Catch the natural fly, imitate it as closely as possible; put your made fly into a tumbler of clear water, then if the size and the prevailing colours as to body and wings resemble your copy, you are all right.
— from The Teesdale Angler by R. Lakeland

If you had your soul scraped and cleaned and properly polished, you would be well worth liking."
— from Patty Blossom by Carolyn Wells

What if you should hear, not a tumult of voices and noises, from which you could hope to hide, but a solemn company talking about you—every word clear and plain, piercing your heart with what you could not deny,—and you standing naked and shivering in the midst of them?'
— from Robert Falconer by George MacDonald

With the flavour of roast chicken and plum pudding yet lingering about his palate it was hardly to be expected that he should find such a compound much to his liking; but it was no slight proof of condescension even to taste it at all, and manifested a freedom from vulgar prejudice and a willingness to be convinced worthy of the highest praise.
— from Golden Dreams and Leaden Realities by George Payson

Morris, Sir M. A. (Jl ‘17) Natural history Calvert, A. C. and P. P. Year of Costa Rican natural history.
— from The Book Review Digest, Volume 13, 1917 Thirteenth Annual Cumulation Reviews of 1917 Books by Various

Personally I might perhaps prefer another line of argument in this particular case, and personally perhaps you might; but in our profession personal considerations must be blown to the winds of the horizon; we must sink the individual.
— from The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 Negligible Tales, On With the Dance, Epigrams by Ambrose Bierce

He is, and he will get (Or my name's not Cometas) a proper pounding yet. IDYLL VI.
— from Theocritus, translated into English Verse by Theocritus

Sancte Trinitatis situatum, divina possis celebrare, ac per presbiteros ydoneos facere celebrari,
— from The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West by W. H. Hamilton (William Henry Hamilton) Rogers