‘I’m not clear about that; but I dare say she will do her best to make them comfortable in body and mind, in accordance with our mother’s example.’
— from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

“But I dare say you mean it all right.
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

Home at noon to dinner, and then to my office again, where I could not hold my eyes open for an houre, but I drowsed (so little sensible I apprehend my soul is of the necessity of minding business), but I anon wakened and minded my business, and did a great deale with very great pleasure, and so home at night to supper and to bed, mightily pleased with myself for the business that I have done, and convinced that if I would but keepe constantly to do the same I might have leisure enough and yet do all my business, and by the grace of God
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

He [the Duke] said little more to us now, his head being full of other business; but I do see that he do continue to put a value upon my advice; and so Mr. Wren and I to his chamber, and there talked: and he seems to hope that these people, the Duke of Buckingham and Arlington, will run themselves off of their legs; they being forced to be always putting the King upon one idle thing or other, against the easiness of his nature, which he will never be able to bear, nor they to keep him to, and so will lose themselves.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Now, I knew that it was not you who had brought it down, so there only remained your niece and the maids.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

“I cannot charge my memory exactly,” cries Dowling, “but I believe I did speak to that purpose.”—“And
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

I cannot help fancying in my ignorance that he wrote off boldly just what came into his head, but I dare say that you would recognize a rhetorical necessity in the succession of the several parts of the composition? PHAEDRUS:
— from Phaedrus by Plato

But I dare say it will never be so here.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

"But I do say so, and I will say so, and I have reason on my side.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

I fear a thing more terrible than death: The glamour of the battle grips us yet— As crowds before a fire that hold their breath Watching the burning houses, and forget All they will lose, but marvel to behold Its dazzling strength, the glamour of its gold.
— from Poems by Iris Tree

“Upon my soul, I believe I do, sir.”
— from The City of Pleasure: A Fantasia on Modern Themes by Arnold Bennett

But I dare say he will live here when he’s married.
— from The Last of the De Mullins: A Play Without a Preface by St. John Hankin

"No, I don't believe I do," she said, "for since Mr. D—— has been Bishop, things come easier.
— from Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart

The steed did fall and though Carson threw the lariat from him, he was caught by it, dragged some distance and severely injured.
— from The Life of Kit Carson: Hunter, Trapper, Guide, Indian Agent and Colonel U.S.A. by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Otherwise YOU might have bought it, dear sir.”
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

As society grows complex also and its various elements become increasingly differentiated, so will the ideals pass through the same transformations.
— from Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic by Sidney Lewis Gulick