Being exists, and nothing else does; whereby every relation and variation in experience is reduced to a negligible illusion, and reason loses its function at the moment of asserting its absolute authority.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

During the brilliant eighteenth and nineteenth Egyptian dynasties, Draco was a great god; but when this constellation lost its place in the heavens, and Thuban ceased to be the guiding sidereal Divinity, it shared the fate of all the fallen gods.
— from The Woman's Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

There must be an end of all exchanges when the things to be exchanged are not equally desired by both parties.
— from Knowledge is Power: A View of the Productive Forces of Modern Society and the Results of Labor, Capital and Skill. by Charles Knight

But even in momentary effect, declaimers of memorized words have been surpassed by extemporizers, as numerous examples demonstrate; while in power of thought and lasting influence the superiority of the latter is so great as to make comparison almost impossible.
— from Extempore Speech: How to Acquire and Practice It by William Pittenger