My beauty, little child, is flown, But thou wilt live with me in love; And what if my poor cheek be brown? 'Tis well for me, thou canst not see How pale and wan it else would be.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It is the zenith of communion and transmission between living creatures; it is the source of languages.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It should be observed that scarcely any means of transport would carry seeds for very great distances; for seeds do not retain their vitality when exposed for a great length of time to the action of sea water; nor could they be long carried in the crops or intestines of birds.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

If one ideal judgment be objectively better than another, that betterness must be made flesh by being lodged concretely in some one's actual perception.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

Bright canopies that lend their shade In Vájapeya 319 rites displayed, In plenteous store are borne behind Like cloudlets in the autumn wind.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

Chalks , degrees, marks; so called from being made by a piece of chalk; “to beat by long CHALKS ,” i.e. , to be superior by many degrees.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

I consider that when a dependent does her duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O’Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

I don’t want to be like Christopher Ivanovitch and stay the whole day.”
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Then when the bankers lost confidence in the navy of Venice they put their jewels and gold into saddle bags and moved the financial center of the world to Nuremburg, because its walls were seven feet thick and twenty feet high.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

To another friend, who wrote to him to say that his principles, though still religious, and faithful in general idea to the Christian creed, were in so many points different from the principles taught and demanded by the Church of England, that he felt he ought to take some definite step to show his state of mind, he wrote as follows: "The being born into an institution is a thing which must not be lightly considered: it imposes certain duties upon you—the quiet examination of its tenets, for example—and unless you are convinced of its utter inutility, not to say immorality, it is your duty to bear such a part in relation to it as shall not mar its usefulness; and you may no more throw it away through caprice or indifferentism than you may throw away your own life, simply because you did not agree to be in the world, and it is through no will of your own that you are there.
— from Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. of Trinity College, Cambridge Extracted from His Letters and Diaries, with Reminiscences of His Conversation by His Friend Christopher Carr of the Same College by Arthur Christopher Benson

One division had for its chief the Marquis de St. Huruge, an intimate friend and adherent of the Duc d'Orléans; at the head of another, a woman of notorious infamy, known as La Belle Liégeoise, clad in male attire, rode astride upon a cannon; while, as it advanced, the crowd was every moment swelled by vast bodies of recruits, among whom were numbers of women, whose imprecations in ferocity and foulness surpassed even the foulest threats of the men.
— from The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France by Charles Duke Yonge

By listening carefully, I could hear what they were saying.
— from Jim Davis by John Masefield

The evening was fine for the season, and about sun-set, several of the distant hills presented a fine appearance, having bonfires ou their tops, this being the 18th of October, which will be long celebrated in commemoration of the decisive battle of Leipzig.
— from A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium, during the summer and autumn of 1814 by Richard Boyle Bernard

A short time before leaving Corinth I rode from my camp to General Halleck's headquarters, then in tents just outside of the town, where we sat and gossiped for some time, when he mentioned to me casually that General Grant was going away the next morning.
— from Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Volume I., Part 2 by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

That admirable observer Reaumur (13/58. 'Art de faire Eclore' etc. 1749 tome 2 page 8.) asserts that a cock, by being long confined in solitude and darkness, can be taught to take charge of young chickens; he then utters a peculiar cry, and retains during his whole life this newly acquired maternal instinct.
— from The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication — Volume 2 by Charles Darwin

They will be light coloured if kept covered during the process, and red if the cover be taken off.
— from The Virginia Housewife Or Methodical Cook by Mary Randolph

Though I had but little cash I felt thoroughly sanguine; I could now greet my few friends with tolerable good-humour, and among them Peter Cornelius, who looked in on me every evening.
— from My Life — Volume 2 by Richard Wagner

But from all the lessons and from all the morals, one truth stands out most clearly—the fact that age and country, time and surroundings, make but little change in the real girl-nature, that has ever been impulsive, trusting, tender, and true, alike in the days of the Syrian Zenobia and in those of the modern American school-girl.
— from Historic Girls: Stories Of Girls Who Have Influenced The History Of Their Times by Elbridge S. (Elbridge Streeter) Brooks