Careful Words

infinite (n.)

infinite (adj.)

There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign;

Infinite day excludes the night,

And pleasures banish pain.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 66.

  Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

  This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

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

  Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.

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

Infinite riches in a little room.

Christopher Marlowe (1565-1593): The Jew of Malta. Act i.

  Anaximander used to assert that the primary cause of all things was the Infinite,—not defining exactly whether he meant air or water or anything else.

Diogenes Laertius (Circa 200 a d): Anaximander. ii.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 73.