The Greek gods, to be sure, always continued to have genealogies, and the fact of having been born is a bad augury for immortality; but other religions, and finally the Greek philosophers themselves, conceived unbegotten gods, in whom the human rebellion against mutability was expressed absolutely.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

In puer the e belongs to the base, but in ager (base agr- )
— from Latin for Beginners by Benjamin L. (Benjamin Leonard) D'Ooge

“It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud, 1141 Bud, and be blasted in a breathing while; The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Artillery is very useful when it can be brought into action, but it is a very burdensome luxury where it cannot be used.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

exclaimed both boys, in a breath.
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

And all came with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed symbols of their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes, trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys, dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives, soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches, forceps, stags’ horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

His coat swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and his pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that to see the chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, but actually a joy so sweet as to be painful.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

I could wish to persuade you to show this courage; but if this cannot be, at all events lose not a moment in preparing generally for the war; and remember all of you that contempt for an assailant is best shown by bravery in action, but that for the present the best course is to accept the preparations which fear inspires as giving the surest promise of safety, and to act as if the danger was real.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

We would have beans, cooked in a big kettle in the back yard, cabbage and potatoes, with corn pone bread, baked in a big oven In the yard and plenty of good buttermilk to drink.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Kentucky Narratives by United States. Work Projects Administration

In the same breath it was proposed that these be brought into a beautiful and a practical group.
— from The Personality of American Cities by Edward Hungerford

"Not by speeches and votes of the majority," he said in 1862, "are the great questions of the time decided,—that was the error of 1848 and 1849,— but by iron and blood ."
— from The Duel Between France and Germany by Charles Sumner

She seemed to be buried in a book; but her first letter was already with a messenger, on the way to the city.
— from A Sister's Love: A Novel by W. Heimburg

It has been a brisk, breezy day, as thou knowest—an effervescent atmosphere; and I have enjoyed it in all its freshness, breathing air which had not been breathed in advance by the hundred thousand pairs of lungs which have common and indivisible property in the atmosphere of this great city.—My breath had never belonged to anybody but me.
— from Love Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Volume 1 (of 2) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

If a spring become broken, if a bit of the wheel work be injured, or if a grain of sand insinuate itself between two of the parts, the watch stops, and the children say rightly: 'The little animal is dead.'
— from The Man With The Broken Ear by Edmond About

The intellectual influences of university life brought forth Gerson, D’Ailly and the other whole-hearted reformers who made the great effort at revival of the Church from within which failed at Constance and Basel; but it also brought forth Wycliffe and Hus, whom those Councils condemned.
— from Mediæval Heresy & the Inquisition by Arthur Stanley Turberville

She lolled in her chair and glared angrily at a small black boy in a blue twill tunic and short blue knickers above his knees, who was laying a cloth on one end of the table.
— from Poppy: The Story of a South African Girl by Cynthia Stockley

Click to ENLARGE Early on the following morning he observed that he was specially regarded by a shabby-looking man, dressed in black, but in a black suit that was very old, with a red nose, whom he had seen in the hotel on the preceding day; and he learned that this man was a cousin of the landlord,—one Dan Stringer,—who acted as a clerk in the hotel bar.
— from The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

"I received him," he said, "not to save an ass, but because I am bored and it just suited me.
— from Whirlpools: A Novel of Modern Poland by Henryk Sienkiewicz