Not a shadow of proof could have been adduced in any earthly court that he was guilty of the slightest of those sins which were thus made to stare him in the face.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

One must give up one’s own life and merge oneself into this luxuriant steppe, boundless and indifferent as eternity, with its flowers, its ancient barrows, and its distant horizon, and then it would be well with one. . . .
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

When she put the egg-shells with water on the fire, the imp said, "I am as old now as the Wester forest, but never yet have I seen any one boil anything in an egg-shell!"
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

With men he was bored and ill at ease, cold and unable to talk, but when he was with women, he felt easy and knew what to talk about, and how to behave, and even when he was silent with them he felt quite comfortable.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing.
— from Intentions by Oscar Wilde

"Is this the way back?" asked I at every bridge-way; "This the entrance?" asked I at every portal.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

On the very first evening after our arrival, Mr. Barkis appeared in an exceedingly vacant and awkward condition, and with a bundle of oranges tied up in a handkerchief.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The doctor opened the seals with great care, and there fell out the map of an island, with latitude and longitude, soundings, names of hills and bays and inlets, and every particular that would be needed to bring a ship to a safe anchorage upon its shores.
— from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

For there ought to be no bye-work interfering with the greater work of providing the necessary exercise and nourishment for the body, and instruction and education for the soul.
— from Laws by Plato

If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.—My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

In which case, "all the fat would be in the fire," nothing would be proved, and the parties would be as ignorant as ever regarding the facts in their case.
— from Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living Some Things That All Sane People Ought to Know About Sex Nature and Sex Functioning; Its Place in the Economy of Life, Its Proper Training and Righteous Exercise by H. W. (Harland William) Long

"Foremost in a brawl, and in all else the least of the Greeks! Come, let us lay a wager, and Agamemnon shall hold the stakes; or art thou afraid to back thy saucy tongue?" Ajax started up in a rage, hurling abuse at the Cretan veteran, and words would have soon led to blows, had not Achilles interposed his authority to put an end to the quarrel.
— from Stories from the Iliad by H. L. (Herbert Lord) Havell

As the Franks became French, as the Long Beards became Italians, so the Germans become Americans in America, English in England, Austrian and Bohemian in Austria and Bohemia.
— from Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View by Price Collier

He spoke, too, of the British army in an equal style of praise, and was joined by his officers in doing so.
— from Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V. by Walter Scott

Victor Emmanuel, in fact, had no hesitation in putting to death the Spanish general Borges and his Neapolitan comrades, who were arrested whilst bearing arms in an endeavor to deliver the kingdom of Naples, and restore its former king, Francis II.
— from Pius IX. And His Time by Æneas MacDonell Dawson

He unrolled the new scheme as openly and as freely as though he were a world's philanthropist explaining a new benefaction and I an enthusiastic minister employed to carry the glad tidings to the people.
— from Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated by Thomas William Lawson

The pay of the soldiers ought, in common justice, to be advanced in an equal degree with that of the other persons employed in the service of the State.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 1 (of 16) by United States. Congress

It may be questioned whether this was the wisest course, but wisdom is often disconcerted by an indignity, and even a meek Christian may forget to turn the other cheek after receiving the first blow until the natural man has asserted himself by a retort in kind.
— from PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete by John Lothrop Motley

In the published letters to George Selwyn we get a mass of correspondence by no means so brilliant and witty as Walpole's, or so bitter and bright as Hervey's, but as interesting, and even more descriptive of the time, because the letters are the work of many hands.
— from Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by William Makepeace Thackeray

For on the night of the opera, after Elizabeth had gone to her bedroom, Edward had lingered for a talk, and he had been as inanimate as Elizabeth had been vivid, as grey as she had been rainbowed.
— from Arundel by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson