Seuthes himself got up and shouted, trolling forth a war song; then he sprang from his place and leapt about as though he would guard himself against a missile, in right nimble style.
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

An avaritious man is respected for his money, though he scarce is possest of a power; that is, there scarce is a probability or even possibility of his employing it in the acquisition of the pleasures and conveniences of life.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

“Not at all, madam, I regard the weapon with detestation.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi

These words were a great encouragement, and assisted me in rendering myself agreeable.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

And saying this the seer Went through the strait and dreadful pass of death, Not ever to be questioned any more Save on the further side; but when I met Merlin, and asked him if these things were truth— The shining dragon and the naked child Descending in the glory of the seas— He laughed as is his wont, and answered me In riddling triplets of old time, and said: '"Rain, rain, and sun!
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

No man is wholly immortal, as no philosophy is wholly true and no language wholly intelligible; but only in so far as intelligible is a language a language rather than a noise, only in so far as true is a philosophy more than a vent for cerebral humours, and only in so far as a man is rational and immortal is he a man and not a sensorium.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

But now an aged man in Rural weeds, Following, as seem'd, the quest of some stray Ewe, Or wither'd sticks to gather; which might serve Against a Winters day when winds blow keen, To warm him wet return'd from field at Eve, He saw approach, who first with curious eye Perus'd him, then with words thus utt'red spake.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

I allays offer it along with the sherry, though sister Glegg will have it I'm so extravagant; and as for liking to have my clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there's nobody in the parish can say anything against me in respect o' backbiting and making mischief, for I don't wish anybody any harm; and nobody loses by sending me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with the best o' my neighbors'; and the linen's so in order as if I was to die to-morrow I shouldn't be ashamed.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

But what overcame the harshness of this autocracy, and made it reasonable, was the largeness of a nature that loved men and was ever hungry for knowledge of them.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

When I want to give myself a magnificent fête I shut my eyes and lie down on a sofa, and absorb myself in remembering the silly things I said to you with my pa'ole d'ôneû panachée , [1] beside the Lake of Geneva, and I go over again that good day at Diodati, which effaced a thousand pangs I had felt there a year before.
— from Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833-1846 by Honoré de Balzac

Defendant pleaded a certain custom, 'quod inhabitantes infra eandem villam de Stixwood prædictam infra aliquod antiquum messuagium ibidem ratione commorantiæ et residentiæ suæ in eadem habuerunt
— from The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century by R. H. (Richard Henry) Tawney

"Oh yes," he said after a moment "I remember we're not to speak of it."
— from The Golden Bowl — Volume 1 by Henry James

My assistance was requested to sharpen the spurs, and my friends were much astonished at my indignant refusal to have anything to do with such a proceeding.
— from At Home with the Patagonians A Year's Wanderings over Untrodden Ground from the Straits of Magellan to the Rio Negro by George C. Musters

Here, as we at once perceive, there is a closer and a more intimate relation than in the immediate judgment.
— from The Logic of Hegel by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Let us reverse the position, and ask whether any man in his right mind will admit as much in regarding the woman he would make his wife.
— from Courtship and Marriage, and the Gentle Art of Home-Making by Annie S. Swan

The Earl of Essex was defeated in the combat; but the king, instead of sentencing him to death, as was customary in such cases, contented himself with seizing the estates of Essex, and condemning him to pass the rest of his life as a monk in Reading Abbey.
— from Cassell's History of England, Vol. 1 (of 8) From the Roman Invasion to the Wars of the Roses by Anonymous

In one sentence they speak of the difference of sex as something which ought to exclude them from any share in the political workings of the world—something affecting all their thoughts and impulses and actions, and making it right to keep votes from them simply on the ground that they are women.
— from Model Women by William Anderson

127 CHAPTER VII ancient and modern ideas respecting wills and successions
— from Ancient Law: Its Connection to the History of Early Society by Maine, Henry Sumner, Sir