Anna is a faithful witness that his happiness was destroyed, and his health was broken, by the cares of a public life; the patience of Constantinople was fatigued by the length and severity of his reign; and before Alexius expired, he had lost the love and reverence of his subjects.
— 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

She did not understand one-half the compliments which he paid; she had never, in her small experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as yet, and looked upon my lord as something curious rather than pleasant; and if she did not admire, certainly wondered at him.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

But I cannot satisfy reason with regard to this hypothesis itself; and this proves that it is not its intelligence and insight into the subject, but its speculative interest alone which induces it to proceed from a point lying far beyond the sphere of our cognition, for the purpose of being able to consider all objects as parts of a systematic whole.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

People save money for years in order to go to Europe to visit the great art centers and see the famous masterpieces, when they have really never seen the marvelous pictures painted by the Divine Artist and spread in the landscape, in the sunset, in the glory of flowers and plant life, right at their very doors.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

It is a political law of nature that those who are under any power of ancient origin, never begin by complaining of the power itself, but only of its oppressive exercise.
— from The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill

A practical law which I recognise as such must be qualified for universal legislation; this is an identical proposition and, therefore, self-evident.
— from The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant

IAGO Stand you awhile apart; Confine yourself but in a patient list.
— from Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare

But why has he such a passionate love for destruction and chaos also?
— from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

What, talking with a priest, Lord Chamberlain!
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

In a little less than four years, therefore, after becoming a public lecturer, I was induced to write out the leading facts connected with my experience in slavery, giving names of persons, places, and dates—thus putting it in the power of any who doubted, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of my story of being a fugitive slave.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

Helen could have married the son of a poor lord, and become the Honourable Mrs Somebody, with her mother's blessing, had she so willed.
— from At His Gates: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3) by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

Irrational as Cobbett's views were,—he would have adjusted the entire concerns of the nation with a view to the sole benefit of the agricultural interest, would have done away with the standing army, wiped out the national debt, and effected a few other trifling changes with a perfectly light heart, while in minor matters his crotchets were not only wild but simply irreconcilable with each other,—his intense if narrow earnestness, his undoubting belief in himself, and a certain geniality which could co-exist with very rough language towards his opponents, would give his books a certain attraction even if their mere style were less remarkable than it is.
— from A History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1780-1895) by George Saintsbury

Close the rich gold of thy too dazzling wings, And turn a gentle and a pitying look On him who prostrate at thy feet adores!"
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870 by Various

In short, strong acid rather widens than deepens the lines; mild acid, on the contrary, eats into the depth of the copper, and produces lines which are shown in relief on the paper, and are astonishingly powerful in color.
— from A Treatise on Etching by Maxime Lalanne

Among the "intellectuals" may be classed a certain number of poets, dramatists, musicians, and writers, who are neither socialists nor anarchists, constituting what might roughly be called the literary "Bohemia" of the quarter; men who pursue their art for the love of it simply, or who are thereto impelled by the necessity of making a precarious living; men really without ideas in the definite, belligerent sense, often uneducated, but often of considerable native talent.
— from The Spirit of the Ghetto: Studies of the Jewish Quarter in New York by Hutchins Hapgood

Sary followed closely after the mistress, as Polly led the triumphal march to the guest-chamber.
— from Polly of Pebbly Pit by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

The anti-slavery [Pg 96] epoch, therefore, was the Augustan Era of American literature, when the historians, poets and philosophers lent distinction to American literature.
— from The Battle of Principles A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict by Newell Dwight Hillis

Dear old governor, he’ll do it, but he’ll pull a precious long face, and go round the house lowering the gas and telling every one he must economise, with two such expensive sons as me and my minor at school.
— from The Cock-House at Fellsgarth by Talbot Baines Reed

[Footnote A: The words in italics are alterations in the original article made by Mr. Malcolm in a private letter to the author (H.C.R.).]
— from Diseases of the Horse's Foot by H. Caulton (Harry Caulton) Reeks