He had to be deferential when Mr. Vincy decided questions with trenchant ignorance, especially as to those liquors which were the best inward pickle, preserving you from the effects of bad air.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal decrees.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

Drink: it will put some spirit in you before I perhaps put you to a good deal of pain.”
— from !Tention: A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War by George Manville Fenn

And to-morrow, at this time, you'll be in Paris; perhaps you'll be looking out at the lights--and the crowds on the Boulevard--and the chestnut-trees.
— from Lady Rose's Daughter by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

If a man's puttin' his heart an' soul, an' blood, an' beef-steak, an' bones into paintin' picters, you can talk farmin' to him all day, an' he's dumb; but jest show him 'at you see what he's a-drivin' at in his work, an' he'll love you like a brother.
— from The Song of the Cardinal by Gene Stratton-Porter

“If you were having a political argument, and any one asked you whether you believed in tariff reform, and you glared at him and said, I believe in Pontius Pilate,' you'd be professing Christianity, but showing yourself an idiot.”
— from Stella Maris by William John Locke

228 The Norse legend in the younger Edda is, “Bör’s sons (Odin, Vilj, and Ve) slew the giant Ymir; and when he fell, so much blood (in poetic phraseology Ymir’s blood signified water) ran out of the wounds, that the whole race of the giants 115 was drowned in it, except one, who with his family escaped; this one was called Bergelmr.
— from Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets And Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

"As my business is private, perhaps you will be good enough to follow me to your study.
— from The Yellow Face by Fred M. (Fred Merrick) White