If I could but have kept longer away!”
— from Emma by Jane Austen

He was nine years old; he was a child; but he knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Plato refused to legislate for the Arcadians and the Cyrenæans, because he knew that both peoples were rich and could not put up with equality; and good laws and bad men were found together in Crete, because Minos had inflicted discipline on a people already burdened with vice.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Coming back, he kept to the Park until 110th Street, and then turned into Seventh Avenue again, reaching the pretty river by one o'clock.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

If he engage in any discourse, he either breaks off abruptly, or tires out the patience of the whole company, if he goes on: if he have any contract, sale, or purchase to make, or any other worldly business to transact, he behaves himself more like a senseless stock than a rational man; so as he can be of no use nor advantage to himself, to his friends, or to his country; because he knows nothing how the world goes, and is wholly unacquainted with the humour of the vulgar, who cannot but hate a person so disagreeing in temper from themselves.
— from In Praise of Folly Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts by Desiderius Erasmus

And by the hair it held the head dissevered, Hung from the hand in fashion of a lantern, And that upon us gazed and said: "O me!" It of itself made to itself a lamp, And they were two in one, and one in two; How that can be, He knows who so ordains it.
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri

And thus, if everything which is comprehended is defined or made finite by the comprehension of him who knows it, then all infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to God, for it is comprehensible by His knowledge.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Little banks of ice could be heard knocking against the barge....
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

My grandfather's grandmother was seized by an evil Dutch trader two centuries ago; and coming to the valleys of the Hudson and Housatonic, black, little, and lithe, she shivered and shrank in the harsh north winds, looked longingly at the hills, and often crooned a heathen melody to the child between her knees, thus: Do ba-na co-ba, ge-ne me, ge-ne me!
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

No wonder he sits in the barouche, with bowed head, and chin between his knees, not caring to look back.
— from The Death Shot: A Story Retold by Mayne Reid

She was presented at Court to King James Ist, and his Queen, and made a most satisfactory impression; for all were charmed by her kindness, simplicity, and sweetness of manner.
— from Famous Indian Chiefs Their Battles, Treaties, Sieges, and Struggles with the Whites for the Possession of America by Charles H. L. (Charles Haven Ladd) Johnston

A minute or two later, he had her down on the floor, her body and one arm clamped between his knees, while he unzipped the cuff on the sleeve of the other arm and pulled the sleeve up.
— from The Star Hyacinths by James H. Schmitz

Ben Connor sat with his cane between his knees and his hands draped over its amber head and watched those shining places until the fat man heaved his head over his shoulder.
— from The Garden of Eden by Max Brand

He would have enjoyed the battue of punishment under ordinary circumstances; but he knew that Miss Molly Mackinder would be humiliated and indignant at the half-savage penalty they meant to exact.
— from Northern Lights, Volume 4. by Gilbert Parker

He's the littlest Warrior among the War Chiefs, but he kin see farder an' do it oftener an' better than his betters.
— from Two Little Savages Being the adventures of two boys who lived as Indians and what they learned by Ernest Thompson Seton

Es will einer was er soll, aber er kann's nicht machen; es kann einer was er soll, aber er will's nicht; es will und kann einer, aber er weiss nicht, was er soll —One would what he should, but he can't; one could what he should, but he won't; one would and could, but he knows not what he should.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

No one ventures to propose a new scheme, or a new company, because he knows that people in general have great difficulty in paying up what they promised to the schemes started during the bubble.
— from Political economy by William Stanley Jevons

What he had fought out all alone in his bed, even without lighting his candle, before he knew that, now drove him to his feet.
— from The Son of His Mother by Clara Viebig