I wanted to go to Aquila—the opposite of Rome in every respect, and actually founded in a spirit of hostility towards that city, just as I also shall found a city some day, as a memento of an atheist and genuine enemy of the Church, a person very closely related to me, the great Hohenstaufen, the Emperor Frederick II.
— from Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Amethysts, white cornelians, rubies, agates, garnets, and rock crystals, with other precious stones, are also found in abundance and of the finest quality.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

He makes the most of himself; dividing himself, by an allowable fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he hath sore and sorrowing members.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

"We demolish because we are a force," interposed Arkady.
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

An abrupt fall into a cavern; a disappearance into the secret trap-door of Paris; to quit that street where death was on every side, for that sort of sepulchre where there was life, was a strange instant
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

They even have a strong belief that the spirits show them the future in dreams; and say that cases of affliction are always foreshown in a dream.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

"That is impossible," he observed, "Mr. Wilde may know a great many things—" "About armour, for instance, and the 'Prince's Emblazoned,'" I interposed, smiling.
— from The King in Yellow by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

In the same way, when all our affairs but one turn out as we wish, the single instance in which our aims are frustrated is a constant trouble to us, even though it be something quite trivial.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer

‘Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I told them that I should come in the evening to take them to the Aliberti, and felt in a better humour after my visit, for I could see that there was no art or coquetry in what Armelline said.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Pompey's idea was to fix the pillar up as a sea-mark, for either entering the harbour of Alexandria, or to denote shallows, anchorage, or the like; but apart from this actual utility, and apart also from its acknowledged ornament as a sentinel on that flat strand, I take it to be an architectural absurdity to erect a regular-made column with little or nothing to support: an obelisk now, or a naval trophy, or a tower decorated with shields, or a huge stele or cippus, or a globe, or a pyramid, or a Waltham-cross sort of edifice, (of course all these supporting nothing on their apices,) in fact, any thing but a Corinthian or Tuscan, or other regular pillar, seems to be permissable; but for base, shaft, and capital to have nothing to do but lift a telescopic man from earth's maternal surface, does look not a little unreasonable; and therefore as much out of taste, as for the marble arch at Buckingham Palace to spend its energies in supporting a flag-staff.
— from An Author's Mind : The Book of Title-pages by Martin Farquhar Tupper

The lime is like a small, round-shaped lemon, and is not an attractive fruit in appearance.
— from In the Strange South Seas by Beatrice Grimshaw

have not one time in the past 15 years spoken editorially against any fundamentally important aspect of the over-all governmental policies which are dragging this nation into socialism and world government–at least, not to my knowledge.
— from The Invisible Government by Dan Smoot

As a further inducement, a subsequent proclamation made over to the captor the fine incurred by the offender he secured.
— from Viscount Dundee by Louis A. Barbé

When I learned later what church it was that had decreed this—namely, the Church of Thomas[46], i. e., of Aristotle—I waxed bolder, and after floating in a sea of doubt, at last found rest for my conscience in the above view—namely, that it is real bread and real wine, in which Christ's real flesh and blood are present, not otherwise and not less really than they assume to be the case under their accidents.
— from Works of Martin Luther, with Introductions and Notes (Volume II) by Martin Luther

A houseless savage, living on wild game and accidental fruits, is an alien in nature, or a minor not yet come to his estate.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

If the principles suggested above are followed in assigning lessons, there will be little excuse for a pupil's forgetting the assignment.
— from The Recitation by George Herbert Betts

As the cry left her lips, something like a black snake shot out through the air and flung itself across her breast, stinging and almost blinding her with pain; but there was no time for pain--no time!
— from Red Rowans by Flora Annie Webster Steel

I thought I left it in my room and I looked all around for it, and then I asked {9} Hulda if she’d seen it, and she said no, though I asked her that the other day about something else, and she said no, and later I found out that she had seen it and put it in a drawer, so I went to the library and the book wasn’t there, and then I went back to my room and looked again, and I was just coming back to tell you I couldn’t find it when here it is, guess where, right on the telephone stand.
— from Women I'm Not Married To by Franklin P. (Franklin Pierce) Adams