a thing that is kindly, and that men and women should not wed but once, and whoso weddeth oftener than once, their children be bastards and gotten in sin.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

Why the idea must occur to most people, they sin with their eyes open; like people who are urged hard to toss off big bumpers, and grunt and groan and make wry faces, but at last do as they are told. § xviii.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

Then prayed they unto God the Creator, in falling down before him, and strengthening their faith towards him, and glorifying him for his boundless bounty; and, giving thanks unto him for the time that was past, they recommended themselves to his divine clemency for the future.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

The natives have a set of nautical expressions to describe the various operations of changing mast, of trimming the sail, of paying out the sheet rope, of shifting the sail, so that it stands up with its bottom end high, and its tip touching the canoe, or else letting it lie with both boom and gaff almost horizontal.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

Her sense of hearing, made unnaturally acute by excitement, told her that it was a man's footstep—told even more, that it was the tread of a gentleman, no slouching, lumbering pedestrian in hobnailed boots, but a gentleman who walked firmly and well.
— from Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

The endless disputes whether or not some fifty species of British brambles are good species will cease.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

As Queen Kauśalyá, trembling much, As blighted by a goblin's touch, Still lying prostrate, half awoke To consciousness, 'twas thus she spoke: “Bear me away, Sumantra, far, Where Ráma, Sítá, Lakshmaṇ are.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

He flung his arms round the beautiful being, and gazed into her wonderfully clear eyes,—only for a moment; but in that moment words cannot express the effect of his gaze.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

So I pray with all my heart that my grandmother may be born a grandmother again, and not through some cursed fate take birth as her luckless grandson.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

Myriads of brown-and-orange grasshoppers, beetles black and green and blue and red, with here and there a sleek grub, here [136] and there a furry caterpillar, began to climb the long, stiff grass-stalks.
— from Neighbors Unknown by Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir

But a structure of this sort is the simplest and most easily reared on Dartmoor, where lime is not found, and has to be brought at great expense from a distance.
— from A Book of Dartmoor Second Edition by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

"Ere that time passes, I shall be but a giggling maniac."
— from Marjorie's New Friend by Carolyn Wells

No fyshe or fowle touched he when t’was dearly Bought, But a Green taile or herrings a score for a groate.
— from Gleanings in Graveyards: A Collection of Curious Epitaphs by Horatio Edward Norfolk

Once upon a time, long, long ago, when, as a young woman, she had gone about peddling beads, she had seen a bird, such a splendid bird, big and green and beautiful, with a red turban, and that could talk.
— from The Battle with the Slum by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

It is a matter that concerns the whole Church of Scotland and seminary of the ministry thereof, and cannot be done but by a General Assembly.
— from Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Third Edition) by Samuel Rutherford

His father had been lord of the whole region between Blomidon and Grand Pré; but the English occupation had deprived him of all open and formal lordship, for the de Briart sword was notably conspicuous on the side of New France.
— from The Forge in the Forest Being the Narrative of the Acadian Ranger, Jean de Mer, Seigneur de Briart; and How He Crossed the Black Abbé; and of His Adventures in a Strange Fellowship by Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir

Bobbie, alone with the angel, and allowed to seat himself at the end of the harmonium, behaved with a preciseness and a decorum that in any other lad would have been held by Bobbie as good justification for punching that boy’s head.
— from A Son of the State by W. Pett (William Pett) Ridge

She was at Fort Washington, her husband was slain, she took his place at a gun, loading, priming, and firing with good effect, till she was wounded in the breast by a grape shot.
— from Female Warriors, Vol. 2 (of 2) Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era. by Ellen C. (Ellen Creathorne) Clayton

Every spring he laid in a dozen dozen of thin stockings, a bale of cheap handkerchiefs, a gross of black buttons, a gross of white, a little stationery, and a few other small commodities.
— from Who Ate the Pink Sweetmeat? And Other Christmas Stories by Kate Upson Clark