It must be remembered, however, that, whatever might be the importance of such texts, they are not the only source of ethnographic information, not even the most important one.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

Here is another good one, though it will perhaps be easier understood after reading the chapter on Space-perception than now. Take two stereoscopic slides and represent on each half-slide a pair of spots, a and b , but make their distances such that the a 's are equidistant on both slides, whilst the b 's are nearer together on slide 1 than on slide 2. Make moreover the distance ab = ab''' and the distance ab' = ab'' .
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

This species of fictitious and metaphorical treason is extended to protect, not only the illustrious officers of the state and army, who were admitted into the sacred consistory, but likewise the principal domestics of the palace, the senators of Constantinople, the military commanders, and the civil magistrates of the provinces; a vague and indefinite list, which, under the successors of Constantine, included an obscure and numerous train of subordinate ministers.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

In God's name, since thou hast undone the fear Within me, coming thus, all nobleness, To one so vile, grant me one only grace.
— from Oedipus King of Thebes Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes by Sophocles

He was wholly absorbed in spurring on his bells, all six of which vied with each other in leaping and shaking their shining haunches, like a noisy team of Spanish mules, pricked on here and there by the apostrophes of the muleteer.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

"Who's there?" The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Whether the barn had ever formed one of a group of conventual buildings nobody seemed to be aware; no trace of such surroundings remained.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

They bear with them their regrets, their inner heartbreak, and are not thinking of striking an attitude in the eyes of history.
— from Auguste Rodin: The Man - His Ideas - His Works by Camille Mauclair

"My eyes a hundred signs of absence show: These tears are not their only signs of woe."
— from The Persian Literature, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan, Volume 1 by Firdawsi

And now the old state travelling carriage is in sight.
— from The Girls' Book of Famous Queens by Lydia Hoyt Farmer

But in his soul there was a terror and a darkness that made all natural terrors of small account.
— from Winter Evening Tales by Amelia E. Barr

A notable instance of this was afforded some few years since in a new translation of some of the books of the Old Testament; in which it was pretended that most of those points which had been most attacked by unbelievers were, in fact, mere mistranslations, and that the real meaning of the original was something totally different; and, in order to show the necessity of his alterations, the writer entirely allowed the objections of unbelievers to the common reading; and said that no sufficient answer had been or could be made to them.
— from The Christian Life: Its Course, Its Hindrances, and Its Helps by Thomas Arnold

Thus the breakfast of porcupine and wild pig, though no bread or salt were added, no tea or sugar, and nothing but a draught of pure water from a tiny mountain stream near, was relished by those who with a brief but refreshing sleep had passed the night under the cloudless canopy of heaven.
— from Adventures of Hans Sterk: The South African Hunter and Pioneer by Alfred W. (Alfred Wilks) Drayson

I call to mind how St. Wilfrid, St. John of Beverley, St. Bede, and other saintly men, carried on the good work in the following generations, and how from that time forth the two islands, England and Ireland, in a dark and dreary age, were the two lights of Christendom, and had no claims on each other, and no thought of self, save in the interchange of kind offices and the rivalry of love.
— from The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin by John Henry Newman

Are not their opinions subversive of all religion?
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero