The earth is not an accursed place, and the Erdgeist may well find its home among the ideals; but Wagner is [Pg 80] neither big enough nor clean enough to be man's guide.
— from Among Famous Books by John Kelman

Cowbirds must indeed be sharp nest-finders to be able to discover at short notice not only the nests of certain suitable kinds of birds, but even nests containing eggs at a certain stage of incubation!
— from Bird-Lore, March-April 1916 by Various

But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash that experience from her mind or her body.
— from Bodyguard by H. L. (Horace Leonard) Gold

What was I, anyway, but a broken man—a man whose father, my sole remaining relative, had nearly twenty years before told me with savage contempt that I had neither brains, energy, nor courage enough to make my way in the world, thrown me a cheque for a hundred pounds, and sneeringly told me to get it cashed at once, else he might repent of having given it to me to squander among the loose people with whom I so constantly associated.
— from The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton 1902 by Louis Becke

Few politicians can really afford to despise either this conspicuously foolish attempt to overcome a difficulty by shutting one's eyes to it, or the more plausible proposal of the Northern Democrats to continue temporising with a movement for slavery in which they were neither bold enough nor corrupted enough to join.
— from Abraham Lincoln by Charnwood, Godfrey Rathbone Benson, Baron

He say: no break eggs, no can eat omelette.
— from East of Suez: A Play in Seven Scenes by W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham

The girl was become seven years old, when she was lost during a walk through the town, and in spite of all the means that have been employed, nobody could ever find out what became of her.
— from The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg by Thomas De Quincey