At first sight it might seem an idle observation that the first task of intelligence is to represent the environing reality, a reality actually represented in the notion, universally prevalent among men, of a cosmos in space and time, an animated material engine called nature.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

The young man commenced his search for the letter with the greatest patience, turning out his pockets of all kinds over and over again, rummaging and rerummaging in his valise, and opening and reopening his purse; but when he found that he had come to the conviction that the letter was not to be found, he flew, for the third time, into such a rage as was near costing him a fresh consumption of wine, oil, and rosemary--for upon seeing this hot-headed youth become exasperated and threaten to destroy everything in the establishment if his letter were not found, the host seized a spit, his wife a broom handle, and the servants the same sticks they had used the day before.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

If she betrayed any agitation, when she presented herself to Mr. Sikes, he did not observe it; for merely inquiring if she had brought the money, and receiving a reply in the affirmative, he uttered a growl of satisfaction, and replacing his head upon the pillow, resumed the slumbers which her arrival had interrupted.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

They fulfil the need which the believer feels of strengthening and reaffirming, at regular intervals of time, the bond which unites him to the sacred beings upon which he depends.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood, Though the birds have stilled their singing; The evening blaze cloth Alice raise, And Richard is fagots bringing.
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott

“All right, all right,” interrupted the prince, and laughing his unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpátych to kiss, and then proceeded to his study.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Can any one think any real alterations are made in the porphyry by the presence or absence of light; and that those ideas of whiteness and redness are really in porphryry in the light, when it is plain IT HAS NO COLOUR IN THE DARK?
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

I stood awe-struck—I cannot tell how long—watching how the live flame-snakes crept and hissed, and leapt and roared, and rushed in long horizontal jets from stack to stack before the howling wind, and fastened their fiery talons on the barn-eaves, and swept over the peaked roofs, and hurled themselves in fiery flakes into the yard beyond.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms, And round and round it flew:
— from Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798) by William Wordsworth

Her face loses the pinched expression; her cheeks become full, and round, and rosy; in every way her physical frame improves.
— from The Toilers of the Field by Richard Jefferies

“All right, all right; I didn’t keep you long.
— from Roland Whately: A Novel by Alec (Alexander Raban) Waugh

Natural hazards: tropical storms (November to April) Environment - current issues: air pollution and resulting acid rain in the mineral extraction and refining region; poaching seriously threatens rhinoceros and elephant populations; deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; lack of adequate water treatment presents human health risks Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol Geography - note: landlocked @Zambia:People Population: 9,582,418 note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and
— from The 2000 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

And then if one comes to consider the commoner claim, the claim to be felt and respected and regarded in one's own little circle, it is wholesome and humiliating to observe how generously and easily that regard is conceded to affectionateness and kindness, and how little it is won by any brilliance or sharpness.
— from Where No Fear Was: A Book About Fear by Arthur Christopher Benson

Thus words, in the course of ages, are rolled and rubbed out of shape, like the pebbles which are rubbed and rounded into smoothness by the sea waves on a shingly beach, until at last, though once plainly imitative, they lose all trace of their sensuous origin.
— from Words; Their Use and Abuse by William Mathews

And they looked every where—except in the right place; to do the devil justice, it was a capital hiding-corner that; rooms, closets, passages, cellars, out-houses, gardens, lofts, tenements, and all the "general words," in a voluminous conveyance, were searched and searched in vain; more than one groom expected (hoped is a truer word) to find Mr. Jennings hanging by a halter from the stable-lamp; more than one exhilarated labourer, hastily summoned for the search, was sounding the waters with a rake and rope, in no slight excitement at the thought of fishing up a deceased bailiff.
— from The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper by Martin Farquhar Tupper

But that other world, in spite of her resolute exclusion of it, was always looking round corners and peeping through chinks and crannies, and rustling and raiding into the order in which she chose to live, shining out of pictures at her, echoing in lyrics and music; it invaded her dreams, it wrote up broken and enigmatical sentences upon the passage walls of her mind.
— from Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Then came the thought, too joyous to keep joy, Turning to very sadness for relief: To sit and dream through long hot summer days, Shrouded in coolness and sea-murmurings, Forgot by all till twilight shades grew dark; And read and read in the Arabian Nights, Till all the beautiful grew possible;
— from A Hidden Life and Other Poems by George MacDonald