All the while that they swing and dance, the Lord of the Heavenly Hosts has to stand on one foot upon a seat which is made of bricks plastered over, covered with a white cloth, and hung with tapestry.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

He is the last fruit of the Renaissance, and explains in a striking way its motive and tendencies.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

"I trow he cannot speak his own so that any but the swine that kennel in the styes may tell his meaning; and as for learning of any sort soever—” He looked up and encountered a solemn warning in my Lord St. John’s eyes.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take you over the house, and introduce to you a system which, in my opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its operation, is incomparably the most effectual as yet devised.”
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

When they are stating what is most startlingly new, they will be most likely to put it in an old-fashioned form, and to use the inadequate ideas and formulae of tradition to express the deeper truths towards which they are feeling their way.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There were also three other people of the name of Anaxagoras; none of whom combined all kinds of knowledge; But one was an orator and a pupil of Isocrates; another was a statuary, who is mentioned by Antigonus; another is a grammarian, a pupil of Zenodotus.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

Do you know, I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine, in a shop window in Milsom Street just now—very like yours, only with coquelicot ribbons instead of green; I quite longed for it.
— from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Cornelius wrote, that a levy of troops had been ordered, that all Samnium was in motion, and that the neighbouring states of Privernum, Fundi, and Formiæ, were openly solicited to join them.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

To the keen-sighted and quick, rather than to the strong, is the victory; and it will not be wondered at, if, educated thus in daily adventure, the hunter is enabled to detect the slightest and most transient exhibition, and by a shot, which in most cases is fatal, to avail himself of the indiscretion of his enemy.
— from Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia by William Gilmore Simms

“Why not?—he is a most agreeable and charming companion.—No one hears me, I hope,” said Lucy Stewart, as she turned round with a smile, which indicated, moreover, that her uneasiness on the subject was not extreme.
— from Louise de la Valliere by Alexandre Dumas

"All the more reason why we should go on there and see what it means!" cried Nort.
— from The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley; Or, Diamond X and the Poison Mystery by Willard F. Baker

In the court are some workers in mosaic, working for Visconti Venosta; on the terrace, masons; in the kitchens, a coming and going of cooks; in the gardens are merchants spreading out their stuffs, and Signor Vincent his uniforms; the doctor is swinging in a hammock slung between two trees; the artists are painting before the door of their chamber; soldiers and servants are jumping and shouting in the neighboring alleys; all the fountains spout and trickle with a noise of heavy rain, and hundreds of birds are warbling among the orange and lemon-trees.
— from Morocco, Its People and Places by Edmondo De Amicis

She was happier now than I had ever seen her and so was I myself.
— from One Way Out: A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America by William Carleton

Major Cartwright, Sir Francis Burdett, and other advanced politicians formed themselves into a society, which, in memory of one of England's most worthy sons, they named the Hampden Club.
— from Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men by Eliezer Edwards

“I’m to have books and to go there every week, and she trusts to me to try and succeed well in my new life.
— from The Story of Antony Grace by George Manville Fenn

27 In a similar way, in more recent times, the German excavations of Priene and Miletus have benefited the neighboring Greek settlements.
— from Hellenism in Asia Minor by Karl Dieterich

But, not only is the sin of your holding slaves undiminished by the consideration, that they are held under human laws; but, your claiming to hold them under such laws, makes you guilty of an additional sin, which, if measured by its pernicious consequences to others, is by no means inconsiderable.
— from The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 by American Anti-Slavery Society