Careful Words

might (n.)

  The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): The Conduct of Life. Wealth.

  Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.

Old Testament: Ecclesiastes ix. 10.

  Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865): Address, New York City, Feb. 21, 1859.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

John G Whittier (1807-892): Maud Muller.

A prince can make a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, and a' that;

But an honest man's aboon his might,

Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): For a' that and a' that.

Oh for a tongue to curse the slave

Whose treason, like a deadly blight,

Comes o'er the councils of the brave,

And blasts them in their hour of might!

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): The Fire-Worshippers.

For we by conquest, of our soveraine might,

And by eternall doome of Fate's decree,

Have wonne the Empire of the Heavens bright.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book vii. Canto xi. St. 33.

  Slowly but surely withal moveth the might of the gods.

Euripides (484-406 b c): Bacchae. 882.

Oh that it were my chief delight

To do the things I ought!

Then let me try with all my might

To mind what I am taught.

Jane Taylor (1783-1824): For a Very Little Child.

He that would not when he might,

He shall not when he wolda.

Thomas Percy (1728-1811): The Friar of Orders Gray.