I hope I shall be less a fool: I have talked as harshly to my heart, as Lady Davers can do; and the naughty thing suggests to me a better, and more grateful behaviour.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

A man who is good for anything ought to be able, when he thinks, to distinguish them; and different persons should compete with one another in asking questions, which will be a far better and more graceful way of passing their time than the old man's game of draughts.
— from Laws by Plato

Natalie is a good girl and does not cry, and she will be big and Mrs. Graves is making short dresses for her.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

Pictures of this kind are not properly to be classed as historical: for, as a rule, they represent no event, no action; but are merely groups of [pg 301] saints, with the Saviour himself, often still a child, with His mother, angels, &c.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

"Yes, yes," answered the mouse, "by all means go, and if you get anything very good, think of me, I should like a drop of sweet red christening wine too."
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

From this spot we had previously seen the same personage, after one of his re-elections, borne aloft in triumph, on a kind of pyramidal car, and wearing round his neck and across his breast a massive gold chain and medal (both made of molten sovereigns), the gift of his admirers and constituents: in the procession, at the same time, was a printing-press, working as it was conveyed along in a low sleigh, and throwing off handbills, which were tossed, right and left, to the accompanying crowd in the street.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

Oh, he was the kindest, best, and most generous of men!
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

A griffin in the ordinary way is merely so termed, but a male griffin by some curious reasoning has no wings, but is adorned with spikes showing at some number of points on its body (Fig. 423).
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

Ay, if a woman live to be a man. GRATIANO.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

In my opinion there is no reason why their god should not be a mighty god, even though he does not happen to have wise prophets or interpreters.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 2 by Emperor of Rome Julian

You will see in Delhi, Agra, and Benares, as many good Catholics, adorers of the Virgin Mary, as you now do idolaters, adoring the devil.
— from A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 07 by Voltaire

They who prayed whole days and sacrificed, that their children might survive them ( ut superstites essent ), were called superstitious, which word became afterward more general; but they who diligently perused, and, as we may say, read or practised over again, all the duties relating to the worship of the Gods, were called religiosi —religious, from relegendo —“reading over again, or practising;” as elegantes , elegant, ex eligendo , “from choosing, making a good choice;” diligentes , diligent, ex diligendo , “from attending on what we love;” intelligentes , intelligent, from understanding—for the signification is derived in the same manner.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

There had been, as Mr. George Moore subsequently wrote, "the case of an unfortunate foreign prince, who was dragged into court on a charge of abduction or seduction, or both; when the matter came to be sifted it was found that he was absolutely and wholly innocent.
— from Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

Few occupations insure to successful ladies such good pay as stage-playing; but, as in the previous instances, “on the spear side,” so now we must consider the case of girls of ordinary intelligence, well brought up, not by any means geniuses, with no particular talent, and who have to earn their living.
— from Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, March 1885 by Various

To choose the best, among many good, is one of the most hazardous attempts of criticism.
— from Lives of the English Poets : Waller, Milton, Cowley by Samuel Johnson

Oh, my darling, I do love you, I do love you so much, and you must be always my generous, poetic boy , as you are now."
— from The Claim Jumpers: A Romance by Stewart Edward White

It'll be a mighty good joke to tell your cronies at mess tomorrow how the Yankee schweinhund thought he had you and then got nabbed himself.
— from Army Boys on the Firing Line; or, Holding Back the German Drive by Homer Randall

All her friends of the family of Guise, would be removed from office, and she herself would become a mere guest and stranger in the land of which she had been the queen.
— from Mary Queen of Scots Makers of History by Jacob Abbott

There was no heredity; the man had been a moderately good scholar.
— from Shell-Shock and Other Neuropsychiatric Problems Presented in Five Hundred and Eighty-nine Case Histories from the War Literature, 1914-1918 by Elmer Ernest Southard