... the objects of his pursuit; he may misapply his industry, and misplace his improvements: If, under a sense of such possible errors, he would find a standard by which to judge of his own proceedings, and arrive at the best state of his nature, he cannot find it perhaps in the practice of ... — An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... never was more tender than now; I durst not take a pin or a stick, though but so big as a straw, for my conscience now was sore, and would smart at every twist. I could not now tell how to speak my words, for fear I should misplace them. Oh! how gingerly did I then go in all I did or said: I found myself in a miry bog, that shook if I did but stir, and was as those left both of God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and all good things." All the misdoings of his earlier years rose up ... — The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
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