She sits tormenting every guest,
Nor gives her tongue one moment's rest,
In phrases battered, stale, and trite,
Which modern ladies call polite. [ Swift ]

Oh, never will I trust to speeches penned! * * * taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, three-piled hyperboles. [ William Shakespeare ]

Simple creatures, whose thoughts are not taken up, like those of educated people, with the care of a great museum of dead phrases, are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them. [ Holmes ]

True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. [ Webster ]

Observation or Observance? The act of noting is called observation; that of keeping or celebrating is called observance. The difference in the meaning of these words is clearly illustrated by such phrases as, the acute observation of the detective; and the religious observance of the Sabbath. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]