Gibbon, it may be fearlessly asserted, is rarely chargeable even with the suppression of any material fact, which bears upon individual character; he may, with apparently invidious hostility, enhance the errors and crimes, and disparage the virtues of certain persons; yet, in general, he leaves us the materials for forming a fairer judgment; and if he is not exempt from his own prejudices, perhaps we might write passions , yet it must be candidly acknowledged, that his philosophical bigotry is not more unjust than the theological partialities of those ecclesiastical writers who were before in undisputed possession of this province of history.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The cause of things, therefore, which makes but is not made, is God; but all other causes both make and are made.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Many will not believe but that our island of Great Britain is now more populous than ever it was; yet let them read Bede, Leland and others, they shall find it most flourished in the Saxon Heptarchy, and in the Conqueror's time was far better inhabited, than at this present.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

So judged he Man, both Judge and Saviour sent; And the instant stroke of death, denounced that day, Removed far off; then, pitying how they stood Before him naked to the air, that now Must suffer change, disdained not to begin Thenceforth the form of servant to assume; As when he washed his servants feet; so now, As father of his family, he clad Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or slain, Or as the snake with youthful coat repaid; And thought not much to clothe his enemies; Nor he their outward only with the skins Of beasts, but inward nakedness, much more.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

K. stood where he was and watched them through the open double doorway, the last to go, of course, was the apathetic Rabensteiner who had broken into no more than an elegant trot.
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka

To my mind the failure to put our heads together and work up that lecture grows every day a greater blunder, if nothing more.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

To the second, concerning their being Incorporeall, I have not yet observed any place of Scripture, from whence it can be gathered, that any man was ever possessed with any other Corporeal Spirit, but that of his owne, by which his body is naturally moved.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

But if no man in Nottingham dare win fourscore angels, I will send elsewhere, for there should be men of mettle somewhere in this land.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

When we see only gracefulness and suppleness in the living body, it is because we disregard in it the elements of weight, of resistance, and, in a word, of matter; we forget its materiality and think only of its vitality, a vitality which we regard as derived from the very principle of intellectual and moral life, Let us suppose, however, that our attention is drawn to this material side of the body; that, so far from sharing in the lightness and subtlety of the principle with which it is animated, the body is no more in our eyes than a heavy and cumbersome vesture, a kind of irksome ballast which holds down to earth a soul eager to rise aloft.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

" Bishop Butler, on the other hand, blames the book in no measured terms.
— from Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims by François duc de La Rochefoucauld

Yet having regard to the following facts (1) that the aforesaid baron is not merely unstable in love affairs but capricious to the verge of eccentricity, and a winebibber and gourmand to boot; (2) that he is as vain as an Indian prince who takes unto him a wife for the mere pomp and show of the thing; (3) that he is violent and brutal, sparing nobody in his sudden fits of passion and, as the documents testify, has frequently inflicted mortal injuries on those who have come in his way while he was in an ill-humour; (4) that he has an odd liking for rowdy adventures, which do not reflect much credit upon him; and (5) that, according to the whispers of those nearest to him there is a strange mystery pervading his whole life, inasmuch as mysterious disappearances, which nobody can make head or tail of, occupy an incalculable number of his days and weeks which remain unaccounted for, and make a pretty considerable hiatus in every year of his life—taking all these things into consideration, I am constrained to give it as my opinion that I do not consider such a man a fit and proper husband for such a tender, sympathetic young lady as the Miss Henrietta in question, and let the world if it likes consider such a match as the greatest piece of good fortune imaginable, I, for my part, would nevertheless call it a calamity to be avoided at any price.
— from The Poor Plutocrats by Mór Jókai

That day we had a quite shocking dining-car, so bad that I hereby publish its name, which was ‘Sandringham,’ in the hope that the Cuisinal Director of the C.P.R, whoever he may be, will have taken care to reform that car before I next meet with it.
— from With Sack and Stock in Alaska by Horatio George Broke

There is not a king of Ireland, described as such in the ancient annals, whose barrow is not mentioned in these or other compositions, and every one of which may at the present day be identified where the ignorant plebeian or the ignorant patrician has not destroyed them.
— from Early Bardic Literature, Ireland. by Standish O'Grady

Conduct is necessary, knowledge is necessary, beauty is necessary, manners are necessary, and a civilized people must develop life in all these directions, and as far as such a thing is possible, harmoniously.
— from Education and the Higher Life by John Lancaster Spalding

But when privilege, property, life, delight, heaven, and salvation, comes to be intruded, no marvel if the woman, though but a woman, cries out, and set her light against them; had she seen the thief, and said nothing, she had been far worse.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Volume 03 by John Bunyan

THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN NEW MEXICO; Or, The End of the Silver Trail.
— from The Motor Boat Club at Nantucket; or, The Mystery of the Dunstan Heir by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock

What discommoditie riseth by loosing the intercourse and exchange of our commodities (being in necessaries more aboundant than France) the Scots féele, and we perfectlie know.
— from Holinshed Chronicles: England, Scotland, and Ireland. Volume 1, Complete by William Harrison

This plant is a small perennial shrub, and not a true herbaceous perennial; but we think that every child will wish to have at least one Lavender bush, if not more, in the garden.
— from The Children's Book of Gardening by Mrs. Paynter