It is true, perhaps, that this instrument which had stood the test of a thousand years for the moral regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility may be a two-edged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and complete self-control but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage and not to freedom.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It may be that the meaning attached to the word "fede" was "the faith," i.e. the Catholic creed, and not as rendered here "fidelity" and "faithful."
— from The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

Hence it may perhaps be concluded that, if any new case should arise, the degree of responsibility, and the validity and interpretation of any contract of bailment that there may be, should stand open to argument on general principles, and that the matter has been set at large so far as early precedent is concerned.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

It would have been useless to have opposed these impulses by barriers, which would only have driven those actuated by them to more pernicious indulgencies.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Nay, bear three daughters- by your leave I speak it, You love the breeder better than the male.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

The crest of Pilkington ["a mower with his scythe in front habited as follows: a high-crowned hat with flap, the crown party per pale, flap the same, counterchanged; coat buttoned to the middle, with his scythe in bend proper, habited through quarterly and counterchanged argent and gules"], and the very similar crest of De Trafford, in which the man holds a flail, are curious, and are the subjects of appropriate legends.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

King Frode sent messengers to Svithjod, to the king whose name was Fjolner, and bought there two maid-servants, whose names were Fenja and Menja.
— from The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson

On this account no names are mentioned here, nor is any signature attached to these lines: the handwriting is disguised throughout, and I mean to deliver the letter myself, under circumstances which will prevent all fear of its being traced to my house.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Further, the Lacedaemonians, as time went on, became suspected by the Athenians through their not performing some of the provisions in the treaty; and though for six years and ten months they abstained from invasion of each other's territory, yet abroad an unstable armistice did not prevent either party doing the other the most effectual injury, until they were finally obliged to break the treaty made after the ten years' war and to have recourse to open hostilities.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

It was said, that when a big shell was coming, men of other races would go into their dugouts, but that these men paused only to call it a bastard and then went on with their work.
— from Gallipoli by John Masefield

I deferred it, however, till the evening, when my spirits were more composed, and when—oh, wonderful perversity of human nature!—some faint germs of indefinite hopes were beginning to rise in my mind; not that I intended to cherish them, after all that had been said on the subject, but there they must lie for a while, uncrushed though not encouraged, till I had learnt to live without them.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

As already stated, all the spoils that are taken by the scouts or by the detachments sent out in answer to their demands for assistance, are immediately taken back to the main column.
— from Animal Intelligence The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV. by George John Romanes

He was standing between the two Misses Bullsom, and already they had approved of him.
— from A Prince of Sinners by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

She did not really believe that the man on the stairs could have been Fausto.
— from Olive in Italy by Moray Dalton

277 If he lost the grip of both hands for a single second and slid back to the middle of the slack he realized that he was too near exhausted to pull up again, so, somehow, he hung on, making inarticulate sounds as he exerted superhuman strength, groaning like an animal loaded beyond its limit.
— from The Man from the Bitter Roots by Caroline Lockhart

“I have been told that Miss Lovelace is fond of music.
— from Albert Savarus by Honoré de Balzac

“I never thought to mention it, but they tell me that a body kin, by payin’ a fraction more, git a place to lie down and stretch out, an’ snooze a bit.”
— from Northern Georgia Sketches by Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben