Jim, you mustn’t climb on that table,—no, no!—You don’t know, my dear, what a surprise it is to us all, to see you here tonight!”
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Well, after all, it is our first date, and so it is right enough to honor it, and pay the public schools to teach our children to honor it:
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

I am aware that I am merely a female, and that a masculine judgement is usually considered more competent to the discussion of such questions; still I must not forget that, when I lived at home with my papa and mama, my papa was in the habit of saying, “Emma’s form is fragile, but her grasp of a subject is inferior to none.”
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Thus, the Ecole des femmes does nothing more than reproduce and repeat a single incident in three tempi: first tempo, Horace tells Arnolphe of the plan he has devised to deceive Agnes's guardian, who turns out to be Arnolphe himself; second tempo, Arnolphe thinks he has checkmated the move; third tempo, Agnes contrives that Horace gets all the benefit of Arnolphe's precautionary measures.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

Kay daktul, saylu na sa tungang gabíi, The moon is past the zenith, and since it is full moon, it must be past midnight.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

A kind of little kings we are, bearing the diminutive of a mace, made like a young artichoke, that always carries pepper and salt in itself.
— from Every Man in His Humor by Ben Jonson

And, so, it is nothing but the desire to be useful that has constrained me to print fragments of this diary which fell into my hands by chance.
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov

Add to this the standing army of fifteen thousand dependent children in New York’s asylums and institutions, and some idea is gained of the crop that is garnered day by day in the tenements, of the enormous force employed to check their inroads on our social life, and of the cause for apprehension that would exist did their efforts flag for ever so brief a time.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

In this regard there are no indubitable rules; everybody must tell himself, “I have perhaps never experienced this fact, but it may be that a thousand other people have seen it, and seen it in a thousand different ways.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

As a rule, I undress and put my head on the pillow, and then somebody bangs at the door, and says it is half-past eight: but, to-night, everything seemed against me; the novelty of it all, the hardness of the boat, the cramped position (I was lying with my feet under one seat, and my head on another), the sound of the lapping water round the boat, and the wind among the branches, kept me restless and disturbed.
— from Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome

I will allow no man to question my respect for our immortal Lee—but if Jane Webb had been the commander of our armies, we should be standing now upon Confederate soil—" "Or upon the ashes of it," suggested the judge, adding apologetically, "she is indeed a woman in a thousand.
— from The Voice of the People by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

The only sober moments she seemed to enjoy were when she was with Bessie; for Bessie Challoner took a sincere interest in her, and was very anxious to get her into a higher form, where she would be with girls nearer her own age, and would thus be forced to submit to more discipline than she could enjoy with the younger girls.
— from Wild Kitty by L. T. Meade

On a shady island in the southern part of the Lake of the Lotus is a frail, almost hidden palace, where the sovereign slept that last agonizing night before her frantic flight, disguised as a beggar.
— from The Last Days of Pekin by Pierre Loti

And now comes Grieg, and writes harmonious discords that Wagner said were impossible, and still it is music, for by it we are transported on the wings of song and uplifted to the stars.
— from Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 by Elbert Hubbard

To substitute for the wretched cottier system, some system under which the Irish peasant, having a substantial interest in the improvement of the soil, would be placed under strong motives to industry and providence, is the great remedy which Mr Mill proposes for the unhappy state of that country.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 64 No. 396 October 1848 by Various

The work is more difficult than it looks, for it requires a lot of practice to fill the moulds in such a way as to avoid blow-holes and flaws that prove such a serious item in foundry practice."
— from The Romance of Modern Mechanism With Interesting Descriptions in Non-technical Language of Wonderful Machinery and Mechanical Devices and Marvellously Delicate Scientific Instruments by Archibald Williams

“That document,” said Harwood, with affected solemnity; “it is a guarantee of the respectability of the possessor; it is a bank order for four hundred pounds, payable to one Oswin Markham, and it was, I understand, found upon the person of the man who has just been resuscitated through the skill of our good friend Doctor Campion.”
— from Daireen. Complete by Frank Frankfort Moore

"Heavens, no!" answered Allen with convincing sincerity, adding with a smile: "It is barely possible that my client might, though."
— from The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle; Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run by Laura Lee Hope

The executive had decided to publish in future 36 penny pamphlets each year, instead of 24, and trusted that their enterprise would be rewarded with a substantial increase in the number of subscribers.
— from Catholic Problems in Western Canada by George Thomas Daly