"I can easily believe it," Conseil said.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

He made the announcement as if the name alone would explain both his visit and its manner, but I could see, by my companion’s unresponsive face, that it meant no more to him than to me.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

But I cannot stop longer.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

“No, I haven't yet, but I certainly shall.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased, I heard one of them cry aloud, Tolgo phonac ; when, in an instant, I felt above an hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and, besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

But I cannot see how the two supposed "impulses" account in a scientific sense for the numerous and beautiful coadaptations which we see throughout nature; I cannot see that we thus gain any insight how, for instance, a woodpecker has become adapted to its peculiar habits of life.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

He paid not the slightest attention to me, but as he came abreast I recognized him, and turning I placed my hand upon his shoulder, calling out: "Kaor, Kantos Kan!" Like lightning he wheeled and before I could so much as lower my hand the point of his long-sword was at my breast.
— from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it, and was about to caution you, but, before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe

But, as we could devise nothing else, on my pressing her a little on the subject she admitted that before I came she had made up her mind to accept him if he proposed, but that she was afraid to do so now for two reasons: first, she feared he might discover on his first attack that someone had had access before him to the sanctuary of love, and secondly, from the dread that in the event of a child coming before the usual time he might denounce her and turn her adrift.
— from Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover by Anonymous

It was only a passing impression, but I could swear that he carried a small gold or yellow metal-handled dagger, and I believe that it was set with gems, but to this I should not like to swear."
— from The Lion of Saint Mark: A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

But I certainly should not have finished this history of our adventures nearly so expeditiously had not Rayburn and Young taken a very lively interest in it, and pressed me constantly to bring it to an end.
— from The Aztec Treasure-House by Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone) Janvier

I really believe I could set up as a teacher now without being indicted for taking money under false pretenses.
— from Otherwise Phyllis by Meredith Nicholson

Though the best night yet for steady atmosphere I saw but little more and have come to the conclusion that it will take months of continuous observation before I can see anything.
— from Mars and Its Mystery by Edward Sylvester Morse

“And the best I can say for him is that he’s good enough for her,” the girl retorted promptly.
— from Crooked Trails and Straight by William MacLeod Raine

Many, of course, and various would be the reflections which occupied the minds of the different individuals composing the two armies; but I can speak from experience, that those are of a much more pleasing nature which a consciousness of superiority and a good prospect of success inspires, than those which a retreating army are compelled to entertain.
— from Twenty-Five Years in the Rifle Brigade by William Surtees

“Because I can stand it, and to hear you defend me, perhaps.—But it was for you that I bought this dress, Mees-ter Deek.
— from Slaves of Freedom by Coningsby Dawson

I hated to have to hurt some of them but I could see I would have to or be taken myself, and perhaps strung up to ornament a telegraph pole.
— from The Life and Adventures of Nat Love Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" by Nat Love

They leave on the mind a pleasing sense of wonder and novelty: in youth they seem to have a natural affinity to one class of persons as poetry has to another; but in later life either we drift back into common sense, or we make them the starting-points of a higher philosophy.
— from Theaetetus by Plato