Careful Words

name (n.)

name (v.)

name (adv.)

  What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women.

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

Ah Sin was his name.

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908): Plain Language from Truthful James.

  For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next ages.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): From his Will.

He left the name at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 221.

And if his name be George, I 'll call him Peter;

For new-made honour doth forget men's names.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act i. Sc. 1.

From all who dwell below the skies

Let the Creator's praise arise;

Let the Redeemer's name be sung

Through every land, by every tongue.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Psalm cxvii.

  There be of them that have left a name behind them.

Old Testament: Ecclesiasticus xliv. 8.

Farewell! if ever fondest prayer

For other's weal avail'd on high,

Mine will not all be lost in air,

But waft thy name beyond the sky.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Farewell! if ever fondest Prayer.

Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade,

Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid,

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Oh breathe not his Name.

Oh call it by some better name,

For friendship sounds too cold.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): Oh call it by some better Name.

Tongue nor heart

Cannot conceive nor name thee!

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

  Call things by their right names. . . . Glass of brandy and water! That is the current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.

Robert Hall (1764-1831): Gregory's Life of Hall.

A deed without a name.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Some to the fascination of a name

Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 101.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing;

'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him

And makes me poor indeed.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): Virgil, Georgics. Book ii. Line 72.

Officious, innocent, sincere,

Of every friendless name the friend.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 2.

  A good name is better than precious ointment.

Old Testament: Ecclesiastes vii. 1.

  A good name is better than riches.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.

  A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.

Old Testament: Proverbs xxii. 1.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing;

'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him

And makes me poor indeed.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.

And thus he bore without abuse

The grand old name of gentleman,

Defamed by every charlatan,

And soil'd with all ignoble use.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. cxi. Stanza 6.

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,

His honour and the greatness of his name

Shall be, and make new nations.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 5.

Above any Greek or Roman name.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Upon the Death of Lord Hastings. Line 76.

Halloo your name to the reverberate hills,

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out.

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

I fled, and cry'd out, Death!

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd

From all her caves, and back resounded, Death!

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 787.

Oh no! we never mention her,—

Her name is never heard;

My lips are now forbid to speak

That once familiar word.

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797-1839): Oh no! we never mention her.

Satan; so call him now, his former name

Is heard no more in heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 658.

'T is pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;

A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 51.

Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home.

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

Your name is great

In mouths of wisest censure.

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

  My name is Legion.

New Testament: Mark v. 9.

  My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Rob Roy. Chap. xxxiv.

My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills

My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain,

Whose constant cares were to increase his store,

And keep his only son, myself, at home.

John Home (1724-1808): Douglas. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

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

The king's name is a tower of strength.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.

Her face is like the milky way i' the sky,—

A meeting of gentle lights without a name.

Sir John Suckling (1609-1641): Brennoralt. Act iii.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,

That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination,

That if it would but apprehend some joy,

It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

Or in the night, imagining some fear,

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.

The cold in clime are cold in blood,

Their love can scarce deserve the name.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 1099.

Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,

The power of grace, the magic of a name?

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 5.

And last of all an Admiral came,

A terrible man with a terrible name,—

A name which you all know by sight very well,

But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.

Robert Southey (1774-1843): The March to Moscow. Stanza 8.

Who builds a church to God and not to fame,

Will never mark the marble with his name.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 285.

One to destroy is murder by the law,

And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe;

To murder thousands takes a specious name,

War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Love of Fame. Satire vii. Line 55.

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.

"But what good came of it at last?"

Quoth little Peterkin.

"Why, that I cannot tell," said he;

"But 't was a famous victory."

Robert Southey (1774-1843): The Battle of Blenheim.

I name no parties.

Beaumont And Fletcher: Wit at Several Weapons. Act ii. Sc. 3.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,—'t is a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.

In the name of the Prophet—figs.

Horace Smith (1779-1849): Johnson's Ghost.

  The name of the slough was Despond.

John Bunyan (1628-1688): Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.

  In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, "The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Of Cunning.

  It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 't is kept is lighter than vanity.

John Bunyan (1628-1688): Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.

Oh, Amos Cottle! Phoebus! what a name!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 399.

The surest pledge of a deathless name

Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

Henry W Longfellow (1807-1882): The Herons of Elmwood.

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd,

The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!

Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name,

See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 281.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

But sure the eye of time beholds no name

So blest as thine in all the rolls of fame.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 591.

If I speak to thee in friendship's name,

Thou think'st I speak too coldly;

If I mention love's devoted flame,

Thou say'st I speak too boldly.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): How shall I woo?

He left the name at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 221.

It is for homely features to keep home,—

They had their name thence; coarse complexions

And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply

The sampler and to tease the huswife's wool.

What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,

Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 748.

May see thee now, though late, redeem thy name,

And glorify what else is damn'd to fame.

Richard Savage (1698-1743): Character of Foster.

  O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!

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

Small have continual plodders ever won

Save base authority from others' books.

These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights

That give a name to every fixed star

Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.

A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,

And harsh in sound to thine.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Coriolanus. Act iv. Sc. 5.

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

John Keats (1795-1821):

Drink ye to her that each loves best!

And if you nurse a flame

That's told but to her mutual breast,

We will not ask her name.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Drink ye to Her.

And what is friendship but a name,

A charm that lulls to sleep,

A shade that follows wealth or fame,

And leaves the wretch to weep?

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Hermit. Chap. viii. Stanza 19.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 2.

And last of all an Admiral came,

A terrible man with a terrible name,—

A name which you all know by sight very well,

But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.

Robert Southey (1774-1843): The March to Moscow. Stanza 8.

Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt

In the despatch: I knew a man whose loss

Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto viii. Stanza 18.

Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!

To all the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an age without a name.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Old Mortality. Chap. xxxiv.

Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,

Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name.

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