Careful Words

masterpiece (n.)

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence

The life o' the building!

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

Of all those arts in which the wise excel,

Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Sheffield, Duke Of Buckinghamshire (1649-1720): Essay on Poetry.

  A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Essays. First Series. Friendship.