Careful Words

stir (n.)

stir (v.)

stir (adj.)

All hell shall stir for this.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.

My fell of hair

Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir

As life were in 't: I have supp'd full with horrors.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.

The fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

  The more thou stir it, the worse it will be.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.

And Katerfelto, with his hair on end

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.

'T is pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,

To peep at such a world,—to see the stir

Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 86.

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot

Which men call earth.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 5.

  Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart.

Diogenes Laertius (Circa 200 a d): Pythagoras. xvii.

Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 4.