"Knowing the state of Mr. Johnson's nerves, and how easily they were affected, I forbore reading in a new magazine, one day, the death of a Samuel Johnson who expired that month; but my companion snatching up the book, saw it himself, and contrary to my expectation, 'Oh!' said he, 'I hope Death will now be glutted with Sam Johnsons, and let me alone for some time to come; I read of another namesake's departure last week.'" from Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, by Hesther Lynch Piozzi (1786).
"While he forebore reading anything, most of what I know about medieval English religious writing has been shaped by long (and beery) communions with the field’s greatest expert, Vincent Gillespie, whose influence has always impinged on my writing." from author’s commentary, London Literature, 1300 – 1380, by Ralph Hanna, Professor of Palaeography at the University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow in English at Keble College, Oxford.
"Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that is catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass by unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is searching for rare and remote things, will neglect those that are obvious and familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory words have been inserted with little illustration, because in gathering the authorities, I forebore to copy those which I thought likely to occur whenever they were wanted." from Preface to the English Dictionary, by Samuel Johnson (1755)
Whither whence doest mine forebears foreswear forbear.