An old wearisome business seemed to them all discourse about virtue; and he who wished to sleep well spake of “good” and “bad” ere retiring to rest.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

He then observed, that he had practised with some applause at the hot well near Bristol, before he thought he should be ever reduced to the necessity of taking a fee, and that, in all probability, his metamorphosis, when known, would furnish matter of surprise and merriment to some of his old acquaintance.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

If he could only get rid of this superstition about honor—the idea, I mean, that it disappears when you are insulted, and can be restored by returning the insult; if we could only stop people from thinking that wrong, brutality and insolence can be legalized by expressing readiness to give satisfaction, that is, to fight in defence of it, we should all soon come to the general opinion that insult and depreciation are like a battle in which the loser wins; and that, as Vincenzo Monti says, abuse resembles a church-procession, because it always returns to the point from which it set out.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer

The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise rather than by study: the talents of a commander are appropriated to those calm, though rapid, minds, which nature produces to decide the fate of armies and nations: the former is the habit of a life, the latter the glance of a moment; and the battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

When, however, I look over the hints and memorandums I have taken down for the purpose, my heart almost fails me, at finding how my idle humor has led me astray from the great object studied by every regular traveller who would make a book.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

If we are very much attracted by sensible appearances, there will be the more difficulty in recalling things that agree only in the use; if, on the other hand, we are profoundly sensitive to the one point of practical efficiency as a tool, the peculiarities not essential to this will be little noticed, and we shall be ever ready to revive past objects corresponding in use to some one present, although diverse in all other circumstances.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

With enough money, endowed by nature with a pleasing and commanding physical appearance, a confirmed gambler, a true spendthrift, a great talker, very far from modest, intrepid, always running after pretty women, supplanting my rivals, and acknowledging no good company but that which ministered to my enjoyment, I was certain to be disliked; but, ever ready to expose myself to any danger, and to take the responsibility of all my actions, I thought I had a right to do anything I pleased, for I always broke down abruptly every obstacle I found in my way.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

6 Yet his real merit would be enhanced, rather than debased, by the elevation of a peasant to the throne of Asia; nor can his lameness be a theme of reproach, unless he had the weakness to blush at a natural, or perhaps an honorable, infirmity.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

This is the only portion of this story that has been previously published, and it has been entirely recast to adapt it to the narrative form.
— from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Our Critique must have fully convinced the reader that, although metaphysics cannot form the foundation of religion, it must always be one of its most important bulwarks, and that human reason, which naturally pursues a dialectical course, cannot do without this science, which checks its tendencies towards dialectic and, by elevating reason to a scientific and clear self-knowledge, prevents the ravages which a lawless speculative reason would infallibly commit in the sphere of morals as well as in that of religion.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

The preamble of the royal reply to this application acknowledges the attention of the police to the matter with much satisfaction; admits prostitution ( hurenanstalten ) to be “a necessary evil in a great city where many men are not in a position to marry, although of an age when the sexual instincts are at the highest, in order thereby to avoid greater disorders which are not to be restrained by any law or authority, and which take their rise from an inextinguishable natural impulse;” but expressly reiterates that it is “only to be tolerated ( zu dulden );” and that it can not, “without impropriety and consequences injurious to morality, be established by the public laws, which do not contain any sanction whatever to common prostitution.”
— from The History of Prostitution: Its Extent, Causes, and Effects throughout the World by William W. Sanger

To both stupidity was even more antipathetic than wickedness, because each realized that nearly all cruelty and vice have their germ in ignorance and stupidity rather than in innate rascality.
— from The Temptation of St. Anthony by Gustave Flaubert

Artemisia's figure had lost some of its girlish grace, but her blue eyes retained their clearness and her cheeks the delicate flush of her youth.
— from The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great by Robert H. (Robert Higginson) Fuller

If the understanding, as thus insisting upon Ideal satisfaction, be entitled Reason, the Ideas must be taken as expressing a subjective interest, and as exhausting their legitimate employment in the regulation of the understanding.
— from A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' by Norman Kemp Smith

All the inhabitants of the little fishing village lent their aid--men as well as women and children--for the vintage was looked upon as a holiday; and Simon was regarded as a good friend by his neighbors, being ever ready to aid them when there was need, judging any disputes which arose between them, and lending them money without interest if misfortune came upon their boats or nets, or if illness befell them; while the women, in times of sickness or trouble, went naturally to Martha with their griefs, and were assured of sympathy, good advice, and any drugs or dainty food suited to the case.
— from For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

Obedient to the example of the prophet, most of the practitioners of the mode chose to be episodic rather than epic in their undertakings; the history of local color belongs primarily to the historian of the short story.
— from Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) by Carl Van Doren

These are both emotional rather than instinctive.
— from The Psychology of Nations A Contribution to the Philosophy of History by G. E. (George Everett) Partridge

You may be entirely right theoretically.
— from The Awakening of Spring: A Tragedy of Childhood by Frank Wedekind