I have not been a criminal, it is true, but I don’t think I am capable of crime—I am not afraid of being hauled up for it.”
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The Thoughts of the ancient Poets on this agreeable Phrenzy, are translated in honour of some modern Beauty; and Chloris is won to Day, by the same Compliment that was made to Lesbia a thousand Years ago.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

And Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour, whether this knowledge, this thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might not also perhaps be a childish idea of the thinking people, of the thinking and childlike people.
— from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

If my expedition had no other results it would still have been noteworthy, but a curious incident occurred to me while there which opened up an entirely fresh line of inquiry.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

Patissot became very bold and continued: “It is a great honor for me to speak to you to-day.”
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

I protest it would be almost charity in me to go home for your sake.”
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

But now the cot is bare and cauld, Its leafy bield for ever gane, And scarce a stinted birk is left To shiver in the blast its lane.”
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

"It's only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it very fine!"
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

It might have been worse, but Amy considered it bad.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

When Carlstadt, expelled from Saxony, came to Strassburg, he sought to interest the preachers there, Bucer and Capito, in himself and his sacramental view.
— from Church History, Volume 2 (of 3) by J. H. (Johann Heinrich) Kurtz

Feeling my way in the darkness along the boat's side, I reached her stern, where I was sheltered, and searched my saturated pockets to see if by any chance I had a box of matches, so that I could light my boat's lantern and have a look round the shed.
— from The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton 1902 by Louis Becke

If the resolute attitude of a prisoner betrayed a combatant, if his face was unpleasant, without asking for his name, his profession, without entering any note upon any register, he was classed .
— from History of the Commune of 1871 by Lissagaray

"Nothing," I began; and changed it.
— from The La Chance Mine Mystery by Susan Morrow Jones

"But a crow isn't always a crow," said Jim softly, paraphrasing Don Juan as he stirred the seeds.
— from Take Me for a Ride: Coming of Age in a Destructive Cult by Mark E. Laxer

Personality, in becoming a conscious ideal, becomes a common ideal.
— from What I Saw in America by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

" "Aw dooant pretend to say'at it is, for awm noa judge, but it happen is gin," an' he supt agean to mak reight sewer, an' then he handed me th' bottle an' sed, "tha can call it what tha likes but aw call it whisky—taste for thisen.
— from Seets i' Paris Sammywell Grimes's trip with his old chum Billy Baccus, his opinion o' th' French, and th' French opinion o' th' exhibition he made ov hissen by John Hartley

His store of nuts may or may not be all consumed; it is certain that he is no sluggard, to sleep away these first bright warm days.
— from Riverby by John Burroughs

A person who lands on the shore of a small island, that is desart and uncultivated, is deemed its possessor from the very first moment, and acquires the property of the whole; because the object is there bounded and circumscribed in the fancy, and at the same time is proportioned to the new possessor.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

And then, full of yourself, not thinking of Elizabeth, but to withdraw in the chivalrous attitude of the man true to his word to the old woman, only stickling to bring a certain independence to the common stock, because—I quote you!
— from Complete Short Works of George Meredith by George Meredith