Inveni fateor in rege monachum, claustrum in curia, in palatio monasterii disciplinam. I confess that I found in the king a monk, in the court a cloister, and in the palace the discipline of a monastery.

-St Aelred of Riveaulx   d.1167
?c.1160  Lament for David I, King of Scotland. Quoted in  John Fordoun Chronicle of Scotland (c.1384), bk.5, ch.43.

And therefore, at the kynges court, my brother, Ech man for hymself, ther is noon oother.

-Chaucer, Geoffrey
  Canterbury  Tales,'The Knight's Tale', l.1181^2.

But Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.

-Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam
^3  Bleak House, ch.1.

The court he practised, not the courtier's art: Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart.

-Dryden,John
  Of the loyalist  James Butler, Duke of Ormond.  Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.825^6.

I must confess I am a fop in my heart; ill customs influence my very senses, and I have been so used to affectation that without the help of the air of the court what is natural cannot touch me.

-Etherege, Sir George
  Letter to Mr Poley,12  Jan.

We at no time stand so highly in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament, wherein we as head, and you as members, are conjoined and knit together into one body politic, so as whatsoever offence or injury is offered to the meanest member of the House is to be judged as done against our person and the whole Court of Parliament.

-Henry VIII
   Address to a deputation from the House of Commons, 31 Mar.

A court is onlyas sound as its jury, and a jury is onlyas sound as the men who make it up.

-Lee, (Nelle) Harper
   Atticus Finch. To Kill  A Mockingbird, pt.2, ch.20.

Chutzpahöthat quality which enables a man who has murdered his mother and father to throw himself on the mercy of the court as an orphan.

-Levant, Oscar
  The Unimportance of Being Oscar.

   'What tydynges at Camelot?'seyde that on knyght.'By my hede, there have I been and aspied the courte of kynge Arthure, and there ys such a felyshyp that they may never be brokyn, and well-nyghe all the world holdith with Arthure, for there ys the floure of chevalry.'

-Malory, SirThomas   d.1471
c.1470  Morte d'Arthur, bk.3, ch.14.

Before the starry threshold of Jove's court My mansion is, where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live inspher'd In regions mild of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, Which men call earth.

-Milton,John
  Comus,  A Mask, opening lines.

To theTennis Court, and there saw the King playat tennis and others; but to see how the King's play was extolled, without any cause at all, was a loathsome sight.

-Pepys, Samuel
  Diary entry, 4 Jan.

To that high Capital, where kingly Death Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, He came.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Adonais, stanza 7.

He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike anawe intothe beholders.

-Swift,Jonathan
  Of the Emperor. Gulliver'sTravels,'AVoyage to Lilliput', ch.2.

'Tis midnight, falls the lamp-light dull and sickly On a pale and anxious crowd, Through the court, and round the judges thronging thickly, With prayers they dare not speak aloudö Two youths, two noble youths, stand prisoners at the barö You can see them through the gloomö In the pride of life and manhood's beauty, there they are Awaiting their death-doom.

-Wilde,Jane Francesca ne¤  e Elgee
'The Brothers'.