And they punished in like manner the one who had incurred guilt by an evasion of his oath: with Hannibal's permission this man left the camp and returned a little later on the pretext that he had forgotten something or other; and then, when he left the camp the second time, he claimed that he was released from the obligation of his oath; and so he was, according to the letter of it, but not according to the spirit.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Twenty were condemned to death, and one could only regret that Captain du Petit Thouars judged it necessary to stop the execution when eleven had suffered, for the twenty were all equally guilty, and requiring a life for life of the eleven Frenchmen looked more like revenge than justice.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

The effect of this severity was such, that, as the vulgar expressed it, 'the rush-bush kept the cow,' and 'thereafter was great peace and rest a long time, wherethrough the King had great profit; for he had ten thousand sheep going in the Ettrick Forest in keeping by Andrew Bell, who made the king as good count of them as they had gone in the bounds of Fife' (Pitscottie's History, p. 153).
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott

In Silesia, for eight days before the battle of Leignitz, it had constantly to march, defiling alternately right and left in front of the enemy:—this costs great fatigue, and entails great privations.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

Under the full light of a roadside arc-light lay a form, face downward in a widening circle of blood.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald

And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal—that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

" She paused after making that reply, and reflected a little as we walked on.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

All that we reckoned settled shakes and rattles; and literatures, cities, climates, religions, leave their foundations and dance before our eyes.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Under the bow the water was hissing as from a steam jet, the air was filled with driven spray, there was a rush and rumble and long-echoing roar, and the canoe floated on the placid water of the lagoon.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.
— from The Pursuit of God by A. W. (Aiden Wilson) Tozer

She played a sharp game of tennis, played hockey well, was a good walker and runner, and liked basketball as well as she liked anything.
— from The Girls of Central High at Basketball; Or, The Great Gymnasium Mystery by Gertrude W. Morrison

Another rock a little farther on is known as the Altar of St. James, and he is there supposed to have offered up bloodless sacrifices; and yet another rock is shown as St. James’s couch.
— from Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain by Annette M. B. Meakin

"Because of his remarkably keen and quaint sense of humor and his power to draw and write," says an admirer, "no other animals are as real and lovable as his." DAN BEARD National Scout Commander of the Boy Scouts of America, and beloved by all sportsmen and naturalists Other clever writers have produced animal stories, of which the best are those by Charles G.D. Roberts, the Canadian author.
— from The Mentor: American Naturalists, Vol. 7, Num. 9, Serial No. 181, June 15, 1919 by Ernest Ingersoll

Don't you get your biscuits all right at lunch now?"
— from The Jolliest School of All by Angela Brazil

"Yes, I will," he answered; "and rather a large piece of toast, if you please; for I have been a long journey since I saw you last."
— from Cross Purposes and The Shadows by George MacDonald

Oh, what a glorious life it was to feel no longer the mere mouthpiece of mock passion, but a real, actual, living influence on men’s hearts; what a triumph was it then to hear that wild outburst of applause, that seemed to say: “Here are we, ready at your call; speak but the word and the blade shall flash and the brand flare; denounce the treason, and leave the traitors to us!”
— from Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel by Charles James Lever

Jack and I went to buy a rug at Lucifer's."
— from Berry and Co. by Dornford Yates

We visit the region where poetry and myth and tradition have placed a most ancient civilization,—the Black-Land, or Land of the Nile: we search its royal sepulchres, its manifold history written in funereal records, in kingly genealogies, in inscriptions, and in the thousand relics preserved of domestic life, whether in picture, sculpture, or the embalmed remains of the dead; and we find ourselves thrown back to a date far beyond any received date of history, and still we have before us a ripened civilization, an art which could not belong to the childhood of a race, a language which (so far as we can judge) must have needed centuries for its development, and the divisions of human races, whose formation from the original pair our philosophy teaches us must have required immense and unknown spaces of time,—all as distinct as they are at the present day.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 62, December, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

"Mignonette won a race at Liverpool only yesterday," said the trainer.
— from The Vanity Girl by Compton MacKenzie

—That this is so as regards a large class of our volitions, will hardly be denied.
— from Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will by Joseph Haven