And for the consolation of those who in any way and at any time may have devoted strength and life to the noble and hard battle against error, I cannot refrain from adding that, so long as truth is absent, error will have free play, as owls and bats in the night; but sooner would we expect to see the owls and the bats drive back the sun in the eastern heavens, than that any truth which has once been known and distinctly and fully expressed, can ever again be so utterly vanquished and overcome that the old error shall once more reign undisturbed over its wide kingdom.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

(While I was turning over this plan in my mind, Quartilla came to close quarters, to receive the treatment for her ague, but having her hopes disappointed, she flounced out in a rage and, returning in a little while, she had us overpowered by some unknown vagabonds, and gave orders for us to be carried away to a splendid palace.)
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

After the first promise of his boyhood in the Tuscan hills, his youth at Florence had been spent under Verrocchio as a master, in company with those whose names were later to brighten the pages of Italian art.
— from Thoughts on Art and Life by da Vinci Leonardo

"If only my son Drake had been spared," she often cried at moments of stress; and this saying became so familiar among the people round about, that when a man or woman breathed some utterly vain aspiration, another would frequently cap it thus and say, "Ah, if only my son Drake had been spared!"
— from The Virgin in Judgment by Eden Phillpotts

The long-tongued bumblebee can get his drink over the bar, but smaller, unwelcome visitors are literally barred out.
— from Wild Flowers An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors by Neltje Blanchan

"You had better go and rouse some of the neighbors, Ben," spoke up Van, after a pause.
— from In the Depths of the Dark Continent; or, The Vengeance of Van Vincent by Cornelius Shea

Corruption was now reduced into an open and avowed commerce; and, had not the people been so universally venal and profligate that no sense of shame remained, the victors must have blushed for their success.
— from The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of George II. by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Could one be so utterly vile as to try to murder a girl who had never injured 218 him?
— from The Flying Girl by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum