“To believe in things that you cannot.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

How you can have borne it this two years I can't imagine.'
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

" "No," replied he, with sudden consciousness, "not to find it in YOU; for I cannot be ignorant that to you, to your goodness, I owe it all.—I feel it—I would express it if I could—but, as you well know, I am no orator.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

But in the twentieth year after this, when he was very old, he sent for those of the greatest dignity in the several cities, with those in authority, and the senate, and as many of the common people as could be present; and when they were come, he put them in mind of all the benefits God had bestowed on them, which could not but be a great many, since from a low estate they were advanced to so great a degree of glory and plenty; and exhorted them to take notice of the intentions of God, which had been so gracious towards them; and told them that the Deity would continue their friend by nothing else but their piety; and that it was proper for him, now that he was about to depart out of this life, to leave such an admonition to them; and he desired that they would keep in memory this his exhortation to them.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

"You think that I was to blame?" "I think that you acted on impulse, without much consideration for Miss Colwyn's future.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

Then men will walk across the road when they meet you—or, worse still, hold you out a couple of fingers and patronize you in a pitying way—then you will know, as soon as your back is turned, that your friend begins with a "Poor devil, what imprudences he has committed, what chances that chap has thrown away!"
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

"Nora," she said, "I told you of our trouble, because I thought that you would help me to bear it; but you are making things worse instead of better."
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

"But I thought that you were such friends..." He had been intimate in this way for several months with some cousins of my grandmother, dining almost every evening at their house.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

But I trust that you see sufficiently that the Absolute has nothing but its superhumanness in common with the theistic God.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James

I did not protest, first, because I dislike scandal, and, second, because I thought that your predecessors, MM. Debienne and Poligny, who were always charming to me, had neglected, before leaving, to mention my little fads to you.
— from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

1 At its arrival all this camp received great happiness at learning that that route, which had been so greatly desired by the emperor our sovereign (who is in glory), by your Majesty, and by all your vassals and subjects, had been discovered and so easily—and desired so very rightly, since besides the fruit that will be attained in the preaching of the holy gospel (the chief design of your Majesty and of your Catholic ancestors) your Majesty will be greatly benefited in the temporal, your royal crown greatly increased, your subjects and vassals profited, and finally there will be a gateway opened for the Spanish nation to have a place where it may employ its strength.
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 34 of 55, 1519-1522; 1280-1605 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

Miss Quintilian said she would tell me how he went, if I promised not to mention it to her pa:—she had seen him with her own eyes, riding away over the church, astride on a broomstick.—Now, sir," added Gingham, bowing to Mr Belvidere, "I trust that you will favour us.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849 by Various

“We’ll battle it through together, you and I.
— from The Messenger of the Black Prince by Thomas A. H. Mawhinney

Beg pardon, captain," said he, turning to John Paul, "but I think 'twas your peacock coat that saved you both, for it caught Horry's eye through the window, as you got out of the chaise, and down he came as fast as he could hobble.
— from Richard Carvel — Volume 05 by Winston Churchill

I never should have touched you, but I thought that you were a child.’
— from Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

"I remember the 'romance' in the newspapers; but I thought the young fellow was poor.
— from Yellowstone Nights by Herbert Quick

But the young man listened to the persuasions of the tempter and agreed to remain with him all night, and the old man made up a fire and began to tell stories as they sat beside it till the youth fell asleep.
— from Myths of the Iroquois. (1883 N 02 / 1880-1881 (pages 47-116)) by Erminnie A. (Erminnie Adele) Smith

But if they thought you spoke to me as you have, I should never see you again.”
— from A Double Knot by George Manville Fenn

But in the twenty years of missionary work what has been accomplished?
— from The Mormon Puzzle, and How to Solve It by R. W. Beers

The whole plant seldom exceeds a yard high, and its stem, at the biggest in the third year, does not much exceed the size of a man's thumb.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08 by Robert Kerr