C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Swearing (See Oath)

Take not His name, who made thy tongue in vain;
It gets thee nothing, and hath no excuse.

Herbert.

Profane swearing never did any man any good. No man is the richer or wiser or happier for it.

Louth.

From a common custom of swearing, men easily slide into perjury; therefore, if thou wouldst not be perjured, do not use to swear.

Hierocles.

But if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn; no more was this knight, swearing by his honor, for he never had any.

Shakespeare.

And then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my leisure.

Shakespeare.

When perjury, that heaven-defying vice,
Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price,
Stamps God’s own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the way of trade.

Cowper.

And hast thou sworn, on every slight pretence,
Till perjuries are common as bad pence,
While thousands, careless of the damning sin,
Kiss the book’s outside who ne’er look within?

Cowper.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.

Laurence Sterne.

Maintain our rank, vulgarity despise,
To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise,
You would not swear upon a bed of death—
Reflect—your Maker now may stop your breath.

Anonymous.

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