First, then, that happy shore, that seems so nigh, Will far from your deluded wishes fly; Long tracts of seas divide your hopes from Italy: For you must cruise along Sicilian shores, And stem the currents with your struggling oars; Then round th’ Italian coast your navy steer; And, after this, to Circe’s island veer; And, last, before your new foundations rise, Must pass the Stygian lake, and view the nether skies.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil

"In a very safe asylum; well protected for the present; make your mind quite easy till you get a little better; you look ill this morning."
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

"But if you are to wait till we get a logical Bill, you must put yourself forward as a revolutionist, and then Middlemarch would not elect you, I fancy.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

So to Sir W. Pen’s, where my wife was, and supped with a little, but yet little mirth, and a bad, nasty supper, which makes me not love the family, they do all things so meanly, to make a little bad show upon their backs.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

They had been enrolled in the ranks of our armies and furnished levies that won a brilliant reputation, being enlisted by your ancestors, and, later, by your father.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 1 by Emperor of Rome Julian

“Wait a little before you find fault!
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Experience is a keen teacher; and long before you had mastered your A B C, or knew where the "white sails" of the Chesapeake were bound, you began, I see, to gauge the wretchedness of the slave, not by his hunger and want, not by his lashes and toil, but by the cruel and blighting death which gathers over his soul.
— from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

There you will see, sculptured out of a single piece of black marble, a bull which is much larger than any living bull you have ever seen, and yet is not a good likeness after all.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

I have no wish to commit you to anything without your having it all laid before you.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

"Your mother has prayed for you for years; and when you were a little boy you prayed the Lord to save you: last night, again, you were constrained to cry for mercy.
— from From Death into Life or, Twenty Years of my Ministry by W. (William) Haslam

"They are checked at least by your pamphlet, and the people confirmed in their good old faith."
— from Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism by Gilbert Chinard

Eggs thin shelled and large, bright yellow, 65 µ to 120 µ long.
— from The Animal Parasites of Man by Fred. V. (Frederick Vincent) Theobald

But if you were a great chemist, instead of a little boy, you would be apt to answer me, I am afraid, “Fire burns because the vibratory motion of the molecules of the heated substance communicates itself to the molecules of my skin, and so destroys their tissue;” which is, I dare say, quite true: but it only tells us how fire burns, the way or means by which it burns; it does not tell us the reason why it burns.
— from Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children by Charles Kingsley

and oh, my adorable lover, when I look forward on our coming happiness, whenever I lay by the thoughts of honour, and give a loose to love; I run not far in the pleasing career, before that dreadful thought stopp'd me on my way: I have a fatal prophetic fear, that gives a check to my soft pursuit, and tells me that thy unhappy engagement in this League, this accursed association, will one day undo us both, and part for ever thee and thy unlucky Sylvia ; yes, yes, my dear lord, my soul does presage an unfortunate event from this dire engagement; nor can your false reasoning, your fancied advantages, reconcile it to my honest, good-natur'd heart; and surely the design is inconsistent with love, for two such mighty contradictions and enemies, as love and ambition, or revenge, can never sure abide in one soul together, at least love can but share Philander 's heart; when blood and revenge (which he miscalls glory) rivals it, and has possibly the greater part in it: methinks, this notion enlarges in me, and every word I speak, and every minute's thought of it, strengthens its reason to me; and give me leave (while I am full of the jealousy of it) to express my sentiments, and lay before you those reasons, that love and I think most substantial ones; what you have hitherto desired of me, oh unreasonable Philander , and what I (out of modesty and honour) denied, I have reason to fear (from the absolute conquest you have made of my heart) that some time or other the charming thief may break in and rob me of; for fame and virtue love begins to laugh at.
— from Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister by Aphra Behn

He takes you into the corner; he has his bundle of papers out of his gaping coat pocket; and the tape off, and the string in his mouth, and the favourite letters selected and laid before you; and who does not know the sad eager half-crazy look which he fixes on you with his hopeless eyes? Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once florid, jovial, and prosperous John Sedley.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

“I will try it,” he said at last; “but you, my children, must hasten from the camp; it is no place for young persons, and should I fail to escape, you will be made to suffer.”
— from The Boy who sailed with Blake by William Henry Giles Kingston

Below them was a little space of fertile ground where the moisture draining down from the limestone above was caught before it reached the stream—a green ribbon stretched along the margin with grass and low bushes, yellow-flowering asters, rhododendrons and juniper.
— from Mount Everest, the Reconnaissance, 1921 by A. F. R. (Alexander Frederick Richmond) Wollaston

It is not a pleasant sensation to have steady old Mother Earth rocking like an "ashpan" leaf beneath your feet.
— from Fanny Goes to War by Pat Beauchamp Washington