When he had no longer any weapon, he reached out his hands to right and left and an insurgent thrust some arm or other into his fist.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

It will readily be understood that the fluctuations in the value of money and in the state of society rendered a fixed rate of compensation in the Constitution inadmissible.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

Once again, If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest, Among all visible objects, cannot be, Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed With a like nature,—by thy vain device For thee will perish all the germs of things: 'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth, Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.
— from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus

The little men who still continued their speculations could only do so partially, by diminishing the days of service and increasing their stints or toil and by decreasing the rate of wages as well as paying them entirely in goods, of which they had a great stock and of which they thus relieved themselves at a high profit.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

And, if they starve, they starve by rules of art.
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope

[132] This alkaloid, having the formula C 14 H 16 O 4 N 2 , is also found in fenugreek, Trigonella fœnum-græcum , in various leguminous plants, and in the seeds of strophanthus.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

And if the said hall should be letten to farm, the will of the said honourable father should never be fulfilled nor take effect.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

They doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very delicate and growing every day more fragile, so that she looked as if the summer breeze should snatch her up and waft her heavenward.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“We cannot act in the same way with respect to the heavenly phænomena: these productions may depend upon several different causes, and we may give many different explanations on this subject, equally agreeing with the impressions of the senses.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

The man opened his month as if to speak as he heard the sound of footsteps, the eyelids quivered and then there was a shiver, and all was over.
— from Paris under the Commune The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs) by John Leighton

Thus in reality all moral action seems to have no other principle than a conflict between the good and the agreeable; or, that which comes to the same thing, between desire and reason; the force of our sensuous instincts on one side, and, on the other side, the feebleness of will, the moral faculty: such apparently is the source of all our faults.
— from Aesthetical Essays of Friedrich Schiller by Friedrich Schiller

The habitant is as indifferent to smallpox as to measles, and accepts both as dispensations of Providence by exposing his children to the contagion as early as possible; but I was not so minded, and hurried down the gorge as fast as my snow-shoes would carry me.
— from Lords of the North by Agnes C. Laut

The copper-plate engravings consist principally of the illustrations in a collected edition of Miss Edgeworth’s Works, 1832; in Southey’s edition of Cowper’s Works, first published in 1836, and since by Mr. Bohn in his Standard Library; and in the small edition of Dr. Lingard’s History of England.
— from A Treatise on Wood Engraving, Historical and Practical by Henry G. (Henry George) Bohn

Thereon he came and planted himself in great glee beside me, and looked around as if to say, "You must laugh, for I have played."
— from The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals by John Gibson Paton

He had seized her hands with sudden fervor, and now, almost in the same moment, flung them from him and stood up, a man in full possession of his senses.
— from The Witness by Grace Livingston Hill

In that impetuous manner peculiar to him he endeavoured to get a firm grip on the pictorial side of Spanish life, at home and in the streets, wherever he found it.
— from The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4) Revised edition continued by the author to the end of the XIX century by Richard Muther

The house was of an ancient fashion, the entrance into its interior court-yard being through an arch, in the side of which is the door of the hotel.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

"The great art of knowledge," says Duncan, "lies in managing with skill the capacity of the intellect, and contriving such helps, as, if they strengthen not its natural powers, may yet expose them to no unnecessary fatigue.
— from The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown