Careful Words

now (n.)

now (v.)

now (adv.)

  Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852): Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. Vol. iii. p. 342.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray

Had in her sober livery all things clad;

Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,

They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,

Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;

She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament

With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led

The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,

And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 598.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,

But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): Davideis. Book i. Line 25.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,

But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): Davideis. Book i. Line 25.

Life is a jest, and all things show it;

I thought so once, but now I know it.

John Gay (1688-1732): My own Epitaph.

Now I lay me down to take my sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

  There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 't is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is 't to leave betimes?

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

  Now is the accepted time.

New Testament: 2 Corinthians vi. 2.

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,

Welcome to your gory bed,

Or to victory!

Now's the day and now's the hour;

See the front o' battle lour.

Robert Burns (1759-1796): Bannockburn.