But can you imagine, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind—if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator—can you imagine, I say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and loved by them?
— from The Republic by Plato

I entered that broad and blatant hotel at Lake Minnetonka with distinct forebodings.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

I have taken the pains to plead this cause, which I understand indifferently, a little to back and support the natural aversion to drugs and the practice of physic I have derived from my ancestors, to the end it may not be a mere stupid and inconsiderate aversion, but have a little more form; and also, that they who shall see me so obstinate in my resolution against all exhortations and menaces that shall be given me, when my infirmity shall press hardest upon me, may not think ‘tis mere obstinacy in me; or any one so ill-natured as to judge it to be any motive of glory: for it would be a strange ambition to seek to gain honour by an action my gardener or my groom can perform as well as I. Certainly, I have not a heart so tumorous and windy, that I should exchange so solid a pleasure as health for an airy and imaginary pleasure: glory, even that of the Four Sons of Aymon, is too dear bought by a man of my humour, if it cost him three swinging fits of the stone.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

When I was on one occasion lecturing at Rome, one of my audience was the well-known Rusticus, whom the Emperor Domitian afterwards had put to death through envy of his glory, and a soldier came in in the middle and brought him a letter from the Emperor, and silence ensuing, and I stopping that he might have time to read his letter, he would not, and did not open it till I had finished my lecture, and the audience had dispersed; so that everybody marvelled at his self-control.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

She laughed and bantered him a little, remembering too late that she should have been dignified and reserved.
— from The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin

Feeling that he had only a few moments more to live, he entreated that his mother be persuaded to come and bid him a last farewell.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

I tried flour also; but have at last found a mixture of rye and Indian meal most convenient and agreeable.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Petrarch seemed to have had a peculiar faculty for making friends; he was loved and admired by high and low.
— from Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part II. Italian by Oscar Kuhns

The juries were of course drawn from among those men who afterward fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill, and, like the presiding judge and the counsel, they sympathized with the Revolutionary cause.
— from The Emancipation of Massachusetts by Brooks Adams

He was again brought home and locked up for about four weeks.
— from Ten years of missionary work among the Indians at Skokomish, Washington Territory, 1874-1884 by Myron Eells

The American Baptists have a large hospital at Hanyang.
— from China Revolutionized by John Stuart Thomson

The new ruler governed with a strong hand, and administered justice equally to all, both high and low.
— from Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages by Wilhelm Wägner

Making returns blindly is a bad habit and leads to instinctive returns—that is, habitual returns with certain attacks from certain parries—a fault which the skilled opponent will soon discover.
— from Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) by United States. War Department

In January 1762, one Patient, ill of the Petechial Fever at Bremen , had a Lividness and Blackness, threatning a Mortification, which appeared at the End of his Nose.
— from An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany by Donald Monro

Its auditory bullæ, however, are larger and more projecting, and its teeth smaller than is usually the case with S. obscurus .
— from A Hand-book to the Primates, Volume 2 (of 2) by Henry O. (Henry Ogg) Forbes