A vizio di lussuria fu si` rotta, che libito fe' licito in sua legge, per torre il biasmo in che era condotta. Ell'e` Semiramis, di cui si legge che succedette a Nino e fu sua sposa: tenne la terra che 'l Soldan corregge.
— from Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Apart from the agony of having to talk in this fashion of one who, except when he was looping back rings and causing me to plunge into swimming baths in correct evening costume, had always been a very dear and esteemed crony, I didn't seem to be getting anywhere.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

I have been rather reckless, but I could easily come out of that.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

I can’t offer to draw fine distinctions, and I’m just speaking of my own plain way of trade; but I call English classics such works as the ‘Spectator,’ ‘Tatler,’ ‘Guardian,’ ‘Adventurer,’ ‘Rambler,’ ‘Rasselas,’ ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ ‘Peregrine Pickle,’ ‘Tom Jones,’ ‘Goldsmith’s
— from London Labour and the London Poor (Vol. 1 of 4) by Henry Mayhew

Before I could even call out to you, the door slammed on me, the shades flopped down, the car started up—the next thing I knew this here nurse was sticking a spoon in my mouth, a-saying: 'Take this—it's fine for what ails you!'
— from The Voice on the Wire by Eustace Hale Ball

In the case of a bison, a wild boar, or of a large and powerful village buffalo, Mr. Sanderson admits that the seizure is by the nape of the neck, and that no doubt is the rule with the forest tigers, such as those that have been killed near my estate, and which have lived mostly upon game, but I can easily conceive that tigers that have lived on village cattle would attack in a different way.
— from Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore With chapters on coffee planting in Coorg, the Mysore representative assembly, the Indian congress, caste and the Indian silver question, being the 38 years' experiences of a Mysore planter by Robert H. (Robert Henry) Elliot

Unfortunately I have to make the extraordinary confession that I never tasted an oyster in my life, and as I am touching upon gastronomy, I may also mention that I never touch cheese, or hare, or rabbit, or eel, and I would have to be in the last stage of starvation before I could eat cold lamb or cold veal; so it will be seen by these confessions that my cook's berth is not a sinecure, and that these complimentary dinners, as dinners, are to a great extent wasted upon me.
— from The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 2 by Harry Furniss

They have penetrated and perforated the whole peninsula of Florida; they have gone through the Serbonian bogs of that peninsula; they have gone where the white man's foot never before was seen to tread; and where no Indian believed it could ever come.
— from Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2) or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850 by Thomas Hart Benton

They think it intolerable that every proposal, wish, or motion should have first to be examined, revised, and mutilated or changed at their pleasure by two Commissions, before it can even come on for discussion.
— from Letters From Rome on the Council by Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger

It is not probable that the tip when buried in compact earth can actually circumnutate and thus aid its downward passage, but the circumnutating movement will facilitate the tip entering any lateral
— from The Power of Movement in Plants by Darwin, Francis, Sir

There are only eight residents of this city at the present time whose names appear on the tax list of fifty years ago; the only ones we can remember are the following: James Bird, Isaac Carroll, E. Coulter, C. Fordyce, Jos. Perigo, David Lighty, P. F. Randall, and Wesley Stephens.
— from History of Linn County Iowa From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time [1911] by Luther Albertus Brewer

I tried to warn you, but it was all over before I could even cough."
— from Elizabeth, Her Folks by Barbara Kay