My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was ready for more.
— from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Friends of the A B C were not numerous, it was a secret society in the state of embryo, we might almost say a coterie, if coteries ended in heroes.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

To take First Class License in one year and win the Avery scholarship—well, well, Mrs. Lynde says pride goes before a fall and she doesn’t believe in the higher education of women at all; she says it unfits them for woman’s true sphere.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

On the whole we arrive at the conclusion that the Apology is true to the character of Socrates, but we cannot show that any single sentence in it was actually spoken by him.
— from Apology by Plato

"Marvel not at that, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote; "for let me tell thee devils are crafty; and even if they do carry odours about with them, they themselves have no smell, because they are spirits; or, if they have any smell, they cannot smell of anything sweet, but of something foul and fetid; and the reason is that as they carry hell with them wherever they go, and can get no ease whatever from their torments, and as a sweet smell is a thing that gives pleasure and enjoyment, it is impossible that they can smell sweet; if, then, this devil thou speakest of seems to thee to smell of amber, either thou art deceiving thyself, or he wants to deceive thee by making thee fancy he is not a devil."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

For methought all the time that I had lived here so little and so short in regard of that endless bliss,—I thought [it was as] nothing.
— from Revelations of Divine Love by of Norwich Julian

Thus spake Zarathustra, and stopped suddenly in his discourse: for his longing came over him, and he closed his eyes and his mouth, because of the agitation of his heart.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

In the great Duane Street lodging-house for newsboys, they are succinctly stated in a “notice” over the door that reads thus: “Boys who swear and chew tobacco cannot sleep here.”
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

Conversions and baptisms were numerous; but, as Stern said in 1876, when speaking of results, and his words are true for all time, and in every place as well as London:—"Conversions, however few or many they may be, are not the gauge by which the progress of mission work amongst the Jews can be ascertained.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

and Audrey stood still in the road.
— from Lover or Friend by Rosa Nouchette Carey

There was a special significance in the fact that she was here on this path in this season.
— from Riya's Foundling by Algis Budrys

I remember now, Lady Carton said she would have a large fortune; and so she is your intimate friend?"
— from A Crooked Path: A Novel by Mrs. Alexander

At the far side of the field we came to a small stream, in which we travelled some distance in the water, to take precaution against pursuit by dogs.
— from Capturing a Locomotive: A History of Secret Service in the Late War. by William Pittenger

Anton said, "Soon it will be."
— from Rescue Dog of the High Pass by Jim Kjelgaard

The typical Apache habitation, called kówa , consists of a framework of poles loosely thatched with native grass, through which the smoke from the central fire finds its outlet and the rain and snow sift in, rendering it anything but a comfortable shelter in time of storm.
— from The North American Indian, Vol. 1 by Edward S. Curtis

'Leave fooling, and speak straight in a matter of life and death.'
— from The Unknown Sea by Clemence Housman

But there are souls sent into this world who seem to have always mysterious affinities for the invisible and the unknown—who see the face of everything beautiful through a thin veil of mystery and sadness.
— from The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine by Harriet Beecher Stowe