I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, and meanness.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

She lived in such continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them on the stairs or in the passages if she stirred from her grandfather’s chamber, that she seldom left it, for a moment, until late at night, when the silence encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer air of some empty room.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

A plague of sighing and grief; it blows a man up like a bladder.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

But since the length of my beard is displeasing to you, and my unkempt locks, and the fact that I do not put in an appearance at the theatres and that I require men to be reverent in the temples; and since more than all these things my constant attendance at trials displeases you and the fact that I try to banish greed of gain from the market-place, I willingly go away and leave your city to you.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 2 by Emperor of Rome Julian

“I didn’t give it for one,—nay, I’ll say, besides, that ours is the more bold and palpable infringement of human rights; actually buying a man up, like a horse,—looking at his teeth, cracking his joints, and trying his paces and then paying down for him,—having speculators, breeders, traders, and brokers in human bodies and souls,—sets the thing before the eyes of the civilized world in a more tangible form, though the thing done be, after all, in its nature, the same; that is, appropriating one set of human beings to the use and improvement of another without any regard to their own.”
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Hans and my uncle, leaning against the wall, tried to nibble away at some pieces of biscuit, while deep groans and sighs escaped from my scorched and swollen lips.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

When he had turned away, my grandmother and my uncle looked anxiously at each other.
— from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. (Harriet Ann) Jacobs

A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too; he was drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancy—was without a waistcoat!
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Under any circumstances it would have been an unwelcome alliance; but to have it so clandestinely formed, and such a period chosen for its completion, placed Julia's feelings in a most unfavourable light, and severely aggravated the folly of her choice.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

it blows a man up like a bladder.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

If we take a bird’s-eye view of our island to-day, and compare it with what it used to be, we must be struck by the extraordinary fact that the nation which was once, as every one admits, one of the most classically learned and cultured nations in Europe, is now one of the least so; how one of the most reading and literary peoples has become one of the least studious and most un -literary, and how the present art products of one of the quickest, most sensitive, and most artistic races on earth are now only distinguished for their hideousness.
— from The Revival of Irish Literature Addresses by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, K.C.M.G, Dr. George Sigerson, and Dr. Douglas Hyde by George Sigerson

All the life that I looked back upon seemed muddled and mixed up, like a dream; and I could only think of the little sister I'd said good-bye to, aboard the Ventur'some forty years before.
— from Aurora Floyd, Vol. 2 Fifth Edition by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

She had known Valdemar Svensen for many years—he was a man universally liked and respected at all the harbors and different fishing-stations of Norway, and his life was an open book to everybody, with the exception of one page, which was turned down and sealed,—this was the question of his religious belief.
— from Thelma by Marie Corelli

When I returned, she related to me the following: [66] — “The cat, having hastily left the dining room, went to the dog, and mewed uncommonly loud, and in different tones of voice, which the dog from time to time answered with a short bark.
— from Minnie's Pet Cat by Madeline Leslie

AMES, MAURICE U. Laboratory and workbook units In chemistry, by Maurice U. Ames & Bernard Jaffe.
— from U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1963 January - June by Library of Congress. Copyright Office

I feel that I have many lessons to learn from his quiet, humble, and most useful life; and I trust that his death may be greatly blessed to all the missionaries, and to all the people."
— from History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. by Rufus Anderson

They passed along the street, which was full of people, and Gabriel and May unconsciously looked at the crowd with new eyes and thoughts.
— from Trumps by George William Curtis

Never heard of such a man until long afterwards.
— from Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877 Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878 by 1877 Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July

The other men were all picked men, Canadian half-breeds, young, well-looking, full of glee and good-nature, with untiring arms and more untiring lungs and spirits; a handkerchief twisted round the head, a shirt and pair of trowsers, with a gay sash, formed the prevalent costume.
— from Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red men by Mrs. (Anna) Jameson

'I feel I must be doing something for someone; I must not be a mere useless log any longer.
— from A Handful of Stars: Texts That Have Moved Great Minds by Frank Boreham