It was an intellectual slavery; one never could get rid of thinking of herself, and the important thing is to forget self.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

When I am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a game at piquet for love with my cousin Bridget—Bridget Elia.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

Trusted to an unlimited extent by a careless master, who handed him a bill without looking at it, and pocketed the change without counting it, Tom had every facility and temptation to dishonesty; and nothing but an impregnable simplicity of nature, strengthened by Christian faith, could have kept him from it.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

I had nothing more to keep me at the Hague, and I set out next morning before day-break for Amsterdam.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

the Cause of the emence numbers of dead Salmon I can't account for So it is I must have seen 3 or 400 dead and maney living the Indians, I believe make use of the fish which is not long dead as, I Struck one nearly dead and left him floating, Some Indians in a canoe behind took the fish on board his canoe
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Now if we see double numbers prove such a weight in the scale against the greatest Generals, we may be sure, that in ordinary cases, in small as well as great combats, an important superiority of numbers, but which need not be over two to one, will be sufficient to ensure the victory, however disadvantageous other circumstances may be.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

Instead of showing, however, what inroads passion, oblivion, sophistry, and frivolity may make into dialectic, he bethought himself to represent all these incoherences, which are indeed significant of natural changes, as the march of dialectic itself, thus identified with the process of evolution and with natural law.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Not only were they tied to the land or master, but they could not marry without his consent, and if slaves of neighbouring estates intermarried, their children were distributed between the owners of the several properties.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

Although master of himself, Monte Cristo, scrutinized with irrepressible curiosity the magistrate whose salute he returned, and who, distrustful by habit, and especially incredulous as to social prodigies, was much more despised to look upon “the noble stranger,” as Monte Cristo was already called, as an adventurer in search of new fields, or an escaped criminal, rather than as a prince of the Holy See, or a sultan of the Thousand and One Nights .
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

So he issued the coldest kind of a decree carved on a tablet of ice, that Bullibrain 160 and I should on no one day pass more than a half-hour together; that we should never touch palm to palm, sleep in the same room, eat from the same dish, or sit on the same divan.
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

In antiquity they developed an intense sentiment of nationality, and for earnestness and depth of ethical feeling they surpassed all other peoples.
— from The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge by John Fiske

"We know these steps, and indeed seldom or never go down them.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 by Various

The immense quantity of book lore that we have read respecting the character of pike tackle, has always seemed to us an intelligent species of nonsense—a kind of literature originally invented by tackle manufacturers.
— from Haw-Ho-Noo; Or, Records of a Tourist by Charles Lanman

kinds, & a fiew Swan—I continued my walk on Shore after dinner, and arrived at the mouth of a river on the St. Side, which appeared to be large, and I concluded to go up this river a few miles to examine it accordingly I Set out North 1 mile thro wood or timbered bottom, 2 miles through a butifull leavel plain, and 1 mile over a high plain about 50 feet higher than the bottom & Came to the little river, which I found to be a butifull clear Stream of about 100 yds.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

In another smaller room, opening from this one, those are waiting whose turn it will be to enter next; or perhaps a group is assembled, if the pope will come out hither to receive them, as he sometimes does, when the audience is simply one not of business, but simply for the honor of being presented to him and of receiving his blessing.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870 by Various

[Pg 136] and death of substance, but at the same time there is an increased flow of blood to the part, and that means an increased supply of nourishment and increased activity in rebuilding.
— from American Football by Walter Camp

When almost in sight of Nimes he made his troops, which had never before been so numerous or so brilliant, perform a great many evolutions, and then continued his way towards Nages.
— from Massacres of the South (1551-1815) Celebrated Crimes by Alexandre Dumas

Then just as we were wondering what else could happen, one night, without the slightest warning, the very birds migrated from the lagoon, carrying away with them the promise of future pillows, to say nothing of a mattress, and the Măluka was obliged to go far afield in search of non-migrating birds.
— from We of the Never-Never by Jeannie Gunn

As we moved slowly along the street by the Pont des Mareschaux, we discoursed of the terrible inroads at this moment making by the French in the capital of the north, almost every shop having an inviting sign of nouveautés from Paris.
— from Incidents of Travel in Greece, Turkey, Russia, and Poland, Vol. 2 (of 2) by John L. Stephens

The wind’s from the West and it smells of nothing but snuff.
— from The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting