Careful Words

use (n.)

use (v.)

use (adv.)

use (adj.)

Refrain to-night,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy;

For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

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

Thyself and thy belongings

Are not thine own so proper as to waste

Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd

But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines

Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 1.

How use doth breed a habit in a man!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.

  Thus use your frog: put your hook—I mean the arming wire—through his mouth and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the arming wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg above the upper joint to the armed wire; and in so doing use him as though you loved him.

Izaak Walton (1593-1683): The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 8.

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,

Against the use of nature. Present fears

Are less than horrible imaginings.

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

  The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Bee. No. iii. Oct. 20, 1759.

The languages, especially the dead,

The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,

The arts, at least all such as could be said

To be the most remote from common use.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 40.

And thus he bore without abuse

The grand old name of gentleman,

Defamed by every charlatan,

And soil'd with all ignoble use.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. cxi. Stanza 6.

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give,

Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;

And vice sometimes by action dignified.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Tender-handed stroke a nettle,

And it stings you for your pains;

Grasp it like a man of mettle,

And it soft as silk remains.

'T is the same with common natures:

Use 'em kindly, they rebel;

But be rough as nutmeg-graters,

And the rogues obey you well.

Aaron Hill (1685-1750): Verses written on a window in Scotland.

These things are beyond all use,

And I do fear them.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Julius Caesar. Act ii. Sc. 2.