All my house, But now, steamed like a bath with her thick breath. A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce Another woman, such a hail of words She has let fall.

-Jonson, Ben
  Of Lady Politic Would-be. Volpone, act 3, sc.5.

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair.

-Keats,John
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems, 'Hyperion', bk.1, l.1^5.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a muse'  d rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!

-Keats,John
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'Ode to a Nightingale', stanza 6.

The last breath I drew in he wished might be through a pipe and exhaled in a pun.

-Lamb, Charles
Quoted in W  Toynbee Diaries of William Charles Macready 1833^1851 (1912).

The puritanical potentialities of sciencehavenever been forecast. If it evolves a body of organized rites, and is established as a religion, hierarchicallyorganized, things more than anything else will be done in the name of 'decency'. The coarse fumes of tobacco and liquors, the consequent tainting of the breath and staining of white fingers and teeth, which is so offensive to many women, will be the first things attended to.

-Lezama Lima,Jose¤
  The Art of Being Ruled.

The love of our neighbour is the only door out of the dungeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescence out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe.

-MacDonald, George
  Unspoken Sermons.

I want for one moment to make our undiscovered country leap into the eyes of the Old World. It must be mysterious, as though floating. It must take the breath. It must be 'one of those islands†'.

-Beauchamp
   Journal entry, 22  Jan.

We affirm that the world's magnificence has been enriched bya new beauty: the beautyof speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breathöa roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot ismore beautiful than theVictory of Samothrace.

-Marinetti, Emilio FilippoTomasso
  Manifesto of Futurism.

But here I feel amends, The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet, With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.

-Milton,John
Samson  Agonistes, l.9^11.

   And what a congress of stinks!ö Roots ripe as old bait, Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich, Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks. Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

-Rogers,Will
  The Lost Son,'Root Cellar'.

I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 'I am thyself,öwhat hast thou done to me?' 'And Iöand Iöthyself,' (lo! each one saith,) 'And thou thyself to all eternity!'

-Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
The House of Life,'Lost Days', pt.2.

If I were fierce and bald and short of breath I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line to death.

-Sassoon, Siegfried Louvain
  'Base Details'.

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Ode to theWestWind', l.1^3.

If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'a lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on'.

-Springsteen, Bruce
Collected in Gems from Spurgeon (1859).

Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.

-Swinburne, Algernon Charles
  Atlanta in Calydon, chorus,'Before the beginning of years'.

No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death.

-Tennyson
  Poems,'TheTwoVoices', stanza132, l.395^6.

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked, Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before.

-Tennyson
  Idylls of the King,'The Passing of Arthur', l.350^3.

To those who wait with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only this to say. You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning. See Fry 340:25.

-Thatcher, Margaret HildaThatcher, Baroness
  Address to the Conservative Party Conference.

The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death.

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  'The HandThat Signed the Paper Felled a City'.

   The odour of sanctity was clearly discernible from his breath and person.

-Wall, Mervyn
  The Unfortunate Fursey.