Now, at the moment when the door had opened to admit the cardinal, the nine parts of self-esteem in Gringoire, swollen and expanded by the breath of popular admiration, were in a state of prodigious augmentation, beneath which disappeared, as though stifled, that imperceptible molecule of which we have just remarked upon in the constitution of poets; a precious ingredient, by the way, a ballast of reality and humanity, without which they would not touch the earth.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

Being once reproached as not being the son of two free citizens, he said, “And I am not the son of two people skilled in wrestling; nevertheless, I am a skilful wrestler.”
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

So, too, the reasons we give for love either express what it feels or else are insincere, attempting to justify at the bar of reason and convention something which is far more primitive than they and underlies them both.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

80 The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a declining state; and they respectively suffered the evils of distant and domestic warfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish a perfidious rival who had invaded Normandy in his absence; and the indefatigable sultan was subdued by the cries of the people, who was the victim, and of the soldiers, who were the instruments, of his martial zeal.
— 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

One must adore the weakness as well as the beauty of the beloved object, renounce all judgment, all reflection, all perspicacity.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

We have no house to go to, and no means to buy, build, or rent any; no parents, relatives, or friends, to go to."
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

And we two lovers shall not sit afar, Critics of nature, but the joyous sea Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star Shoot arrows at our pleasure!
— from Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

Inflammations originate in bile, which is sometimes relieved by boils and swellings, but when detained, and above all when mingled with pure blood, generates many inflammatory disorders, disturbing the position of the fibres which are scattered about in the blood in order to maintain the balance of rare and dense which is necessary to its regular circulation.
— from Timaeus by Plato

There were associations of the same kind in most of the commercial towns situated on the banks of rivers and on the sea-coast, as, for example, at Rouen, Arles, Marseilles, Narbonne, Toulouse, Ratisbon, Augsburg, and Utrecht.
— from Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob

There were great branches of red and gold leaves festooning and hiding the gymnasium apparatus, and the respective sophomore and freshman colors of blue and gold were in evidence in every nook and corner of the big room.
— from Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College by Josephine Chase

And, without another word, he sprang into the river, partly wading, partly swimming, and soon reached the place where the horse, restrained by one rein alone, swam in a small circle, fretted by restraint and maddened by inability to resist.
— from Barrington. Volume 1 (of 2) by Charles James Lever

Franck always comes back to experience as his basis of religion, as his way to truth and to divine things.
— from Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries by Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew) Jones

Bars of rivers are some shifting and some permanent.
— from The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by W. H. (William Henry) Smyth

B o raciẻre, a Boraxe boxe.
— from Queen Anna's New World of Words; or, Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues by John Florio

The confidences may have been a shade more audacious then, an incipient intrigue more daringly conducted, but it was the same and the same—a married woman who despised her husband; a married man who detested his wife; a young lady of fashion playing high stakes for a coronet, and baulked or ruined at the game.
— from The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

"See, Father, I shall be disappointed in showing you the belle of Ravenshoe; and now you will go back to Ireland, fancying you can compete with us."
— from Ravenshoe by Henry Kingsley

It drew back over ravines and gorges, over the wildernesses of unbroken firs which covered all the upper portion of the mountain, deepening its rose-tint and gaining in intensity what it lost in expanse,—diminished to a handbreadth, to a point, and, flickering an instant, went out, leaving in the whole range of vision no speck of sunlight to relieve the wilderness of shadowy gloom.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

They have been considered as botchers of rags and remnants; their diligence has not been accompanied by judgment; and their taste inclined more to the frivolous than to the useful.
— from Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 by Isaac Disraeli

A bowl of roses and a note which she had read three or four times stood on a little table by her side.
— from The Double Traitor by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim