[ bēost ] byt I. = bit pres.
— from A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary For the Use of Students by J. R. Clark (John R. Clark) Hall

The halt can ride on horseback, the one-handed drive cattle; the deaf fight and be useful: to be blind is better than to be burnt [18] no one gets good from a corpse.
— from The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson by Snorri Sturluson

And speaking aloud, he continued—“Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants’ hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought in before ‘the quality,’ to tell them their fortunes.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

2 [B46; b4] be inhibited by a feeling of fear and respect.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face: a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form: it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

What this word means will be best illustrated by examples.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

Things could not have been brought into being by God in any manner or in any order different from that which has in fact obtained.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

In the first place because Bologna is better than many other places, and besides I flatter myself you thought of me.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

My present state proceeds from fortune’s stings; By birth I boast of a descent from kings; Hence may you see from what a noble height
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

This fellow was an Indian, a young man, slender, well built, but insignificant beside the Black Murray.
— from South from Hudson Bay: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys by Ethel C. (Ethel Claire) Brill

To him the earth is habitable only because they are there; the sun gives light and is warm because it shines upon them; the air is soft and balmy because it blows upon their skin and ruffles the soft hair on their temples; and the moon is charming because it makes them dream and imparts a languorous charm to love.
— from Original Short Stories — Volume 06 by Guy de Maupassant

2 [A23; b6] for rain to be blown in by the wind.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

As they became more capable of philosophic speculation the Egyptians modified their definition of the soul, and, by a necessary consequence, of the manner in which its persistence after death must be understood, and as always happens in such a case, these successive conceptions are super-imposed one upon another; the last comer did not dethrone its predecessor but became inextricably blended with it in the popular imagination.
— from A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Charles Chipiez

Put these one over the other and cut them in small strips that are to be browned in butter
— from The Italian Cook Book The Art of Eating Well; Practical Recipes of the Italian Cuisine, Pastries, Sweets, Frozen Delicacies, and Syrups by Maria Gentile

None among them was so shocking as an old woman, a clipper of the coin of the realm, whose daughter was by her side, with her infant in her arms, which infant had been born in Bridewell; the grandfather was already transported with several branches of his family, as being coiners.
— from Elizabeth Fry by Emma Raymond Pitman

Their bodies were cut down and headed, the heads carried to London Bridge and the bodies buried in Barkin church.”
— from The Tower of London by Arthur Poyser

The greater the number of molecules disseminated— i.e. the stronger the solution—the more clearly defined will those properties become which depend upon the composition of the dissolved substance and its relation to the molecules of the solvent, for the distribution of one kind of molecules in the sphere of attraction of others cannot but be influenced by their mutual chemical reaction.
— from The Principles of Chemistry, Volume I by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev

'You're always blowing bladders into balloons!
— from My Lords of Strogue, Vol. 3 (of 3) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Lewis Wingfield

Then that afternoon, some time, somehow, she got a message or letter, and then, [Pg 149] kissing him and saying she would be better in bed, had gone to her room, but not to sleep.
— from Lanier of the Cavalry; or, A Week's Arrest by Charles King