The pianist can, after long practice, execute rapid and complex performances of fingering, which in the early stages of education were absolutely impossible.
— from A Plea for the Criminal Being a reply to Dr. Chapple's work: 'The Fertility of the Unfit', and an Attempt to explain the leading principles of Criminological and Reformatory Science by James Leslie Allan Kayll

And it will probably seem to us (looking back to the earlier part of this paper) that the points which most need consideration, as means to this end, are (1) the furtherance of the freedom and self-dependence of women; (2) the provision of some rational teaching, of heart and of head, for both sexes during the period of youth; (3) the recognition in marriage itself of a freer, more companionable, and less pettily exclusive relationship; and (4) the abrogation or modification of the present odious law which binds people together for life , without scruple, and in the most artificial and ill-assorted unions.
— from Marriage in Free Society by Edward Carpenter

If a Scotchman were wrecked near an outlandish island in Oceania, I guarantee that you will find him, a few years later, installed as a landed proprietor, exacting rents and taxes from the natives.
— from Friend Mac Donald by Max O'Rell

Indeed, the whole statement cohered marvellously well; all the parts harmonized with each other and looked plausible, even reasonable, as I have said, except the grand fact itself, which was too momentous for belief.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 25, November, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various