How we clutch at shadows (in this dream-world) as if they were substances, and sleep deepest while fancying ourselves most awake! Carlyle.
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable / 45 Seem to me all the uses of this world. Ham., i. 2.
How well he's read, to reason against reading! Love's L. Lost, i. 1.
How were friendship possible? In mutual devotedness to the good and true, otherwise impossible; except as armed neutrality or hollow commercial league. Carlyle.
How wonderful is Death, / Death and his brother Sleep! / One, pale as yonder waning moon, / With lips of lurid blue; / The other, rosy as the morn, / When, throned on ocean's wave, / It blushes o'er the world: / Yet both so passing wonderful. Shelley.
How wounding a spectacle is it to see those who were by Christ designed for fishers of men, picking up shells on the shore, and unmanly wrangling about them too! Decay of Piety.
How wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the great! Burns.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me / 'Tis only noble 5 to be good. / Kind hearts are more than coronets, / And simple faith than Norman blood. Tennyson.
However, an old song, though to a proverb an instance of insignificance, is generally the only coin a poet has to pay with. Burns.
However brilliant an action, it should not be esteemed great unless the result of a great motive. La Roche.