Make soft thy trenchant sword.’

Timon of Athens, Act IV. Scene 3.

‘The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.’

Wordsworth, Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.

‘Thought characters and words merely but art

And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.’

Shakespeare, A Lover’s Complaint, ll. 174–5.

‘——what in me is dark,