We cannot correctly, and at a glance, estimate height, length, breadth, and distance; and the fact that engineers, surveyors, architects, masons, and painters are generally quicker to see and better able to estimate distances correctly, proves that the fault is not in our eyes, but in our use of them.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

By the above-mentioned statute, gum senega, or gum arabic, being among the enumerated dyeing drugs, might be imported duty free.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

When the members of an aristocratic body are thus exclusively devoted to the pursuit of physical gratifications, they commonly concentrate in that direction all the energy which they derive from their long experience of power.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

3. Know the functions of the clutch, carburetor, valves, magneto, spark plug, differential cam shaft, and different speed gears, and be able to explain difference between a two and four-cycle motor.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook The First Edition, 1911 by Boy Scouts of America

The artillery was much improved, and loose batteries were gathered and organized into well-found battalions, generally of four batteries of six guns each, and a battalion assigned to each division.
— from Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer by G. Moxley (Gilbert Moxley) Sorrel

He pressed a button and the editor disappeared through the trap-door.
— from Once a Week by A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne

We need not doubt 'the Fates' are busy, and the evil demons, with those poor fellow-beings!
— from History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 07 by Thomas Carlyle

Leofric had earned a steady income by his illuminating work upon the vellum he was enabled to purchase, and by assistance to Edmund de Kynaston in his studies.
— from A Clerk of Oxford, and His Adventures in the Barons' War by Evelyn Everett-Green

The colonial pedants denounced to advocate as bitterly as they ever denounced to compromit or to happify , and all the English authorities gave them aid, but it forced itself into the American language despite them, and today it is even accepted as English and has got into the Oxford Dictionary.
— from The American Language A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken

Haven’t ye often towld me that thim blackguards roast an’ tear and torture prisoners nowadays just as bad as they ever did?”
— from Over the Rocky Mountains: Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

It was no use, ran his letters, for a woman like her to try and battle against the evident decrees of Fortune.
— from A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. by William Stearns Davis

He was a keen observer, and his humor—sometimes very dry, sometimes fresh and bright as the early dew—rendered his companionship at once delightful and instructive.
— from The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss by George Lewis Prentiss

This testimony is as bright as the early dawn, as brilliant as the glorious feast day.
— from The Faith of Islam by Edward Sell