Careful Words

living (n.)

living (adj.)

  The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. vii. 61.

And I have written three books on the soul,

Proving absurd all written hitherto,

And putting us to ignorance again.

Robert Browning (1812-1890): Cleon.

A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,

A living-dead man.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Comedy of Errors. Act v. Sc. 1.

  A living dog is better than a dead lion.

Old Testament: Ecclesiastes ix. 4.

  Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

John Milton (1608-1674): Tractate of Education.

  The house appointed for all living.

Old Testament: Job xxx. 23.

  The land of the living.

Old Testament: Job xxviii. 13.

  Times before you, when even living men were antiquities,—when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly said to go unto the greater number.

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682): Dedication to Urn-Burial.

  The mother of all living.

Old Testament: Genesis iii. 20.

Plain living and high thinking are no more.

The homely beauty of the good old cause

Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,

And pure religion breathing household laws.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): O Friend! I know not which way I must look.

  Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on,—how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour; what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'T is insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I 'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.

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

In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,

Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,

Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee,

There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Spectator. No. 68.