Careful Words

heat (n.)

heat (v.)

heat (adj.)

Blessing on him who invented sleep,—the mantle that covers all human thoughts, the food that appeases hunger, the drink that quenches thirst, the fire that warms cold, the cold that moderates heat, and, lastly, the general coin that purchases all things, the balance and weight that equals the shepherd with the king, and the simple with the wise.—Jarvis's translation.

O, who can hold a fire in his hand

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow

By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

O, no! the apprehension of the good

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

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

  Now, blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.

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

What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

Pope: To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady.

  "Heat, ma'am!" I said; "it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones."

Sydney Smith (1769-1845): Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 267.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself.

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

And through the heat of conflict keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Character of the Happy Warrior.

  Borne the burden and heat of the day.

New Testament: Matthew xx. 12.

For one heat, all know, doth drive out another,

One passion doth expel another still.

George Chapman (1557-1634): Monsieur D'Olive. Act v. Sc. 1.

  One draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.

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

Put out the light, and then put out the light:

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore

Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,

Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean heat

That can thy light relume.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.

by simon sarris • about