I am much pleased with a compliment, especially from a pretty woman.' * Boswell himself, likely enough.—HILL.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

Omnes sapientes decet conferre et fabulari —All wise people ought to confer and hold converse with each other.
— 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.

“I suppose you could easily find a pretext if you desired to do so?”
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

“If those things which make the pleasures of debauched men, put an end to the fears of the mind, and to those which arise about the heavenly bodies, and death, and pain; and if they taught us what ought to be the limit of our desires, we should have no pretence for blaming those who wholly devote themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain or grief (which is the chief evil) from any quarter.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

....” Colia entered first, and as the door stood open, the mistress of the house peeped out.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We shall appreciate this difficulty more clearly by looking to certain existing faunas and floras.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

Then, all parties having provided themselves with many sods of turf, cut with their bread-and-cheese knives, the side which remained at the bottom proceeded to assault the mound, advancing up on all sides under cover of a heavy fire of turfs, and then struggling for victory with the occupants, which was theirs as soon as they could, even for a moment, clear the summit, when they in turn became the besieged.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

The security necessary was a bill of sale on the furniture of his house, which might make a creditor easy for a reasonable time about a debt amounting to less than four hundred pounds; and the silversmith, Mr. Dover, was willing to reduce it by taking back a portion of the plate and any other article which was as good as new.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

Down, down, down, with immeasurable and still increasing speed, through utter darkness, with hair streaming straight upward, breathless, he shot with a rush of air against him, the force of which whirled up his very arms, second after second, minute after minute, through the chasm downward he flew, the icy perspiration of horror covering his body, and suddenly, as he expected to be dashed into annihilation, his descent was in an instant arrested with a tremendous shock, which, however, did not deprive him of consciousness even for a moment.
— from J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Birds weaned by careful experiment from a diet of seeds to one of flesh, or conversely, produce changes of effective correlation and adaptation in the characters of their alimentary system.
— from Naturalism and Religion by Rudolf Otto

To the enjoyment of pleasures purely luxurious there is a limit which is soon reached; and I maintain that a poor man gets as much of this kind of pleasure out of his pipe as a prince or a railroad king can extract from all the costly wines and viands of the table.
— from Smoking and Drinking by James Parton

CLXXI Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe processes of modern investigations, commonly enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking one? presaging a reality.
— from Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley by Thomas Henry Huxley

Their commander had no influence with them; and, turning a deaf ear to his appeals, they stubbornly refused to remain with the colours even for a few days over their term of service.
— from Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War by G. F. R. (George Francis Robert) Henderson

But while the surveyors were doing their work, word came of the battle of some British and certain embattled farmers, and the spirit of freedom promptly declared that the town should be called Lexington.
— from Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 03 Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen by Elbert Hubbard

Street-pitchers , negro minstrels, ballad-singers, long-song men, men “working a board” on which have been painted various exciting scenes in some terrible drama, the details of which the STREET PITCHER is bawling out, and selling in a little book or broadsheet (price one penny); or any persons who make a stand— i.e. , a pitch—in the streets, and sell articles or contribute entertainments for a living.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten