When you and I, for instance, realize how many innocent beasts have had to suffer in cattle-cars and slaughter-pens and lay down their lives that we might grow up, all fattened and clad, to sit together here in comfort and carry on this discourse, it does, indeed, put our relation to the universe in a more solemn light.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

And though it was a thing to be lamented, yet when he and I should set about to reform mankind in this respect, we should have enough upon our hands; for, he said, it was too common and fashionable a case to be withstood by a private clergyman or two: and then he uttered some reflections upon the conduct of the present fathers of the church, in regard to the first personages of the realm, as a justification of his coldness on this score.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

Hence, it came to be believed that people might run riot in sin, and plunge into the indulgence of their passions and their lusts, till the hour of death approached, when they would have nothing to do but to ask forgiveness, and cast the burden of their sins and sufferings on the merits of "a crucified Savior and Redeemer," who "suffered once for all, that we might escape," and thus dodge the penalty for sin.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

Then it is possible that Hill's dietary was conducive to morbid conscientiousness; a breakfast frequently eaten in a hurry, a midday bun, and, at such hours after five as chanced to be convenient, such meat as his means determined, usually in a chop-house in a back street off the Brompton Road.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

And hence they do all that they can to avoid punishment and to avoid being released from the greatest of evils; they provide themselves with money and friends, and cultivate to the utmost their powers of persuasion.
— from Gorgias by Plato

People coolly pretend to read it who would think themselves presumptuous if they pretended to interpret the hieroglyphics on the obelisks of Luxor—yet they are fully as competent to do the one thing as the other.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

She was of a fierce and couragious Temper, wherefore, when she lay under Condemnation, several Stories were reported of her, much to her Disadvantage, as that she had kill’d an English Servant-Maid once in her Passion with a Case-Knife, while she look’d after her Father’s House; but upon further Enquiry, I found this Story to be groundless: It was certain she was so robust, that once, when a young Fellow would have lain with her, against her Will, she beat him so, that he lay ill of it a considerable Time.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

And Ind is divided in three principal parts; that is, the more that is a full hot country; and Ind the less, that is a full attempre country, that stretcheth to the land of Media; and the three part toward the septentrion is full cold, so that, for pure cold and continual frost, the water becometh crystal.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

We pray that, out of His bounty—exalted be He—He may release, through this imprisonment, the necks of men from chains and fetters, and cause them to turn, with sincere faces, towards His face, Who is the Mighty, the Bounteous.
— from The Summons of the Lord of Hosts by Bahá'u'lláh

Whenever the power of directing the eye is acquired, the tracing of a line will, to a certain extent and for a certain time, afford some degree of positive pleasure; in other words, any short line will possess some degree of positive beauty, and the infant becomes conscious of an emotion of which he was previously ignorant—the emotion of beauty of form.
— from Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman by Alexander Walker

She could read in the conventional sentences, made simple as for a child, the strained politeness, and his absolute silence as to whether or not a child had been born to them, the utter absence of affection for her.
— from The Translation of a Savage, Complete by Gilbert Parker

Why, I wouldn't be surprised if by spring I wasn't tuning up again for a coast-to-coast tour—" "Spring!
— from Humoresque: A Laugh on Life with a Tear Behind It by Fannie Hurst

; the small-eyed cunning Russian shop-keeper; a sprinkling of fine, dirty, rough-looking Bouriats, a Tartar tribe subject to Russia; a few Mongols who have business,—for their authorities, instigated by the Chinese government, are jealously watchful of their crossing the frontier,—and a few astute Chinese, the most business-like of the whole crowd.
— from The Siberian Overland Route from Peking to Petersburg, Through the Deserts and Steppes of Mongolia, Tartary, &c. by Alexander Michie

What they lack is experience in life, and so they are unable to interpret what they read as fully as can those who have lived longer, seen more of the world, enjoyed more, suffered more.
— from Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10: The Guide by Charles Herbert Sylvester

Several of our great composers could be named who, notwithstanding their diligent studies from their youth, always found plenty of time for bodily exercise, and for amusements conducive to the preservation of health and energy—such as pedestrian tours, riding, fencing, swimming, dancing, etc.
— from Musical Myths and Facts, Volume 1 (of 2) by Carl Engel