It follows therefore, that the general rule, that possession must be stable, is not applied by particular judgments, but by other general rules, which must extend to the whole society, and be inflexible either by spite or favour.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

Thought may be imperfectly expressed by signs made with the head, the hands, etc.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

Behind it lay a few desolate fields, and then the brown heath-clad summit of the hill; before it (enclosed by stone walls, and entered by an iron gate, with large balls of grey granite—similar to those which decorated the roof and gables—surmounting the gate-posts) was a garden,—once stocked with such hard plants and flowers as could best brook the soil and climate, and such trees and shrubs as could best endure the gardener’s torturing shears, and most readily assume the shapes he chose to give them,—now, having been left so many years untilled and untrimmed, abandoned to the weeds and the grass, to the frost and the wind, the rain and the drought, it presented a very singular appearance indeed.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

I have found some man or other who has been in every battle since the war began, and have talk'd with them about each one in every part of the United States, and many of the engagements on the rivers and harbors too.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo's face; but it ended by setting like granite.
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

Two of Pecunia’s attendants in The Staple of News are Statute and Band (i. e. Bond, see U. 34).
— from The Devil is an Ass by Ben Jonson

But, writing as a Historian, he has identified himself (perhaps too closely) with the views generally adopted by Flatland, and (as he has been informed) even by Spaceland, Historians; in whose pages (until very recent times) the destinies of Women and of the masses of mankind have seldom been deemed worthy of mention and never of careful consideration.
— from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) by Edwin Abbott Abbott

They are sumtimes kept az pets, but if enny boddy should pet me with a monkey, i should send him right back bi the same person who brought him, marked with Baldwin The Clothiers trademark,—C. O. D. KONNEKTIKUT BLEW LAWS.
— from Josh Billings' Farmer's Allminax, 1870-1879 by Josh Billings

Henry invaded France in 1415 with a fleet of 1,400 vessels, which had been raised by impressing every British ship of 20 tons and upwards.
— from Ancient and Modern Ships, Part 1: Wooden Sailing Ships by Holmes, George Charles Vincent, Sir

Could you take me away?" A struggle passed for a moment over McMurdo's face; but it ended by setting like granite.
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

Astonishment makes people break into exclamations; but Sally it always struck speechless.
— from Self-Raised; Or, From the Depths by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

And if your market has them, the thin sliced boneless roaster breast is even better, since you don't have to pound or flatten the individual pieces.
— from The Perdue Chicken Cookbook by Mitzi Perdue