“The description the Indians give us of their colour is as various as what we are told of the camelion, that seems to the spectator to change its colour, by every different position he may view it in; which proceeds from the piercing rays of the light that blaze from their foreheads, so as to dazzle the eyes, from whatever quarter they post themselves—for in each of their heads, there is a large carbuncle, which not only repels, but they affirm, sullies the meridian beams of the sun.
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

As in roads, I preferably avoid those that are sloping and slippery, and put myself into the beaten track how dirty or deep soever, where I can fall no lower, and there seek my safety: so I love misfortunes that are purely so, that do not torment and tease me with the uncertainty of their growing better; but that at the first push plunge me directly into the worst that can be expected “Dubia plus torquent mala.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Deschamps, Les Sociétés Secrètes et la Société , II. 151, quoting document amongst the papers of Cardinal Bernis entitled: Discours prononcé au comité de la Propagande par M. Duport, un de ses mémoires , le 21 mai 1790.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

This observation would go far to show that we may in the two cases be examining different portions of quite similar bodies; and this view is strikingly confirmed when the rocks of the two groups are arranged in the order of their densities ( Fig. 9 ).
— from Earth Features and Their Meaning An Introduction to Geology for the Student and the General Reader by William Herbert Hobbs

The skin of the upper part of the leg and the whole of the thigh of a mottled appearance, caused by extensive dark patches of incipient gangrene; the cellular tissue of the limb infiltrated with lymph and pus.
— from On the origin of inflammation of the veins and of the causes, consequences, and treatment of purulent deposits by Lee, Henry, M.D.

Why, I should think that the greatest success would come by each denomination pressing forward along its own convictions."
— from Dorothy Page by Eldridge B. (Eldridge Burwell) Hatcher

The fact that the cloth is cheap, unshrunken goods, which will shrivel up at the first shower or severe humidity, and will, at all events, get wrinkled out of shape in a few days, does not dash the hopeful prisoner's jocundity; nor even the consideration that the "prison cut" will be instantly recognized all over the country, by every detective, private or federal, and acted upon as circumstances may indicate.
— from The Subterranean Brotherhood by Julian Hawthorne

In Catholic Rome, the election of the sovereign pontiff belongs definitively to a college of prelates 5340 who vote according to established formalities; these elect the new pope by a majority of two-thirds, and, for more than four centuries, not one of these elections has been contested; between each defunct pope and his elected successor, the transfer of universal obedience has been prompt and unhesitating and, during as after the interregnum, no schism in the Church has occurred.—On the other hand, in the legal title of Cæsar Augustus there was a defect.
— from The Modern Regime, Volume 2 by Hippolyte Taine

The recovery of Dendrobium Schröderium was chronicled by every daily paper in London, or almost, with a leader, when a skull was shown in Protheroe’s Rooms with a specimen clinging to it, and a select group of idols accompanying the shipment.
— from The Woodlands Orchids, Described and Illustrated With Stories of Orchid-Collecting by Frederick Boyle

The practical Reason, confirmed by experience, distinctly perceives that productive nature transforms all things,—but originates nothing;—that, contrariwise, when human nature wills to commit a wrong,—it really originates the crime.
— from The Philosophy of Natural Theology An Essay in confutation of the scepticism of the present day by William Jackson

" "Joseph Smith has made the following statement regarding the subject," continued Durant: "Owing to the many reports which have been put in circulation by evil designing persons in relation to the rise and progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all of which have been designed by the authors thereof to militate against its character as a Church, and its progress in the world, I have been induced to write this history, so as to disabuse the public mind, and put all inquirers after truth in possession of the facts as they have transpired in relation both to myself and the Church so far as I have such facts in possession.
— from Mr. Durant of Salt Lake City, "That Mormon" by Ben. E. (Benjamin Erastus) Rich

During the three years and a half of my editorship I was assisted by Mr. Goschen, Captain Brackenbury, Edward Dicey, Percy Fitzgerald, H. A. Layard, Allingham, Leslie Stephen, Mrs. Lynn Linton, my brother, T. A. Trollope, and his wife, Charles Lever, E. Arnold, Austin Dobson, R. A. Proctor, Lady Pollock, G. H. Lewes, C. Mackay, Hardman (of the Times ), George Macdonald, W. R. Greg, Mrs. Oliphant, Sir Charles Trevelyan, Leoni Levi, Dutton Cook,—and others, whose names would make the list too long.
— from An Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Anthony Trollope