Private people, who want to make a fortune, never think of retiring to the remote and poor provinces of the country, but resort either to the capital, or to some of the great commercial towns.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

The prodigious fame of the writers of the Augustan age, by repressing emulation, tended to a general diminution of the efforts of genius for some time; while the banishment of Ovid, it is probable, and the capital punishment of a subsequent poet, for censuring the character of Agamemnon, operated towards the farther discouragement of poetical exertions.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

Musculus makes four kinds of desperation, of God, ourselves, our neighbour, or anything to be done; but this division of his may be reduced easily to the former: all kinds are opposite to hope, that sweet moderator of passions, as Simonides calls it; I do not mean that vain hope which fantastical fellows feign to themselves, which according to Aristotle is insomnium vigilantium , a waking dream; but this divine hope which proceeds from confidence, and is an anchor to a floating soul; spes alit agricolas , even in our temporal affairs, hope revives us, but in spiritual it farther animateth; and were it not for hope, we of all others were the most miserable, as Paul saith, in this life; were it not for hope, the heart would break; for though they be punished in the sight of men, ( Wisdom iii.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

It is curious to observe the remarkable diversity in the accounts given by recent emigrants to this country of their treatment, and of the manners and character of the people in the United States and in Canada.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

The existence of prosaisms, and that they detract from the merit of a poem, must at length be conceded, when a number of successive lines can be rendered, even to the most delicate ear, unrecognizable as verse, or as having even been intended for verse, by simply transcribing them as prose; when if the poem be in blank verse, this can be effected without any alteration, or at most by merely restoring one or two words to their proper places, from which they have been transplanted
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States has an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either, by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

Or were it ever so much a perfection, the ascribing of it to the Supreme Being, where it appears not to have been really exerted, to the full, in his works, savours more of flattery and panegyric, than of just reasoning and sound philosophy.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

The blood ran even to the Nivelles highway, and there overflowed in a large pool in front of the abatis of trees which barred the way, at a spot which is still pointed out.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

But we want you to argue with us before you threaten; you should prove to us by reasonable evidence that there are Gods, and that they are too good to be bribed.
— from Laws by Plato

And the hope might be reasonably entertained that the important historical facts disclosed in this work will have the effect to open the eyes of the professors of the Christian religion to see their serious error in putting forth such exalted claims for their bible and their religion as that of being perfect products of infinite wisdom, did not the past history of all religious countries furnish sad proof that reason and logic, and even the most cogent and convincing facts of science and history often prove powerless when arrayed against a religious conviction, enstamped upon the mind for thousands of years in the past, and transmitted from parent to child until it has grown to a colossal stature, and become a part of the living tissues of the soul.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

At its southern gate the French Broad river enters; through the northern gate the same river flows out, augmented by the many streams of its extensive watershed.
— from The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 4, October, 1889 by Various

Cavender was, therefore, happy to say that around two thirds of this money was known to be still intact in various bank accounts, and that it would be restored eventually to the generous but misled donors.
— from Ham Sandwich by James H. Schmitz

Somebody had been reckless enough to try and prevent surprise by the dangerous expedient of putting a tin-basin against the iron door.
— from Eric, or Little by Little by F. W. (Frederic William) Farrar

Wheat went up and silver down, as Mr. Bryan recently explained to the satisfaction of every man possessing an ounce of brains, simply because the demand for the one was increased by foreign crop failures, the demand for the other decreased by Anglo-Cleveland skull-duggery.
— from The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10 by William Cowper Brann

“I recommend you to make a complete end of them; and for this reason: if any of the band survive they will join themselves with some other party and will be sure to endeavour to get them to avenge this slaughter; for although these bands have no love for each other, yet they would be ready enough to take up each other's quarrel as against country folk, especially when there is a hope of plunder.
— from The Lion of the North: A Tale of the Times of Gustavus Adolphus by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

They regretted that their prince must be replaced by {148} foreign bayonets; yet it was perhaps better that a moderate and peaceful government should be restored even thus, than that the French nation should continue to suffer under the despotic tyranny of their own soldiery.
— from Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V. by Walter Scott

Aided by the Americans, she then began removing every trace that might have revealed where the ladies were bestowed.
— from The Prairie Flower: A Tale of the Indian Border by Gustave Aimard

I do not know of anyone who has yet been rash enough to try to connect the origins of American civilizations with definite causes, at definite dates, in the progress of Old World history, and it is for this reason that I have said this tale will need support and will undoubtedly need to be changed.
— from Early Man in the New World by Joseph A. Hester