Villain, I say, knock me at this gate; And rap me well, or I’ll knock your knave’s pate.
— from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

After he had taken this on the first shout and contest, more of the enemy being slain in their tents than at the gates and rampart, he ordered the captive standards to be collected into one place, and having left behind two legions as a guard and protection, after giving them strict order that they should abstain from the booty, until he himself should return; having set out with his troops in regular order, the cavalry who had been sent on driving the dispersed Samnites as it were by hunting toils, he committed great slaughter among them.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

My friend himself appeared in his best apparel at the gate, and received us with open arms, telling me he had been expecting us these two hours.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Yet a thoughtful survey of conditions is so careful, and the guessing at results so controlled, that we have a right to mark off the reflective experience from the grosser trial and error forms of action.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey

Kausa pa gánì nákù masul-ub narán dáyun, I only wore the stockings once and they got a run right away.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

Instead of taking away a flower, I added one, in the shape of another book from my bag, which I left, to surprise my aunt, among the geraniums and roses.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Now if an absolute monarch, with all these great and rare qualifications, should be allowed capable of conferring the greatest good on society; it must be surely granted, on the contrary, that absolute power, vested in the hands of one who is deficient in them all, is likely to be attended with no less a degree of evil.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

What of that? SOCRATES: All the great arts require discussion and high speculation about the truths of nature; hence come loftiness of thought and completeness of execution.
— from Phaedrus by Plato

“Not to-day; I should not be able to give any reason for the change.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

‘ Proximi denotes the Romans on the right wing, who were the first to be attacked; the Gauls after routing them pressed on to the rear of the Romans and attacked the centre and left wing ( ultimi ) from behind.’—Whibley.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce

The Rothschilds are the greatest and richest bankers in the world.
— from The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 36, July 15, 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls by Various

And yet their moral knowledge, always there grumbling and rumbling in the background,—discerning, commenting, protesting, longing, half resolving,—never wholly resolves, never gets its voice out of the minor into the major key, or its speech out of the subjunctive into the imperative mood, never breaks the spell, never takes the helm into its hands.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2) by William James

Even sand-hills, with their intricate plan, and their gulls and rabbits, will stand well for the necessary desert.
— from The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 16 by Robert Louis Stevenson

Repudiation, as among the Greeks and Romans, was no longer permitted; the new religion enforced the unity and indissolubility of marriage; it became a sacrament, dispensed at the altar, where woman had formerly been a victim, but was now become an idol.
— from The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3, June, 1851 by Various

When he rose in the morning, early as usual, the youth set his teeth at the recollection, and with an attempt to give a reason for this instinctive enmity, fiercely hoped that Lord Winterbourne would try to take from his father his little inheritance.
— from The Athelings; or, the Three Gifts. Vol. 1/3 by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

It will not be amiss to give, as recorded from time to time in his own words, the impression which the fugitive and impassioned Queen made on Sir Francis during the short time she was under his care.
— from Mary Queen of Scots in History by C. A. Campbell

“You will not be able to get another ring in Deerbrook.
— from Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau

It is improbable that, at the start, you will be able to get a rhythm-structure strong enough to affect them very much, though you may fall a victim to all sorts of false stopping due to line ends and caesurae.
— from Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Volume 01 October-March, 1912-13 by Various

Even among the Greeks and Romans we see traces of them in the double trumpet and the double pipe.
— from Critical and Historical Essays Lectures delivered at Columbia University by Edward MacDowell