As the revelation of a soul's history, and as a model of pure, simple, unaffected English, this book, entirely apart from its doctrinal teaching, deserves a high place in our prose literature.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

In his place, Theodore ordained Wynfrid, 555 a man of [pg 225] good and sober life, to preside, like his predecessors, over the bishoprics of the Mercians, the Midland Angles, and Lindsey, of all which, Wulfhere, who was still living, was king.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede, the Venerable, Saint

But for a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Impostor without eyes or heart, practicing for a mess of pottage such blasphemous swindlery, forgery of celestial documents, continual high-treason against his Maker and Self, we will not and cannot take him.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

"It does not matter that Anna should die in childbirth, but it does matter that all these Annas, Mavras, Pelagueyas, from dawn to sunset should be grinding away, ill from overwork, all their lives worried about their starving sickly children; all their lives they are afraid of death and disease, and have to be looking after themselves; they fade in youth, grow old very early, and die in filth and dirt; their children as they grow up go the same way and hundreds of years slip by and millions of people live worse than animals—in constant dread of never having a crust to eat; but the horror of their position is that they have no time to think of their souls, no time to remember that they are made in the likeness of God; hunger, cold, animal fear, incessant work, like drifts of snow block all the ways to spiritual activity, to the very thing that distinguishes man from the animals, and is the only thing indeed that makes life worth living.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I would have you to understand that it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and I refuse to entertain the most remote sense of personal obligation.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

The defendant had certainly never contemplated such a contingency, or, as was demonstrated by his letters, he would never have proceeded with the work—a work of extreme delicacy, carried out with great care and efficiency, to meet and satisfy the fastidious taste of a connoisseur, a rich man, a man of property.
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy

How some of the gentlemen, Garraway, Littleton, and others, did scruple at their first coming there, being called thither to act, as Members of Parliament, which they could not do by any authority but that of Parliament, and therefore desired the King’s direction in it, which was sent for by my Lord Bridgewater, who brought answer, very short, that the King expected they should obey his Commission.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Mr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to Mrs. Bennet.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

For a year I toiled in a Prussian fortress, chained to a wheelbarrow; thrice the Muscovites have cut up my back with stripes, and once they had me on the road to Siberia; later the Austrians buried me in the dungeons of Spielberg, at hard labour, in carcer durum —but by a miracle the Lord God delivered me and granted that I should die among my own people, with the sacraments.
— from Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Adam Mickiewicz

For if it be true that an organism produced by two unlike organisms is not a mean between them, but a mixture of parts of the one with parts of the other—if it be true that these parts belonging to two different sets are of necessity imperfectly co-ordinated; then it becomes manifest that in proportion as the difference between the parent organisms is greater or less, the defects of co-ordination in the offspring will be greater or less.
— from Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 2 of 3 Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions. by Herbert Spencer

[Pg 70] "Now it chanced that the ruler of Saba had news by a merchant of peacocks From this king like a hawk-god of Egypt, whose beak was set deep in the gloom Of his grape-purple beard, and she said: 'We shall see how his vanities stead him When from under the arch of his eyebrows he sees my feet enter his room.'
— from The Singing Caravan: A Sufi Tale by Vansittart, Robert Gilbert Vansittart, Baron

Now answer me one plain question.
— from A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day by Charles Reade

There was a moment of painful silence, during which more than one of the mob acted as if frightened because of the terrible crime about to be committed, and then an old miner cried: "Hold on!
— from Down the Slope by James Otis

As a means of pleasure, the merry-go-round, both horizontal with horses and vertical with swinging cradles, prevailed, and was none the worse for being called by the French name of carrousel, for our people aniglicize the word, and squeeze the last drop of Gallic wickedness from it by pronouncing it carousal.
— from Literature and Life (Complete) by William Dean Howells

The world itself would be simply a means of producing morality and, in its apparent imperfection, it would be the best world possible, because its apparent imperfection would be necessary to produce what is best in it.
— from The Non-religion of the Future: A Sociological Study by Jean-Marie Guyau

Now the muscles, nerves, glands and other working parts of the body are made of protein, and they can only be renewed with protein.
— from The Story of a Loaf of Bread by T. B. (Thomas Barlow) Wood

The strange conduct of the loaf was in reality caused by the currents and revolutions of the water, but as these were unperceived by those who looked on, they became impressed with the conviction that the loaf was really animated by a mysterious occult power that impelled it to fulfil the task allotted to it.
— from The Pennycomequicks, Volume 1 (of 3) by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

A machine can be made to drive a golf ball with just as little spin, and as a matter of practical golf, by far the greater number of golf balls are driven without appreciable spin—that is to say, without spin which has any definite action on the flight of the ball.
— from The Soul of Golf by P. A. (Percy Adolphus) Vaile