Careful Words

teach (n.)

teach (v.)

If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well

It were done quickly: if the assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch

With his surcease success; that but this blow

Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,

We 'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases

We still have judgment here; that we but teach

Bloody instructions, which being taught, return

To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice

To our own lips.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

Geoffrey Chaucer (1328-1400): Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 310.

Teach him how to live,

And, oh still harder lesson! how to die.

Beilby Porteus (1731-1808): Death. Line 316.

The tyrant custom, most grave senators,

Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war

My thrice-driven bed of down.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

Most wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong:

They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): Julian and Maddalo. Line 544.

Teach me to feel another's woe,

To hide the fault I see;

That mercy I to others show,

That mercy show to me.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Universal Prayer. Stanza 10.

  He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book i. Chap. xviii. That Men are not to judge of our Happiness till after Death.

  He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

Michael De Montaigne (1533-1592): Book i. Chap. xviii. That Men are not to judge of our Happiness till after Death.

Thought is deeper than all speech,

Feeling deeper than all thought;

Souls to souls can never teach

What unto themselves was taught.

Christopher P Cranch (1813-1892): Stanzas.

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,

And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,

Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 201.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,

To teach the young idea how to shoot.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Seasons. Spring. Line 1149.

Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!

Thou little valiant, great in villany!

Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!

Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight

But when her humorous ladyship is by

To teach thee safety.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.

  So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Old Testament: Psalm xc. 12.