[207] From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment."
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Each shall swear the oath most binding in his country over full-grown victims: the oath being as follows: "I STAND BY THE ALLIANCE AND ITS ARTICLES, JUSTLY, INNOCENTLY, AND SINCERELY, AND I WILL NOT TRANSGRESS THE SAME IN ANY WAY OR MEANS WHATSOEVER.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Whether these are not only logical possibilities but actual facts is something not yet dogmatically decided in the text.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

So far, the ordinary observer; an extraordinary observer might have seen that the chin was very pointed and pronounced; that the big eyes were full of spirit and vivacity; that the mouth was sweet-lipped and expressive; that the forehead was broad and full; in short, our discerning extraordinary observer might have concluded that no commonplace soul inhabited the body of this stray woman-child of whom shy Matthew Cuthbert was so ludicrously afraid.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

The poem is modeled after two foreign satires: Boileau's Le Lutrin (reading desk), a satire on the French clergy, who raised a huge quarrel over the location of a lectern; and La Secchia Rapita (stolen bucket), a famous Italian satire on the petty causes of the endless Italian wars.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

Elsewhere a corner seemed to be reserved for the commoner kinds of lily; of a neat pink or white like rocket-flowers, washed clean like porcelain, with housewifely care; while, a little farther again, were others, pressed close together in a floating garden-bed, as though pansies had flown out of a garden like butterflies and were hovering with blue and burnished wings over the transparent shadowiness of this watery border; this skiey border also, for it set beneath the flowers a soil of a colour more precious, more moving than their own; and both in the afternoon, when it sparkled beneath the lilies in the kaleidoscope of a happiness silent, restless, and alert, and towards evening, when it was filled like a distant heaven with the roseate dreams of the setting sun, incessantly changing and ever remaining in harmony, about the more permanent colour of the flowers themselves, with the utmost profundity, evanescence, and mystery—with a quiet suggestion of infinity; afternoon or evening, it seemed to have set them flowering in the heart of the sky.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

It was as clear as possible that she was ready to be attached to Will and to be pliant to his suggestions: they had never had a tete-a-tete without her bringing away from it some new troublesome impression, and the last interview that Mr. Casaubon was aware of (Dorothea, on returning from Freshitt Hall, had for the first time been silent about having seen Will) had led to a scene which roused an angrier feeling against them both than he had ever known before.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

[7] He does call it, once or twice, a "Physiology of Love," and elsewhere a " livre d'idéologie ," but apologises for its singular form at the same time.
— from On Love by Stendhal

I remember, however, that I swallowed with difficulty the remainder of the tea that was in my cup, and ate nothing; and that the first thing I did was to stare at Arthur Graham, who sat beside his mother on the opposite side of the table, and the second to stare at Mr. Lawrence, who sat below; and, first, it struck me that there was a likeness; but, on further contemplation, I concluded it was only in imagination.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

" For a time the Knight said not a word, but a slow red arose into his cheeks; at last he looked Robin in the face and said, "I know not why I should be ashamed, for it should be no shame to me; but, friend, I tell thee the truth, when I say that in my purse are ten shillings, and that that is every groat that Sir Richard of the Lea hath in all the wide world.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

Yet here he has been a member of the legislature and is beginning to be a figure in state politics,—at least the one to whom the governor and all the fellows write when they want information about this county.
— from A Certain Rich Man by William Allen White

120 The shoon ye coft, the life ye lead, Ithers will heir when aince ye’re deid; They’ll heir your tasteless bite o’ breid, An’ find it sappy; They’ll to your dulefü’ house succeed, An’ there be happy.
— from The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 14 by Robert Louis Stevenson

Twice called and thrice Antonius lingered still: but Caesar thought To reap in full the favour of the gods, Not sit supine; and knowing danger yields To whom heaven favours, he upon the waves Feared by Antonius' fleets, in shallow boat Embarked, and daring sought the further shore.
— from Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars by Lucan

It were endless to recite what I myself have seen, and what I have received acknowledgments of by Letter, not only from the severall parts of this Nation, but also from Ireland, Scotland, Jersey, Garnsey.
— from The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes: An Index of the Project Gutenberg Editions by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The President called on me before breakfast, and first introduced some other matter, then fell on the representation bill, which he had now in his possession for the tenth day I had before given him my opinion in writing, that the method of apportionment was contrary to the constitution.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 9 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson

They answered, "We can do nothing; we have cut it open to the bone, and find it so affected that we consider his leg incurable, and that amputation is absolutely necessary in order to save his life.
— from History of the Prophet Joseph, by His Mother by Lucy Smith

I began with the Bismillah and finished in somewhat more than nine hours, after which I kissed the earth before my gracious Lord, and received from him a sable pelisse, a thorough bred horse, two fine boys, and a sinecure; so that I now spent all my time both day and night in pleasure.
— from Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. II by Evliya Çelebi

These blessed days are waning all too fast, And June's bright visions mingling with the past; Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets; The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites; The dandelion, which you sang of old, Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold, But still displays its feathery-mantled globe, Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe.
— from The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Volume 10: Before the Curfew by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Therefore were I a mad fool if, being a fool, I should not hold myself a fool.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais