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.

To kerke the narre from God more farre,

Has bene an old-sayd sawe;

And he that strives to touche a starre

Oft stombles at a strawe.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): The Shepheardes Calender. July. Line 97.

But who would force the soul tilts with a straw

Against a champion cased in adamant.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. vii. Persecution of the Scottish Covenanters.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,

Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;

Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,

A little louder, but as empty quite;

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,

And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.

Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,

Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 274.