O sancta damnatio!—Oh, holy condemnation!
O sancta simplicitas!—Oh, holy simplicity! John Huss at the stake, on seeing an old woman hurrying up with a faggot to throw on the pile.
O si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses—If you had only held your peace, you would have remained a philosopher. Boëthius.
O sleep, / It is a gentle thing, / Beloved from 5 pole to pole! Coleridge.
O sleep, O gentle sleep, / Nature's soft nurse! how have I frighted thee, / That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, / And steep my senses in forgetfulness! 2 Hen. IV., iii. 1.
O sons of earth, attempt ye still to rise, / By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies? / Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, / And buries madmen in the heaps they raise. Pope.
O sprich mir nicht von jener bunten Menge / Bei deren Anblick uns der Geist entflieht—Oh, speak not to me of the motley mob, at the very sight of which our spirit takes flight! Goethe.
O süsse Stimme! Willkommener Ton / Der Muttersprach in einem fremden Lande!—Oh, sweet voice, much-welcome sound of our mother-tongue in a foreign land! Goethe.
O tempora, O mores!—Oh, the times! oh, the 10 manners! Cic.
O that estates, degrees, and offices / Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour / Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! / How many then would cover that stand bare; / How many be commanded that command; / How much low peasantry would then be glean'd / From the true seed of honour; and how much honour, / Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times, / To be new-varnish'd. Mer. of Ven., ii. 9.