Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?

-Bible (Old Testament)
Job 41:1.

The place where bulls and foxes dine very well, but lambs end up head down on the hook.

-Just,Ward Swift
  Of Chicago.  Jack Gance.

And the softness of my body will be guarded by embrace By each button, hook, and lace. For the man who should loose me is dead, Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, In a pattern called a war. Christ! What are patterns for?

-Lowell, Amy
  'Patterns'.

In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. Theyare generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or by crook than on governing well those that theyalready have.

-More, SirThomas
  Utopia (English translation1556), bk.1.

King of comforts, King of life, Thou hast cheered me, And when fears and doubts were rife, Thou hast cleared me. Not a hook in all my breast But thou fill'st it, Not a thought in all my rest But thou kill'st it. Wherefore with my utmost strength I will praise thee, And as thou giv'st line, and length, I will raise thee.

-Vaughan, Henry
  Silex Scintillans,'Praise'.