It's the one thing life has capriciously refused me, perhaps because I never desired it intensely enough.
— from The Road to Damascus, a Trilogy by August Strindberg

But I never did it; I kept them to myself."
— from Tommy and Grizel by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

The ballot is not democracy: it is merely the symbol or ritual of democracy, and it may be full of passionate social, yes, even religious significance, or it may be a mere empty and dangerous formalism.
— from The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue by Various

"I know that you went into that saloon without anybody sending for you; that Ben Watson was asleep there on the table—or had his head pillowed on his arms as if he was asleep, but he was in reality wide-awake; that you began talking about the crew of the Smart; that you made up a scheme for kidnapping Bob—" "I never did it in this world!"
— from A Sailor in Spite of Himself by Harry Castlemon

"Those qualities of bodies that can neither be increased nor diminished in intensity, and which are found to belong to all bodies within reach of our experiments are to be regarded as qualities of all bodies whatever.
— from Studies in Logical Theory by John Dewey

He claims that genius takes many different forms, but is not different in itself.
— from The Girl from Keller's by Harold Bindloss

The district in which the practice of employing apprentices is most in use, is South Staffordshire; it was formerly common in Shropshire, but is now discontinued; it is still common in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the West of Scotland; in all the other districts, it appears to be unknown.
— from The White Slaves of England by John C. Cobden

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

This was the easiest condition, in its own nature, that could be imagined; no difficulty in it but what proceeds from the pride of man’s nature, and the obstinacy of his will.
— from The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2 by Stephen Charnock

The matter sounds simple but is nevertheless difficult in its consequences.
— from Naturalism and Religion by Rudolf Otto