For as liberty and choice are not necessary to make an action produce in us an erroneous conclusion, they can be, in no respect, essential to morality; and I do not readily perceive, upon this system, how they can ever come to be regarded by it.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

[Pg xviii] blance which the vivacity of colours is wont to give them, that is not because the drawing and the lineaments have not been taken from the life and are not characteristic and natural; not to mention that a great part of them have been sent me by the friends that I have in various places, and they have not all been drawn by a good hand.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10) Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi by Giorgio Vasari

For example, Tauler speaks of the absolute poverty which one ought to seek, and which consists in giving away and divesting oneself completely of everything from which one might draw comfort or worldly pleasure, clearly because all this constantly affords new nourishment to the will, which it is intended to destroy entirely.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

Heraclite fleas, misero sic convenit aevo, Nil nisi turpe vides, nil nisi triste vides.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

The Chinese are noisy, not to say boisterous, easy-going and dirty—and quite human in general effect.
— from Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey

In the west this barrier approaches close to the Mediterranean coast, and near Nice there is left a free passage into the Italian peninsula between the mountains and the sea.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide Vol. 1 Part 1 by Various

Cromwell and Napoleon need their revolutions, Grant his civil war.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

For no argument has so much weight with emotion when it is borne down with grief, as that which reminds it of the common and natural necessity to which man is exposed owing to the body, the only handle which he gives to fortune, for in his most important and influential part 755 he is 308 secure against external things.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

Night and day he was shut in his shop, and for two months he came with no epitaphs for the Cure, and no new tombstones were set up in the graveyard.
— from The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete by Gilbert Parker

We camped at night near the mouth of Crooked River, which enters the sound opposite Dog Island, having rowed twenty-four miles.
— from Four Months in a Sneak-Box A Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and Along the Gulf of Mexico by Nathaniel H. (Nathaniel Holmes) Bishop

For a long time I had seldom taken off my clothes at night, needing to be constantly on the alert to start at a moment's notice; yet, while hope burned within my soul I could not withdraw, so I resolved to risk all with my dear Lord Jesus, and remained at my post.
— from The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals by John Gibson Paton

American civilization, like that of the Italy of the Middle Ages, being civic and not national, the boundaries of Boston, with its suburbs and seaside resorts, had formed the limits of Vio's horizon.
— from The Thread of Flame by Basil King

III The Will of America The material factors in a nation's future are subordinate factors, they present advantages, such as the easy access of the English to coal and the sea, or disadvantages, such as the ice-bound seaboard of the Russians, but these are the circumstances and not necessarily the rulers of its fate.
— from The Future in America: A Search After Realities by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

John Reuchlin interfered to stop this universal destruction of Talmuds; for which he became hated by the monks, and condemned by the Elector of Mentz, but appealing to Rome, the prosecution was stopped; and the traditions of the Jews were considered as not necessary to be destroyed.
— from Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 by Isaac Disraeli

Carmela alone, lively as a nightingale, continued in a low voice her conversation with Singing-bird, while warming herself, for the night was cold, and not noticing the anxious sideglances which the Canadian at times gave her.
— from The Freebooters: A Story of the Texan War by Gustave Aimard

As we recall the topics, we are struck with force given to the plain truths; the picture of the English nation all sitting enchanted, the poor, enchanted so that they cannot work, the rich, enchanted so that they cannot enjoy, and are rich in vain; the exposure of the progress of fraud into all arts and social activities; the proposition that the labourer must have a greater share in his earnings; that the principle of permanence shall be admitted into all contracts of mutual service; that the state shall provide at least schoolmaster's education for all the citizens; the exhortation to the workman that he shall respect the work and not the wages; to the scholar that he shall be there for light; to the idle, that no man shall sit idle; the picture of Abbot Samson, the true governor, who "is not there to expect reason and nobleness of others, he is there to give them of his own reason and nobleness;" the assumption throughout the book, that a new chivalry and nobility, namely the dynasty of labour, is replacing the old nobilities.
— from Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle