Careful Words

sum (n.)

sum (v.)

  That execrable sum of all villanies commonly called a Slave Trade.

John Wesley (1703-1791): Journal. Feb. 12, 1772.

The sum of earthly bliss.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 522.

Since trifles make the sum of human things,

And half our misery from our foibles springs.

Hannah More (1745-1833): Sensibility.

"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou makest a testament

As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Nor sequent centuries could hit

Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Solution.