In this our herb, I shall give the pattern of a ruler, the sons of art rough cast, yet as near the truth as the men of Benjamin could throw a stone: Whereby, my brethren, the astrologers may know by a penny how a shilling is coined: As for the college of physicians, they are too stately to college or too proud to continue.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

The man who preserves inviolable his self-respect, in regard to all personal habits and surroundings, is, ceteris paribus , far less likely to acquire a relish for low company and profligate indulgences, and to cultivate correspondent mental and moral attributes.
— from The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness and Fashion or, Familiar Letters to his Nephews by Margaret C. (Margaret Cockburn) Conkling

It sent a chain-shot on board the retiring pirate, took off a Portuguese head and spun it clean into the sea ever so far to windward, and cut the schooner's foremast so nearly through that it trembled and nodded, and presently snapped with a loud crack, and came down like a broken tree, with the yard and sail; the latter overlapping the deck and burying itself, black flag and all, in the sea; and there, in one moment, lay the Destroyer buffeting and wriggling—like a heron on the water with his long wings broken—an utter cripple.
— from Hard Cash by Charles Reade

And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity and provisionality of our voluntary career comes over us that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well- being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but, alas!
— from The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James

Without knocking, he opened the door with rude and powerful hand, and, striding in, closed it after him.
— from The Mysterious Rider by Zane Grey