Pensez doncques à cel qu'a dit uns de ses Apostres: Nolite esse prudentes apud vosmet ipsos ; et uns autres: Quoniam multi pseudo-prophetae exierint ; et uns autres: Quod benient in nobissimis diebus illusores … dicentes, Ubi est promissio?
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

A fit of the gout produces a long train of passions, as grief, hope, fear; but is not derived immediately from any affection or idea.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

More than once, after I was very tired, I gave up taking her alive, and was going to shoot her, but I never did it, although it was my right, for I did not believe I could hit her; and besides, she always stopped and posed, when I raised the gun, and this made me suspicious that she knew about me and my marksmanship, and so I did not care to expose myself to remarks.
— from The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories by Mark Twain

"Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it."
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

And like a quiver'd Nymph with Arrows keen May trace huge Forests, and unharbour'd Heaths, Infamous Hills, and sandy perilous wildes, Where through the sacred rayes of Chastity, No savage fierce, Bandite, or mountaneer Will dare to soyl her Virgin purity, Yea there, where very desolation dwels By grots, and caverns shag'd with horrid shades, She may pass on with unblench't majesty, 430 Be it not don in pride, or in presumption.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

" "I know all about it, sure, but I never did it.
— from The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum

Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so far that she almost managed her into her coffin.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

"Look here, Mother," said Georgy, "here's a G.O. scratched on the glass with a diamond, I never saw it before, I never did it."
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Nor, be it noted, does it count the $20,000,000 we [ 600 ] paid Spain for the Islands, which item, is, however included in another part of Mr. Slayden’s speech.
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

And here I must confess breach of a vowe in appearance, but I not desiring it, but against my will, and my oathe being to go neither at my own charge nor at another’s, as I had done by becoming liable to give them another, as I am to Sir W. Pen and Mr. Creed; but here I neither know which of them paid for me, nor, if I did, am I obliged ever to return the like, or did it by desire or with any willingness.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Coarse, common, weedy, it doubtless is; but it never droops in the heat, and its blue shines through the smother like azure through the mists of the sky.
— from The Lay of the Land by Dallas Lore Sharp

When it has shrunk to a certain size (say three-fifths, if to be double covered), it is laid flat on the plank , and the first coat of beaver , as it comes from the bow , is laid quite over it; the brush is now dipped into the hot liquor, the contents of which is sprinkled all over the beaver , directly afterwards it is gently patted down with the hot brush; here the body is put into a hair-cloth , rolled in hot liquor, turned inside out, rolled again until the beaver , is completely worked into the body; when this is effected, it is in a fit state to receive the second covering, which is put on as the first, the working , turning , patting , and rolling still continuing until it is reduced to a fit dimension, the beaver quite clean , and all together assuming a closely felted , fine, solid piece of workmanship; after which it is immediately blocked in this same liquor, to the size wanted, and put into a stove to dry, from whence it is taken, and with a small fine card the beaver is gently raised; without this, one half would lie buried, and the beauty lost.-Here then is the complete PROCESS OF HAT-MAKING .
— from Lloyd's Treatise on Hats, with Twenty-Four Engravings Containing Novel Delineations of His Various Shapes, Shewing the Manner in Which They Should Be Worn... by Robert Lloyd

Looking over it now, when I was grown old, I thought so still, but I now detected in it what from want of knowledge I had not detected in my early years, what the highest genius, had it been manifested in every page, could not have compensated for—base, fulsome adulation of
— from Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery by George Borrow

I wouldn't know that—that's her—I don't know because I never did interfere with the people that come in there to do business with her
— from Warren Commission (11 of 26): Hearings Vol. XI (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

But I ne durste in no manere, Bicause the archer was so nere.
— from Chaucer's Works, Volume 1 (of 7) — Romaunt of the Rose; Minor Poems by Geoffrey Chaucer

Mr. Wakefield adds, however, for the satisfaction of the picturesque tourist, that although it is a general complaint that the views of Killarney have been destroyed by those sweeping falls of timber, yet he only acknowledges them to be "injured, no doubt, in some small degree; but the views here are still almost unrivalled, particularly in regard to that species of beauty which arises from mountain scenery of the most magnificent kind, and which the hand of man has not the power to alter.
— from The Scientific Tourist through Ireland in which the traveller is directed to the principal objects of antiquity, art, science & the picturesque by Thomas Walford

We passed through many villages on our way, but in none did I see more hideous misery than at Sarinet.
— from The Little Old Portrait by Mrs. Molesworth

"Whatever else he may lack, your brigand is not deficient in courage, and it must be remembered that the troops sent against these men have never succeeded in finding a trace of their spoils."
— from Princess Maritza by Percy James Brebner

I remember to have heard Dr. Priestley say, that if all England would candidly examine themselves, and confess, they would find that Unitarianism was really the religion of all: and I observe a bill is now depending in parliament for the relief of Anti-Trinitarians.
— from Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4 by Thomas Jefferson

In moist, rich land, the shrub rears a high head, and looks as if it were trying to become a tree; but it never does it.
— from Palmetto-Leaves by Harriet Beecher Stowe