Careful Words

measured (adj.)

  A life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line,—by deeds, not years.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816): Pizarro. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Were I so tall to reach the pole,

Or grasp the ocean with my span,

I must be measured by my soul:

The mind's the standard of the man.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Horae Lyricae. Book ii. False Greatness.

They have measured many a mile

To tread a measure with you on this grass.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.

Choice word and measured phrase above the reach

Of ordinary men.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Resolution and Independence. Stanza 14.