Careful Words

resolve (n.)

resolve (v.)

  In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794): Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. xlviii.

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

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

  Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself.

Isaac De Benserade (1612-1691): Maxim 79.

Wise to resolve, and patient to perform.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 372.