Strain

Famous quotes containing the word strain:

    That strain again, it had a dying fall;
    O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
    That breathes upon a bank of violets,
    Stealing and giving odor. Enough, no more,
    ‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    She, too, would now swim down the river of matrimony with a beautiful name, and a handle to it, as the owner of a fine family property. Women’s rights was an excellent doctrine to preach, but for practice could not stand the strain of such temptation.
    Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)

    The standards of His Majesty’s taste made all those ladies who aspired to his favour, and who were near the Statutable size, strain and swell themselves, like the frogs in the fable, to rival and bulk and dignity of the ox. Some succeeded, and others burst.
    Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)