The pro and con of the question alternately prevail; and the mind, surveying the object in its opposite principles, finds such a contrariety as utterly destroys all certainty and established opinion.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

He kept quite quiet now, seemed to be lying low, as though he were not guilty, as though he had had nothing to do with the shameless, conscienceless, and unseemly duping and deception of all these good people.
— from White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

All such reveries as are in credit around us, deserve at least a hearing: for my part, they only with me import inanity, but they import that.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

[ 416 ] Colonel Meyer got the men who killed Clark, and, upon due and ample proof, I hung them, but Surigao was never taken for a day from the list of provinces enjoying “the peace and protection of a benign civil government.”
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

He endeavoured to put down corruption and underhand dealing among the bureaucracy, and in his own habits gave an example of simplicity and economy.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide Vol. 1 Part 1 by Various

Offensive alliances, of course, are usually directed against some particular enemy; defensive alliances against anyone from Page 116
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide Vol. 1 Part 1 by Various

His horse’s hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

“Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ours—watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make a little heap of dust of it.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

In connection with the preceding symptom will generally be found, instead of that natural brilliance of expression in the eyes and countenance, an unnatural dullness and vacantness altogether foreign to childhood.
— from Plain Facts for Old and Young by John Harvey Kellogg

In May, 1556, Flacius, continuing his peace efforts, forwarded to Paul Eber his "Mild Proposals, Linde Vorschlaege , dadurch man gottselige und notwendige friedliche Vergleichung machen koennte zwischen den Wittenbergischen und Leipzigischen Theologen in causa Adiaphoristica und den andern, so wider sie geschrieben haben."
— from Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church by F. (Friedrich) Bente

Kitchen, outhouses, bachelors' quarters, saddle-rooms, and store-rooms had been built on in a kind of straggling quadrangle, with many corners and unexpected doorways and passages; and it is reported that a swagman once got his dole of rations at the kitchen, went away, and after turning two or three corners, got so tangled up that when Fate led him back to the kitchen he didn't recognise it, and asked for rations over again, in the firm belief that he was at a different part of the house.
— from An Outback Marriage: A Story of Australian Life by A. B. (Andrew Barton) Paterson

She was the younger of the three girls, but in this emergency took the lead because of her calm and unruffled disposition and native good sense.
— from Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

Whatever my text means, it does not mean cowardly and unbelieving doubt as to the power of the Gospel on the most degraded and sinful.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St. Matthew Chapters I to VIII by Alexander Maclaren

I see some of them in the distance, the Commandant and Ursula Dearmer and Mrs. Lambert and M.
— from A Journal of Impressions in Belgium by May Sinclair

" Prompt at the summons, the winds arose, with clamour and uproarious din, and rushed down the mountainside, chasing the clouds before them.
— from Stories from the Iliad by H. L. (Herbert Lord) Havell

They were, of course, frequently at war with each other, and there were at all times standing topics of controversy and unsettled disputes among them.
— from History of Julius Caesar by Jacob Abbott

This being kept in view, the strength and consequent section required for each member may be calculated by the methods employed in proportioning bridges, with the difference that the support (from air pressure) will be considered as uniformly distributed, and the load as concentrated at one or more points.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg