Of all unreasonable creatures, there is but one unreasonable soul; and of all that are reasonable, but one reasonable soul, divided betwixt them all.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

Around these strange designs were numerous others, representing the heads of eagles; a famished wolf, gnawing its own flesh; and the 80 corpses of two children, strangled with a rope; besides other rude sketches of which we could make nothing; and, indeed, some of these already mentioned were so indistinct, that we were forced to depend a good deal on conjecture in order to come to any conclusion in regard to what they were intended to represent; so that I have given but a vague idea, at best, of the whole thing.
— from Crusoe's Island: A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander Selkirk With Sketches of Adventure in California and Washoe by J. Ross (John Ross) Browne

The ladies in bright spring toilets stepped aboard the skiffs with care, and seating themselves astern, arranged their dresses, while the landlord of the establishment, a mighty individual with a red beard, of renowned strength, offered his hand to the pretty dears, with great self-possession, keeping the frail craft steady.
— from The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 4 by Guy de Maupassant

One afternoon one of them on a rough bit of road said, “Gentlemen, whenever you wish to open a page 322 p. 322 bottle of champagne, please to pull the cord and stop the train.
— from Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland

If you don’t have that little back seat raised, but have it locked down, this whole back top of her will open out on a hinge, and run behind on runners, stretching her out like a trolley car.
— from Conquest; Or, A Piece of Jade; a New Play in Three Acts by Marie Carmichael Stopes

Ivery stone about the buildin' has bin dressed by Roman hands, An' red blooid o' Roman sowdiers has bin temmed(1) out on its lands.
— from Songs of the Ridings by F. W. (Frederic William) Moorman

Looked at from above this ridge was indeed a beautiful and rugged backbone of rock, sloping from the rim, extending far out and down—
— from Tales of lonely trails by Zane Grey

It was a rude building of rough stone, with nothing about it to gratify the eye, or to excite the imagination; a large old-fashioned narrow house, with a very steep roof, covered with flags composed of grey sandstone, would perhaps convey the best idea of the place to a modern reader.
— from The Pirate Andrew Lang Edition by Walter Scott

[767] Struck by a rifle butt on right side of head; old wound of right thigh: Hysterical right hemiplegia and deafmutism.
— from Shell-Shock and Other Neuropsychiatric Problems Presented in Five Hundred and Eighty-nine Case Histories from the War Literature, 1914-1918 by Elmer Ernest Southard