But if any one would know summarily what a Pandora's Box lies there for the opening, he may see it in what by its nature is the symptom of all symptoms, the surviving Literature of the Period.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

The rhyme of plaid with maid and betrayed is not imperfect, the Scottish pronunciation of plaid being like our played.
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott

They have left their mark upon our language in the form of more than one proverb, but in none is this so patent as “the skeleton at the feast.”
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

If by strong hand you offer to break in Now in the stirring passage of the day, A vulgar comment will be made of it,
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

And Mephistopheles, besides, is not, in the strict sense, a character.
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley

The soul, by God's ordinance, while this world lasts, has a time appointed it to forsake and leave the body to be turned again to the dust as it was, and this separation is made by death, (Heb 9:27); therefore the body must cease for a time to have sense, or life, or motion; and a little thing brings it now into this state; but in the next world, the wicked shall partake of none of this; for the body and the soul being at the resurrection rejoined, this death, that once did rend them asunder, is for ever overcome and extinct; so that these two which lived in sin must for ever be yoked together in hell.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Volume 01 by John Bunyan

Surely the barrenness is not in the season; sure the fault is in the tree; however, I will spare it this year also, but will give it a second mark; and it may be he toucheth it with a hot iron, because he begins to be angry.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Volume 03 by John Bunyan

I believe it not irreverent to say that the very subject upon which she first addressed them was chosen for her, all unconsciously to herself, by that Ever-present Spirit, to whom nothing that an immortal soul can say, appears trivial, because he sees the waves of influence which are stirred years ahead by the quiet words.
— from Ruth Erskine's Crosses by Pansy

If by strong hand you offer to break in Now in the stirring passage of the day, 100 A vulgar comment will be made of it, And that supposed by the common rout Against your yet ungalled estimation, That may with foul intrusion enter in, And dwell upon your grave when you are dead; 105 For slander lives upon succession, For ever housed where it gets possession.
— from The Comedy of Errors The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] by William Shakespeare

This may be quite true, but if nationality, in the sense of being a product of biological heredity, is ruled out, it does not follow that nationality is thereby destroyed.
— from A Grammar of Freethought by Chapman Cohen

Thorir had been in Norway in the summer in which Olaf came East from England, and had won great favour with the king as well as with Bishop Sigurd.
— from The Saga of Grettir the Strong: Grettir's Saga by Unknown

The book is not intended to supersede guide-books, but to prepare the mind to use these latter with discretion.
— from A Book of the West. Volume 1: Devon Being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

Uncle Thomas, I heard to-day of a swallow which for many years returned to the same window, and built its nest in the same corner.
— from Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits by Thomas Bingley

With a soft, rustling sound the light craft parted the low hanging branches of killikinick and diamond willow, and buried its nose in the soft mud.
— from The Promise A Tale of the Great Northwest by James B. (James Beardsley) Hendryx

It is equally certain that a dog too fat, as well as one all skin and bone, is not in this state.
— from The Dog by W. N. (William Nelson) Hutchinson