Physicians might, I believe, extract greater utility from odours than they do, for I have often observed that they cause an alteration in me and work upon my spirits according to their several virtues; which makes me approve of what is said, that the use of incense and perfumes in churches, so ancient and so universally received in all nations and religions, was intended to cheer us, and to rouse and purify the senses, the better to fit us for contemplation.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

But youth is not prone to contemplate the darkest side of a picture it can shift at will.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

A strange thing, indeed, that those words, "two or three times," nothing more than a few words, words uttered in the air, at a distance, could so lacerate a man's heart, as if they had actually pierced it, could sicken a man, like a poison that he had drunk.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

It is a purely legal phrase, and applicable precisely in cases such as we have now under consideration, where the probability of the doer of a deed hinges upon the probability of the benefit accruing to this individual or to that from the deed’s accomplishment.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

it makes the digestion good, a long wind, a clear voice, an acute sight, a good colour, it suffers no offensive thing to remain in the body, neither wind, flegm, choler, melancholy, dung, nor urine, but brings them forth; it brings forth filth though it lie in the bones, it takes away salt and sour belchings, though a man be never so licentious in diet, he shall feel no harm: It hath cured such as have the phthisic, that have been given over by all Physicians: It cures such as have the falling sickness, gouts, and diseases and swellings of the joints: It takes away the hardness of the liver and spleen.
— 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

O, yet methought I saw the Holy Grail, All palled in crimson samite, and around Great angels, awful shapes, and wings and eyes.
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

TREPLIEFF is carrying some pillows and a blanket, and PAULINA is carrying sheets and pillow cases.
— from The Sea-Gull by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Even in a conqueror or a priest, I can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity; and the decree of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the mothers should never be separated from their children, may suspend, or moderate, the censure of the historian.
— 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

For if fencing can accord permission, it can surely also refuse it?
— from Mrs. Maxon Protests by Anthony Hope

And I say that the universal nature employs them equally, instead of saying that they happen alike to those who are produced in continuous series and to those who come after them by virtue of a certain original movement of Providence, according to which it moved from a certain beginning to this ordering of things, having conceived certain principles of the things which were to be, and having determined powers productive of beings and of changes and of such like successions ( vii. 75 ).
— from Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

I feel a power I cannot see, and know not whence it comes, hurrying me to the edge of a precipice.”
— from The Prime Minister by William Henry Giles Kingston

Pack at once into a mold, put on the lid, fasten the seam with a strip of muslin dipped in paraffin or melted suet, and pack in coarse salt and ice to freeze for two or three hours.
— from Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings Together with Refreshments for all Social Affairs by S. T. Rorer

"We are quite ready for our flitting so far as packing is concerned," Salemina assured him.
— from Penelope's Progress Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

Since the cost of such a plant is comparatively small, and available supplies of grain make the cost of alcohol much less than that of gasoline, other plants have been set up.
— from The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger