Careful Words

sincerity (n.)

I never tempted her with word too large,

But, as a brother to his sister, show'd

Bashful sincerity and comely love.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew:

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): The Problem.