To this unwelcome guest, the proprietor was compelled to abandon two thirds of his patrimony, but the German, a shepherd and a hunter, might sometimes content himself with a spacious range of wood and pasture, and resign the smallest, though most valuable, portion, to the toil of the industrious husbandman.
— 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

Our second law or type shall be, that prayers ever accompany sacrifices; and our third, that, inasmuch as all prayers are requests, they shall be only for good; this the poets must be made to understand.
— from Laws by Plato

The state then acquires a ruler, not the ruler as such (that is, as one already possessing another realm) the state.
— from Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay by Immanuel Kant

I am not honest, but then, I of myself am nothing, I am only part of an inevitable social evil: all local officials are pernicious and receive their salary for doing nothing. .
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

We have no more reason to believe in such a relation than we have to believe that the similar bones in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, and fin of a porpoise, are related to similar conditions of life.
— 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

Among them is an abundance of revengeful ones disguised as judges, who ever mouth the word righteousness like a venomous spittle—with [Pg 159] mouth, I say, always pursed, always ready to spit at everything, which does not wear a discontented look, but is of good cheer as it goes on its way.
— from The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

We have no more reason to believe in such a relation, than we have to believe that the same bones in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, and fin of a porpoise, are related to similar conditions of life.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

," said the count with dignity, "do your duty as a priest, and receive this soul, awakened to eternal salvation, into the bosom of the one true Church!"
— from For Sceptre and Crown: A Romance of the Present Time. Vol. 2 (of 2) by Gregor Samarow

When she was restored to sensation, no authority or terror of the place or the judges, could prevent her pouring forth those wild and piercing supplications, which, from the energy with which they are uttered, appear to the speaker himself like commands,—that the latter part of her sentence might be remitted—the former appeared to make not the least impression on her—eternal solitude, passed in eternal darkness, seemed to give her neither fear or pain, but she wept, and pleaded, and raved, that she might not be separated from her infant.
— from Melmoth the Wanderer, Vol. 4 (of 4) by Charles Robert Maturin

This time the offender was the viceroy, the powerful Duke of Cardona, who had imprisoned a familiar for carrying a pistol and refusing to surrender it, and had arrested two servants of the receiver, fining one and discharging the other.
— from A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1 by Henry Charles Lea

Without naming himself an Anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the 15th and 16th centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the Anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of the Christ and from the necessary dictates of reason.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg

Down the street we flew like a storm; then I turned a corner, thinking the scoundrel must have gone up that street; then bolted through a public square; over a bridge; under an arch; finally back into the main street; yelling like a panther, and resolved to slaughter the first human being I should overtake.
— from The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 Negligible Tales, On With the Dance, Epigrams by Ambrose Bierce

—When organs are considered, not separately, but in their relations to each other, the appearances presented are referable to similar causes.
— from Vegetable Teratology An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants by Maxwell T. (Maxwell Tylden) Masters

Master Harry—Prince Harry—was now looked up to as a person all-powerful with the master ; and petitions and requests to speak for them, to speak just one word, came pouring from all sides: but however enviable his situation as favourite and prince presumptive might appear to others, it was not in all respects comfortable to himself.
— from Tales and Novels — Volume 09 by Maria Edgeworth