The moral laws that govern him are, to be sure, but few; but then he conforms to them all; the white man abounds in laws of religion, morals, and manners, but how many does he violate!
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

The Austrian was then the principal army of the Coalition, and its line of retreat was upon Cologne: hence it was upon the Meuse that a general effort of the French would have inflicted the most severe blow.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

In both cases a pretext is sought for the introduction of an insatiable lust of revenge as a moral and religious duty.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“At twenty minutes before nine o’clock—that is to say, a short time prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury attained its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I mentioned before, was one of an extended construction.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe

When any species becomes very rare, close interbreeding will help to exterminate it; authors have thought that this comes into play in accounting for the deterioration of the aurochs in Lithuania, of red deer in Scotland and of bears in Norway, etc.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

From all this, it will readily occur to any one that the blessedness which an intelligent being desires as its legitimate object results from a combination of these two things, namely, that it uninterruptedly enjoy the unchangeable good, which is God; and that it be delivered from all dubiety, and know certainly that it shall eternally abide in the same enjoyment.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Loyal to the highest constituted power in the land, actuated by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance of public order, the repression of many abuses though not of all simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a preliminary solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

The action nevertheless obtained great celebrity in England from the public indignation at its lack of result, and from the storm of naval and political controversy which followed.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

The Germans, however, contented themselves with shelling and then occupying the town, and made no attempt to follow through on the far side—a matter for pronounced congratulation, the position of the 5th Brigade being very bad and its line of retreat worse.
— from The First Seven Divisions Being a Detailed Account of the Fighting from Mons to Ypres by Hamilton, Ernest, Lord

A further change seemed desirable, and the sensible one was made of concentrating the responsibility in the hands of one person, Mr. Gay, and endeavoring to reënforce him with an imposing list of regular contributors.
— from James Russell Lowell, A Biography; vol. 1/2 by Horace Elisha Scudder

Her anxiety was even slightly allayed at this point in her reflections, by the thought (for she had not quite outgrown an innate love of romance) that the Emperor himself might go to Virginia’s assistance.
— from The Princess Virginia by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

The activities of our age in lines of research have reached the tillers of the soil and inspired them with ambition to know more of the principles that govern the forces of nature with which they have to deal.
— from State of the Union Addresses by Theodore Roosevelt

The Department of Agriculture has undertaken during the year two new and important lines of research.
— from A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents Volume 8, part 2: Grover Cleveland by Grover Cleveland

Lord Melbury was two years the senior of Lady Aurora: unassuming from his rank, and unspoiled by early independence, he was open, generous, kind-hearted and sincere; and though, from the ardour of juvenile freedom, and the credulity of youth, he was easily led astray, an instinctive love of right, and the acute self-reproaches which followed his least deviations, were conscious, and rarely erring guarantees, that his riper years would be happy in the wisdom of goodness.
— from The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 1 of 5) by Fanny Burney

But as regards Positive Morality, or moral rules, some have so far the essentials of an imperative law or rule, that they are rules set by men to men.
— from Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics by Alexander Bain