They’re all against me, even to my own son—all against me.”
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

When the evidence, clear and indisputable, was laid before him that I was a free man, and as much entitled to my liberty as he—when, on the day I left, he was informed that I [Pg 184] had a wife and children, as dear to me as his own babes to him, he only raved and swore, denouncing the law that tore me from him, and declaring he would find out the man who had forwarded the letter that disclosed the place of my captivity, if there was any virtue or power in money, and would take his life.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

She pressed my hand with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Then the Lacedemonians prepared a force and made expedition to Samos, in repayment of former services, as the Samians say, because the Samians had first helped them with ships against the Messenians; but the Lacedemonians say that they made the expedition not so much from desire to help the Samians at their request, as to take vengeance on their own behalf for the robbery of the mixing-bowl which they had been bearing as a gift to Croesus, 39 and of the corslet which Amasis the king of Egypt had sent as a gift to them; for the Samians had carried off the corslet also in the year before they took the bowl; and it was of linen with many figures woven into it and embroidered with gold and with cotton; and each thread of this corslet is worthy of admiration, for that being itself fine it has in it three hundred and sixty fibres, all plain to view.
— from The History of Herodotus — Volume 1 by Herodotus

And already the fortifications were being demolished on every side, when the consul, although all on every side, and more especially the debtors, cried out that he should give the signal, having delayed a little while for the purpose of trying the feelings of the soldiers, when their great ardour became sufficiently apparent, having at length given the signal for sallying forth, he lets out the soldiers now impatient for the fight.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

I believe it can and does apply most efficiently (though it was a long time before I saw how), from the simple circumstance that the more diversified the descendants from any one species become in structure, constitution, and habits, by so much will they be better enabled to seize on many and widely diversified places in the polity of nature, and so be enabled to increase in numbers.
— 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

In Early and Middle English thing had no s in the plural.
— from Revelations of Divine Love by of Norwich Julian

I won’t argue with you, but I insist upon your asking Mrs. Erlynne to-night.
— from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde

And he at once marched up his forces, and about midnight entered the city with his army, and all but rased it to the ground, and filled it with slaughter and dead bodies, insomuch that the Ceramicus ran with blood: and he was thus savage against the Athenians for their words rather than their deeds, for they had spoken ill of him and his wife Metella, jumping on to the walls and calling out in a jeering way, "Sulla is a mulberry bestrewn with barley meal," 220 and much similar banter.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

Now the consciousness of every one is in general opposed to the explanation of objects as mere ideas, and more especially to the explanation of our bodies as such; for the thing in itself is known to each of us immediately in so far as it appears as our own body; but in so far as it objectifies itself in the other objects of perception, it is known only indirectly.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

All these beetles are alive, more especially the enormous blackguard crawling behind your ear.
— from Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 1 by John Wilson

He bent his head and kissed her on the mouth—a slow, lingering kiss that held something far deeper and more enduring than mere passion.
— from The Hermit of Far End by Margaret Pedler

The shrill hum of a mosquito explored the place and grew shriller in indignation at Woodhouse's ointment.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

It is true a small light one might be made, but let any one see how the hammers of their iron bevel over and round in the faces with a little work, and he will perceive that only a wild freak would induce any sensible native smith to make a mass equal to a sledge-hammer, and burden himself with a weight for what can be better performed by a stone.
— from The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 by David Livingstone

The difference between Savonarola and Luther was that the Saxon reformer attacked the root of the corruption; not merely outward and tangible and patent sins which everybody knew, but also and more earnestly the special principles of theology and morals which sustained them, and which logically pushed out would necessarily have produced them.
— from Beacon Lights of History, Volume 3 part 2: Renaissance and Reformation by John Lord

In his eagerness the Viceroy reined in his horse, and the officers and men, even the soldiers, stopped also and crowded around the narrator.
— from Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer: A Romance of the Spanish Main by Cyrus Townsend Brady

His regard for the new queen seemed rather to increase than diminish by his marriage; and all men expected to see the entire ascendant of one who had mounted a throne from which her birth had set her at so great a distance, and who, by a proper mixture of severity and indulgence, had long managed so intractable a spirit as that of Henry.
— from The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. From Henry VII. to Mary by David Hume

The Fijians, knowing this peculiarity, set at low tide a most effective trap, by which the mana is caught in a noose.
— from The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom by Basil Thomson

Not only did I distinguish good religion from bad by its expression of practical wisdom, and of the moral discipline that makes for happiness in this world, but I maintained that the noblest poetry also must express the moral burden of life and must be rich in wisdom.
— from Soliloquies in England, and Later Soliloquies by George Santayana