I can count a stocking-top while a man 's getting 's tongue ready; an' when he out wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. George Eliot.
I can teach you to command the devil, / And I can teach you to shame the devil, / By telling truth. 1 Hen. IV., ii. 1.
I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: 20 believe life; it teaches better than book and orator. Goethe.
I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue.... It cannot be spared or left behind, but it hindereth the march. Bacon.
I cannot hide what I am; I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour. Much Ado, i. 3.
I cannot love thee as I ought, / For love reflects the thing beloved; / My words are only words, and move / Upon the topmost froth of thought. Tennyson.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Milton.
I cannot think of any character below the 25 flatterer, except he that envies him. Steele.
I can't work for nothing, and find thread. Pr.
I care not though the cloth of state should be / Not of rich Arras, but mean tapestry. George Herbert.