No man ought to looke a given horse in the mouth.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.

He ne'er consider'd it, as loth

To look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 490.

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): The Cotter's Saturday Night.

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): To a Skylark. Line 86.

As the ancients

Say wisely, have a care o' th' main chance,

And look before you ere you leap;

For as you sow, ye are like to reap.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part ii. Canto ii. Line 501.

'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark

Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;

'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 123.

With grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd

A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone,

Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer's noontide air.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 300.

Look ere ye leape.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ii.

To look up and not down,

To look forward and not back,

To look out and not in, and

To lend a hand.

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909): Rule of the "Harry Wadsworth Club" (from "Ten Times One is Ten," 1870).

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free,—

Such sweet neglect more taketh me

Than all the adulteries of art:

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): Epicoene; Or, the Silent Woman. Act i. Sc. 1.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this,

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

See, what a grace was seated on this brow:

Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;

A station like the herald Mercury

New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill,—

A combination and a form indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow and which will not.

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

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Voices of the Night. Prelude.

Let me have men about me that are fat,

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act i. Sc. 2.

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

May read strange matters. To beguile the time,

Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,

But be the serpent under 't.

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

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,

Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 22.

Men met each other with erected look,

The steps were higher that they took;

Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,

And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Threnodia Augustalis. Line 124.

If to her share some female errors fall,

Look on her face, and you 'll forget them all.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Rape of the Lock. Canto ii. Line 17.

A sacred burden is this life ye bear:

Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,

Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.

Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,

But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.

Wendell Phillips (1811-1884): Lines addressed to the Young Gentlemen leaving the Lenox Academy, Mass.

'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look

On sech a blessed cretur.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.

To look up and not down,

To look forward and not back,

To look out and not in, and

To lend a hand.

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909): Rule of the "Harry Wadsworth Club" (from "Ten Times One is Ten," 1870).

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field and his feet to the foe,

And leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Lochiel's Warning.

Look round the habitable world: how few

Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Juvenal. Satire x.

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,

Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.

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

No tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): Sunrise on the Hills.

My way of life

Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have; but in their stead

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.

To look up and not down,

To look forward and not back,

To look out and not in, and

To lend a hand.

Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909): Rule of the "Harry Wadsworth Club" (from "Ten Times One is Ten," 1870).

He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

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

Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace!

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