But if they are states at all, they embody some common conception of the good, some common aspirations of all their members.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

If she consents to assist the experiment, she consents of her own free will, and not as a favour to Mr. Franklin Blake or to me.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

We know, for instance, that minerals and the elemental substances can be thus arranged.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

[inquire into a topic] examine, study, consider, calculate; dip into, dive into, delve into, go deep into; make sure of, probe, sound, fathom; probe to the bottom, probe to the quick; scrutinize, analyze, anatomize, dissect, parse, resolve, sift, winnow; view in all its phases, try in all its phases; thresh out.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

Optimum est ad maniam et omnes melancholicos affactus, tum intra assumptum, tum extra, secus capiti cum linteolis in eo madefactis tepide admotutm.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Ever since the perpetration of his awful crime this city and the entire surrounding country has been in a wild frenzy of excitement.
— from The Red Record Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

The Tuesday Morning Squib and the Evening Sunrise contained alluring advertisements of the event sure to puncture an epoch in my life.
— from On a Donkey's Hurricane Deck A Tempestous Voyage of Four Thousand and Ninety-Six Miles Across the American Continent on a Burro, in 340 Days and 2 Hours, Starting Without a Dollar and Earning My Way by R. Pitcher (Robert Pitcher) Woodward

The Terror had scarcely emerged from the canyon, when the lights suddenly went out, the machinery ceased to work, and the electric stage came to an abrupt pause.
— from Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; or, Leagued Against the James Boys by Luis Senarens

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid ,'That every slave committing such offence, or any other crime or misdemeanor, shall forthwith be committed by any justice of the peace, to the common jail of the county within which the said offence shall be committed, there to be safely kept; and that the sheriff of such county, upon such commitment, shall forthwith certify the same to any Justice in the commission for the said court for the time being, resident in the county, who is thereupon required and directed to issue a summons for two or more Justices of the said court, and four freeholders, such as shall have slaves in the said county, which said three Justices and four freeholders, owners of slaves, are hereby impowered and required upon oath, to try all manner of crimes and offences, that shall be committed by any slave or slaves, at the court house of the county, and to take for evidence, the confession of the offender, the oath of one or more credible witnesses, or such testimony of negroes, mulattoes or Indians, bond or free, with pregnant circumstances, as to them shall seem convincing, without the solemnity of a jury; and the offender being then found guilty, to pass such judgment upon such offender, according to their discretion, as the nature of the crime or offence shall require; and on such judgment, to award execution.
— from History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams

Concerning the question you have asked as to whether in elections for Spiritual Assemblies the electors should cast exactly nine votes, or may cast less than this number.
— from The Unfolding Destiny of the British Bahá'í Community : the Messages from the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith to the Bahá'ís of the British Isles by Effendi Shoghi

They were angry with him for postponing completion of these works, and keeping them out of their money, and he was naturally and reasonably indignant at the excessive sum charged for paper and printing.
— from The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol 1 and 2 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge