Plutarch says that at an Egyptian feast a skull was displayed, either as a hint to make the most of the pleasure which can be enjoyed but for a brief space, or as a warning not to set one's heart upon transitory things.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.
— from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

The cause whereof, was the immoderate esteem, and prices set upon the workmanship of them, which made the owners (though converted, from worshipping them as they had done Religiously for Daemons) to retain them still in their houses, upon pretence of doing it in the honor of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, and of the Apostles, and other the Pastors of the Primitive Church; as being easie, by giving them new names, to make that an Image of the Virgin Mary, and of her Sonne our Saviour, which before perhaps was called the Image of Venus, and Cupid; and so of a Jupiter to make a Barnabas, and of Mercury a Paul, and the like.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

If that fail, the child is to be extracted by incision, as in the case of a dead foetus.
— from Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times by John Stewart Milne

As soon as these materials are studied from the point of view of their similarities rather than from the point of view of their historical connections, problems arise which can only be explained by the more abstract sciences of psychology or sociology.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

The true meaning of this part of the ceremony has been explained by W. Mannhardt.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Cy , JC , N , O'F , P , TC , Chambers 26 upmost 1633 and most MSS: utmost 1635-69 , O'F , Chambers brow; Ed: brow: 1633-39: brow.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

How could I ever have know happiness again!' 'If that had been the case, Harry,' said Mrs. Maylie, 'I fear your happiness would have been effectually blighted, and that your arrival here, a day sooner or a day later, would have been of very, very little import.' '
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

I should then have no need to fear that the torch of my love will be eclipsed by that immense illumination.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo Edited with a Biography of Juliette Drouet by Louis Guimbaud

Speaking colloquially, the Toomeys were “ga'nted considerably,” and in their usual state of semistarvation, but were in no immediate danger of freezing, owing to the fact that Toomey had succeeded in exchanging a mounted deer head for four tons of local coal mined from a “surface blossom,” which was being exploited by the Grit as one of the country’s resources.
— from The Fighting Shepherdess by Caroline Lockhart

Many other angels have indeed been employed by the Mediator as the ministers of his providence; but this one seems to have been the principal all along.
— from Notes on the Apocalypse by David Steele

As the latter had received a majority of fifteen electoral votes over Mr. Adams, it was confidently anticipated, nay, virtually demanded, that he should be elected by the House of Representatives.
— from Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams Sixth President of the Unied States With the Eulogy Delivered Before the Legislature of New York by William Henry Seward

His twenty ships are wafted on some of their many courses by every breeze that blows, and his name, I will venture to say, though I know it not, is a familiar sound among the far-separated merchants of Europe and the Indies.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

But now her steps, as though exhausted by emotion, began to linger on the way; she leaned the more heavily upon his arm; and he, like the parent bird, stooped fondly above his drooping convoy.
— from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson

“Many of us will not investigate this subject because they are afraid: afraid not so much of being, as being thought to be, especially by the other sex, incorrect, indelicate, unfeminine; of being supposed to know more than they ought to know, or than the present refinement of society—a good and beautiful thing when real—concludes that they do know.
— from The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the World by William W. Sanger

“I will never forget you,” she said, touched beyond expression by the pathos of his speech; “you must not think such thoughts; you will yet live to smile at them.”
— from The Crimson Sign A Narrative of the Adventures of Mr. Gervase Orme, Sometime Lieutenant in Mountjoy's Regiment of Foot by S. R. (Samuel Robert) Keightley

They may be sometimes caught off the southwest part of Devonshire, and are occasionally to be met with near the southernmost coast of Ireland; but beyond these two points they are never seen on any other portion of the shores of Great Britain, either before they approach Cornwall, or after they have left it.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II. by Various

—Many opinions on the origin of the Eskimo have been expressed by different authors.
— from Anthropological Survey in Alaska by Aleš Hrdlička

It being Ramazan, we easily found the Indian cook of the house, and asked for some boiled eggs, but not till four did we get some very nasty fried ones and tea, and then lay down on the floor anyhow, to fight with mosquitoes and fleas, our baggage and beds being still on board; regular quarantine measures were carried out as regards bugs when it came.
— from Southern Arabia by Bent, Theodore, Mrs.