Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Swearing
A demon holds a book, in which are written the sins of a particular man; an Angel drops on it from a phial, a tear which the sinner had shed in doing a good action, and his sins are washed out.
MS. of Alberic, Monk of Monte-Cassino. Found in an article on Dante. Selections from Edinburgh Review. Vol. I. P. 67.
Jack was embarrassed—never hero more,
And as he knew not what to say, he swore.
Byron—The Island. Canto III. St. 5.
Bad language or abuse
I never, never use,
Whatever the emergency;
Though “Bother it” I may
Occasionally say,
I never never use a big, big D.
W. S. Gilbert—H. M. S. Pinafore.
Take not His name, who made thy mouth, in vain;
It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse.
Herbert—Temple. Church Porch. St. 10.
There written all
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel’s pen
Ere Mercy weeps them out again.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. Paradise and the Peri.
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because the insult’s not on man, but God?
Pope—Epilogue to Satires. Dialogue II. L. 199.
In totum jurare, nisi ubi necesse est, gravi viro parum convenit.
To swear, except when necessary, is unbecoming to an honorable man.
Quintilian—De Institutione Oratoria. IX. 2.
And then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him and might not spend them at my pleasure.
Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 3.
When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths.
Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 11.
I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in Christendom.
Henry IV. Part I. Act. I. Sc. 2. L. 109.
That in the captain’s but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
Measure far Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 130.
Do not swear at all;
Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I’ll believe thee.
Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 112.
For it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.
Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 196.
“He shall not die, by God,” cried my uncle Toby. The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in: and the Recording Angel as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.
Sterne—Tristram Shandy. Bk. VI. Ch. VIII.
Our armies swore terribly in Flanders.
Sterne—Tristram Shandy. Bk. III. Ch. XI.