That is best for every one, that the common nature of all doth send unto every one, and then is it best, when she doth send it.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

In all things, saving only in those that are evil, a change is to be feared; even the change of seasons, winds, viands, and humours.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

On the afternoon of that memorable day of the sixteenth Miss Halcombe roused her sister to a last exertion of courage, and without a living soul to wish them well at parting, the two took their way into the world alone, and turned their backs for ever on Limmeridge House.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

This day, I hear, hath been a conference between the two Houses about the Bill for examining Accounts, wherein the House of Lords their proceedings in petitioning the King for doing it by Commission is, in great heat, voted by the Commons, after the conference, unparliamentary.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

“When I myself left the company, followed by reverent applause, I went limping down the dark street, hoping that I should soon be far enough away to be able to walk like a human being.
— from The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was arrested the same evening; but the stone could not be found either upon his person or in his rooms.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

For himself, during the greater part of his life, the poet had only grief and remorse as his portion; but for everybody else, for the audiences that were charmed by the brilliancy of his literary lectures, for the friends who gathered about him to be inspired by his ideals and conversation, and for all his readers who found unending delight in the little volume which holds his poetry, he had and still has a cheering message, full of beauty and hope and inspiration.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

Two days later, the following foreign news item was received and published: “It is said that the plans of the new sub-marine ‘Seven-of-Hearts’ were prepared by French engineers, who, having sought, in vain, the support of their compatriots, subsequently entered into negotiations with the British Admiralty, without success.”
— from The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc

Definite forms of exchange along definite trade routes are to be found established between the various tribes.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

His pallid bloated face expressed benevolent malice and, as he had advanced through his tidings of success, his small fat-encircled eyes vanished out of sight and his weak wheezing voice out of hearing.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

His biographer says, that the preface to his "Irish Reports" vies with Coke for solidity and Blackstone for elegance.
— from Old and New London, Volume I A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places by Walter Thornbury

He has created a world which is fully his own, a feeling and a pathos not to be found elsewhere, which are the very soul of his time.
— from Auguste Rodin: The Man - His Ideas - His Works by Camille Mauclair

The materials which it had to work upon was chiefly those which Ito had brought back from Europe, and which he had been maturing ever since his return.
— from A Fantasy of Far Japan; Or, Summer Dream Dialogues by Kencho Suematsu

In order that the gallantry exhibited by Her Majesty's troops, and the difficulties they had to meet, may be fairly estimated, I deem it right, even at the risk of being considered tedious, to endeavour to make your Grace acquainted with the position the Russians had taken up.
— from The British Expedition to the Crimea by Russell, William Howard, Sir

Fortunately for the German actor, he had been far enough away when the tree came down, so that only the top part of it, consisting of little branches and leaves, fell on him.
— from The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays by Laura Lee Hope

He had stood unknowing, he had walked and worked where it was buried, and the fact itself, the fact of his fortune, would have been a barren fact enough if the first sharp tender shoot had never struggled into day.
— from The Golden Bowl — Volume 1 by Henry James

The object of the cruise was the capture of a fleet of one hundred merchantmen known to have sailed from Jamaica sometime before for England, under convoy of some ships-of-war.
— from The Boys of 1812 and Other Naval Heroes by James Russell Soley

According to Savary, much lace without ground, "dentelle sans fond," a guipure of large flowers united by "brides," was fabricated in all the towns of Brabant for especial exportation to the Spanish Indies, where the "Gothic" taste continued in favour up to a very late period.
— from History of Lace by Palliser, Bury, Mrs.

31 He discards the physical and cosmical analogies, which Plato borrows from Empedokles and Herakleitus, as too remote and inapplicable: he considers that the question must be determined by facts and principles relating to human dispositions and conduct.
— from Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 2 by George Grote

* "Brook Farm existed six or seven years, when the society broke up and the farm was sold, and all parties came out with a loss; some had spent on it the accumulations of years.
— from History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes