And it is upon this principle, that the most ignorant and barbarous nations have frequently excelled in similitudes, comparisons, metaphors, and allegories, who have been weak and backward in distinguishing and sorting their ideas.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

‘But my song I troll out, for Christmas Stout, The hearty, the true, and the bold; A bumper I drain, and with might and main Give three cheers for this Christmas old!
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

A thousand thoughts at once suggested themselves to him on the subject of this new adventure, and it struck him as being ill done and worse advised in him to expose himself to the danger of breaking his plighted faith to his lady; and said he to himself, "Who knows but that the devil, being wily and cunning, may be trying now to entrap me with a duenna, having failed with empresses, queens, duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses?
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

To which Zorobabel and Jeshua the high priest replied, that they were the servants of God Almighty; that this temple was built for him by a king of theirs, that lived in great prosperity, and one that exceeded all men in virtue; and that it continued a long time, but that because of their fathers' impiety towards God, Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonians and of the Chaldeans, took their city by force, and destroyed it, and pillaged the temple, and burnt it down, and transplanted the people whom he had made captives, and removed them to Babylon; that Cyrus, who, after him, was king of Babylonia and Persia, wrote to them to build the temple, and committed the gifts and vessels, and whatsoever Nebuchadnezzar had carried out of it, to Zorobabel, and Mithridates the treasurer; and gave order to have them carried to Jerusalem, and to have them restored to their own temple, when it was built; for he had sent to them to have that done speedily, and commanded Sanabassar to go up to Jerusalem, and to take care of the building of the temple; who, upon receiving that epistle from Cyrus, came, and immediately laid its foundations; "and although it hath been in building from that time to this, it hath not yet been finished, by reason of the malignity of our enemies.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

SKATES LURK, a begging impostor dressed as a sailor.
— from A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James. by John Camden Hotten

When Socrates had thus spoken, Cebes, taking up the discussion, said "Socrates, all the rest appears to me to be said rightly, but what you have said respecting the soul will occasion much incredulity in many from the apprehension that when it is separated from the body it no longer exists anywhere, but is destroyed and perishes on the very day in which a man dies, and that immediately it is separated and goes out from the body it is dispersed, and vanishes like breath or smoke, and is no longer anywhere, since if it remained anywhere united in itself, and freed from those evils which you have just now enumerated, there would be an abundant and good hope, Socrates, that what you say is true 40 .
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

After breakfast I departed, and pursued my journey northwards.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

This nation, indeed, since the time of the kingdom of Alexander the Macedonian, which was as brief in duration as it was great in extent, has preserved its own empire, and at this day occupies no small territories in the East.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Perhaps to Anne this annoyance was a blessing in disguise, as it brought forward the whilom lover to her assistance, but that is beside the point!
— from Jane Austen and Her Times by G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

It was not [Pg 91] a pretty system ethically, I admit; but it did, at least, furnish us a rough and ready formula for settling a question which must be settled ten thousand times a day if the world was ever going to get forward.
— from Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy

He endeavoured to strike me upon the head with his stick, but I dodged, and so it fell upon my shoulder; and he was going to strike me again, but I darted at him, and knocked him down, and then he began blubbering, and begged me not to hurt him.
— from The History of Sandford and Merton by Thomas Day

"But suppose he should come to a hand-to-hand fight and be in danger?" asked Madame Beldi, with growing anxiety.
— from The Golden Age in Transylvania by Mór Jókai

"Aye, but I do!" answered the bride sadly.
— from Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses by Emily Sarah Holt

The dark, hollow night rose indifferently over her; the wide, cold air breathed rudely past her, lifted her wet hair and blew it down again; the great boughs swung with a ponderous strength, now and then clashed their iron lengths together and shook off a sparkle of icy spears or some long-lain weight of snow from their heavy shadows.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

We too felt deeply thankful that it had been no worse, and in a short time we were made to rejoice that there had been an accident; for it was soon evident that it was a blessing in disguise, and God had permitted it for a purpose.
— from South and South Central Africa A record of fifteen years' missionary labors among primitive peoples by Hannah Frances Davidson

If there was one thing in this marsh of Divinity more divine than all the rest, it was wind, and ever in March and big November God was with men; but only those dreamed how divine who ran far into it, and breathed it deeply, and drowned in it, and browsed bedrowsedly upon all the sound and sounds of it.
— from The Last Miracle by M. P. (Matthew Phipps) Shiel