We have actually contrived to invent a new kind of hypocrite.
— from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

This doubt we shall soon remove, if we cast our eye upon human nature, and consider that in all nations and ages, the same objects still give rise to pride and humility; and that upon the view even of a stranger, we can know pretty nearly, what will either encrease or diminish his passions of this kind.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

"I admit, Captain, that I am not yet very familiar with that kind of fish.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne

I, however, am strongly impressed by a conviction that I am not wrong.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

I was left on foot, worn out, famishing, without anyone to help me or any thought of seeking help: and so thus I lay stretched on the ground, how long I know not, after which I rose up free from hunger, and found beside me some goatherds, who no doubt were the persons who had relieved me in my need, for they told me how they had found me, and how I had been uttering ravings that showed plainly I had lost my reason; and since then I am conscious that I am not always in full possession of it, but at times so deranged and crazed that I do a thousand mad things, tearing my clothes, crying aloud in these solitudes, cursing my fate, and idly calling on the dear name of her who is my enemy, and only seeking to end my life in lamentation; and when I recover my senses I find myself so exhausted and weary that I can scarcely move.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

But, however, I very melancholy under the fear of my eyes being spoiled, and not to be recovered; for I am come that I am not able to readout a small letter, and yet my sight good for
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Eudora slipped a ring from her finger, and putting it in his hand, said, in a confidential tone, "I am not a fish-woman.
— from Philothea: A Grecian Romance by Lydia Maria Child

The word which, forty years ago, moved my disgust by its servile misinterpretation, was a word proper to the New Testament; and any sense which it may have received from an Alexandrian Jew in the third century before Christ, is no more relevant to any criticism that I am now going to suggest, than is the classical use of the word aeon (αιων) familiar to the learned in Sophocles or Euripides.
— from Theological Essays and Other Papers — Volume 1 by Thomas De Quincey

[Pg 89] You admire Chénier; there is a new edition just published, more complete than the preceding ones.
— from Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833-1846 by Honoré de Balzac

[25] I think it very capital nonsense—but forego all claim to it as nonsense of mine.
— from Eureka: A Prose Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

" "'Tis from no fear or from terror of thee that I am what I am to-day," said Ferdia, "for there is not in Ireland to-day a champion that I am not able to subdue."
— from Heroic Romances of Ireland, Translated into English Prose and Verse — Complete by Arthur Herbert Leahy

To allow a young man to scrape acquaintance with her in cold blood would ordinarily have been entirely repugnant to her ideas of maidenly propriety, but she resisted her first impulse to turn her back on him and abruptly close the interview as needlessly harsh.
— from The Undercurrent by Robert Grant

Thro’ this they intend to make their principal street, all ye houses regularly built after one model and tirés au cordon , terminating in a noble square open in front to ye river, which is of great breadth here, with old Lisbon upon high ground opposite.
— from Through Portugal by Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume

“I am certain that I am not strange to you, even though you may think so for the moment.”
— from Ecstasy, A Study of Happiness: A Novel by Louis Couperus

Hanging cots, attached to the ceiling by chains of iron, are common things in a Nambūtiri’s house, especially in the bed-rooms.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 5 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

I should approve of the choice in one of a better Fortune; but you must conform your self to yours, and consider that I am not able to maintain you.
— from Olinda's Adventures: or the Amours of a Young Lady by Catharine Trotter