia.

Who love too much, hate in the like extreme,

And both the golden mean alike condemn.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 79.

He that holds fast the golden mean,

And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,

Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Translation of Horace. Book ii. Ode x.

To add to golden numbers golden numbers.

Thomas Dekker (1572-1632): Patient Grissell. Act i. Sc. 1.

The pilot of the Galilean lake;

Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

John Milton (1608-1674): Lycidas. Line 109.

I have bought

Golden opinions from all sorts of people.

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

For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Recollections of the Arabian Nights.

Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.

  As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden,—"Speech is silvern, Silence is golden;" or, as I might rather express it, Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881): Sartor Resartus. Book iii. Chap. iii.

'T is better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,

Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,

And wear a golden sorrow.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 3.

That book in many's eyes doth share the glory

That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 3.

Hither, as to their fountain, other stars

Repairing, in their golden urns draw light.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 364.

An hour before the worshipp'd sun

Peered forth the golden window of the east.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.

O welcome, pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope,

Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 213.