How science dwindles, and how volumes swell, / How commentators each dark passage shun, / And hold their farthing candle to the sun! Young.
How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or 25 draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or his mother's life? Emerson.
How shall he give kindling in whose inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical cinder? Carlyle.
How shall we know whether you are in earnest, if the deed does not accompany the word? Schiller.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child! King Lear, i. 4.
How small a part of time they share / That are so wondrous sweet and fair! E. Waller.
How small, of all that human hearts endure, / 30 That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! / Still to ourselves, in every place consigned, / Our own felicity we make or find. Johnson.
How should he be easy who makes other men's cares his own? Thomas à Kempis.
How should thy virtue be above the shocks and shakings of temptation, when even the angels kept not their first estate, and man in Paradise so soon fell from innocence? Thomas à Kempis.
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, / Like softest music to attending ears! Rom. and Jul., ii. 2.