Literary notes about curb (AI summary)
The term "curb" is used with remarkable versatility across literary works, oscillating between its literal, physical meaning and its metaphorical use as a form of restraint. In some passages, it denotes tangible boundaries such as the edge of a road or a pavement ([1], [2], [3], [4]), while in many others it symbolizes the act of holding back, be it passions, desires, or unruly behavior ([5], [6], [7], [8], [9]). In yet another context, it appears as a vital component in controlling animals, emphasizing mastery over wildness ([10], [11], [12]). This shifting use between physical demarcation and metaphorical control reflects literature’s broader engagement with themes of limitation and order ([13], [14], [15], [16], [17]).
- This morning he was in front of his house, inspecting the grass parking between the curb and the broad cement sidewalk.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - A cab was driving by; and Jurgis sprang and called, and it swung round to the curb.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - As the chief stood, his advanced foot was on the scuttle's curb.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville - And now another motor-car was poking its nose against the curb.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey - The love we bear to our wives is very lawful, and yet theology thinks fit to curb and restrain it.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - But when he became conscious of this sudden, quick resentment, he resolved to curb it.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell - I paused, even awed by the agitation he evinced; "Yes," he said at length, rising and biting his lip, as he strove to curb his passion; "Such am I!
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - I freely forgive you, and I hope you’ll curb your passions in future.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens - All the gear was of yak or horse-hair, and the bit was a curb and ring, or a powerful twisted snaffle.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton - “Do you consider this horse wants a curb?”
— from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - There was no check-rein, no curb, nothing but a plain ring snaffle.
— from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell - The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power Has uncheck'd theft.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare - Did, then, high power a curb impose On Nero's phrenzied will?
— from The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius - A feeling of and a taste for perfection are, moreover, the surest curb-reins to self-love.
— from The Fables of La Fontaine by Jean de La Fontaine - —Aeneid, vi. i.] ‘Tis sufficient for a man to curb and moderate his inclinations, for totally to suppress them is not in him to do.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - When the natural curb is removed from their sex, what is there left to restrain them?
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
