A very moderate bill was presented to us for our board, lodging and coolie hire, which we paid, and we offered payment also for the extras in the shape of beer, champagne and fish, but could not induce the officials to accept it.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

They say that the best dog will turn cross if he be kept chained all the time, and it was the same with the man; he had not a thing to do all day but lie and curse his fate, and the time came when he wanted to curse everything.
— from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Napoleon might fall; but, like a cat, he would fall upon his feet.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

That guide is M. Pfeffel, the author of the best legal and constitutional history that I know of any country, (Nouvel Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire et du Droit public Allemagne; Paris, 1776, 2 vols.
— 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

[Pg 50] Assuming, then, that every social group may be presumed to have its own ( a ) administrative, ( b ) legislative, and ( c ) human-nature problems, these problems may be still further classified with reference to the type of social group.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

He behaves like a cad himself, and just look at him, please.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

May not their way of proceeding, my friend, be compared to the conduct of a person who is afflicted with the worst of diseases and yet contrives not to pay the penalty to the physician for his sins against his constitution, and will not be cured, because, like a child, he is afraid of the pain of being burned or cut:—Is not that a parallel case? POLUS:
— from Gorgias by Plato

At Poona in India, when rain is needed, the boys dress up one of their number in nothing but leaves and call him King of Rain.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

And hence, since he had passed through so many parties, he had long been called Cock-on-the-Steeple, because like a cock he turned his standard with the wind.
— from Pan Tadeusz Or, the Last Foray in Lithuania; a Story of Life Among Polish Gentlefolk in the Years 1811 and 1812 by Adam Mickiewicz

The yeoman breed that served his honour best, And mixed with these his knights of noble blood; But in the place of pride His admirals in billowy lines abreast Convoyed him close like galleons on the flood.
— from Poems: New and Old by Newbolt, Henry John, Sir

A picturesque group they made, as they passed along the sandy ways and treeless stretches of hard sun-baked soil; Afzul leading the pony, the boy laughing and clapping his hands at the novelty, the old soldier's white beard showing whiter than ever against the child's dark curls, Fâtma and Haiyât standing outside, recklessly unveiled, to shriek parting blessings and injunctions.
— from Miss Stuart's Legacy by Flora Annie Webster Steel

If then, as I have asserted, there is so little to be gained by leaving a comfortable home, what is the inducement which takes so many people abroad to settle there?
— from Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat

Yesterday he was in sympathy with the Blue Laws and could have understood a God who frowned if a man were to kiss his wife of a Sabbath.
— from The Little Moment of Happiness by Clarence Budington Kelland

When winter came, however, with Sitting Bull and the Uncapapas thrust beyond the British line, and Crazy Horse, raving, done to death by the steel of the guard he so magnificently defied, with Red Cloud disarmed and deposed, with Dull Knife disabled, with Lame Deer doubled up by the sturdy Fifth Infantry, and old Two Moons hiding his light in some obscure refuge of the wilderness, and the old men, the women and children herded on the reservation under the rifles of the army and the young men scattered or slain, there was nothing left for the hard-fighting, proud-spirited lords of the Hills—Ogalalla, Brulé and Minneconjou—but sullen acceptance of the great father's terms; and in this wise came Silver Hill to the heart of the fair valley, nestling under the screen of the Sagamore and its eastward spurs and the shield of Uncle Sam, who sliced off for military purposes a block from the Minneconjou reserve, and by way of compliment and consolation named the cantonment therein established after the tribe thereof dispossessed.
— from A Soldier's Trial: An Episode of the Canteen Crusade by Charles King

"Well, instead of going to bed like a Christian he's up all hours of the night.
— from The Motor Pirate by G. Sidney Paternoster

With closed eyes he suddenly beheld a patriarch who stood before him, and he recognized with awe that this was Moses, an old man with a beard like a cataract, hair sweeping his shoulders, a master workman whose powerful hands had kneaded those rough Hebrews and coagulated their medley hordes.
— from The Cathedral by J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

So we made a nest in a box for the little creature, which breathed lightly, and covered him over with a cloth so that he should not fly about and hurt himself.
— from The Unknown Quantity: A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales by Henry Van Dyke