It is impossible to write of the rhythmic possibilities that the infinite variety of shapes possessed by natural objects contain, except to point out how necessary the study of nature is for this.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed

Although it may, and actually does, trammel the votary who aspires to the higher generalizations and the development of a law of formation, yet, as this is not the object of the surgical anatomist, the nomenclature, such as it is, will answer conveniently enough the present purpose.
— from Surgical Anatomy by Joseph Maclise

Since, then, Scripture uses the word flesh in many ways, which there is not time to collect and investigate, if we are to ascertain what it is to live after the flesh (which is certainly evil, though the nature of flesh is not itself evil), we must carefully examine that passage of the epistle which the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, in which he says, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

It is true that there is generally some one department over which they preside as their special province; but they are not rigorously confined to it; they can exert their power for good or evil in many other spheres of nature and life.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

41.] Machiavelli’s writings, for example, were solid enough for the subject, yet were they easy enough to be controverted; and they who have done so, have left as great a facility of controverting theirs; there was never wanting in that kind of argument replies and replies upon replies, and as infinite a contexture of debates as our wrangling lawyers have extended in favour of long suits: “Caedimur et totidem plagis consumimus hostem;” [“We are slain, and with as many blows kill the enemy” (or), “It is a fight wherein we exhaust each other by mutual wounds.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

A second messenger, who had been commanded to bring the rebel in chains, was trampled under the feet of an elephant, and manifestos were diligently circulated, exhorting the Persians to assert their freedom against an odious and contemptible tyrant.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The authentic history with which I now present the public is an instance of the great good that book is likely to do, and of the prevalence of example which I have just observed: since it will appear that it was by keeping the excellent pattern of his sister's virtues before his eyes, that Mr Joseph Andrews was chiefly enabled to preserve his purity in the midst of such great temptations.
— from Joseph Andrews, Vol. 1 by Henry Fielding

In a little while the measured tread of military men was heard approaching, and the culprits entered the presence in charge of an under-sheriff and escorted by a detail of the king’s guard.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Next day, when they rested during the heat, the guide of the caravan endeavoured to procure her a little shelter from the sun's pitiless glare by laying a small cover over a couple of poles let into the ground; but so small was the area thus protected, and so weak the artificial tent, that she was compelled to sit immovably in one position, as the slightest motion would have overthrown it.
— from Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century by W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport) Adams

So bitter was the feeling aroused against him by the marvellous success of his irregular ministry, that his enemies, even before the restoration of the Church and Crown, endeavoured to put the arm of the law in motion to restrain him.
— from The Life of John Bunyan by Edmund Venables

Capers endeavored to prove that the relation of slave and master is authorized by the Holy Scriptures.
— from The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War by Carter Godwin Woodson

As the capacity of the arterial tube increases with its distance from the heart, the velocity, from this cause, as has already been observed, is continually diminished; but a contrary effect takes place in the veins; for the different branches uniting, form trunks, whose capacities are smaller than the sums of the capacities of the branches, hence the velocity of the blood in the veins will increase as it approaches the heart.
— from Popular Lectures on Zoonomia Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease by Thomas Garnett

They told us their experience had been interesting, but were very reticent as to particulars, and though we tried hard to find out what they had seen or done, we could get nothing from them beyond the general statement that they had had a good time, and that General Trochu had been considerate enough to postpone a sortie, in order to let them return; but this we did not quite swallow.
— from Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, General, United States Army — Volume 2 by Philip Henry Sheridan

"The Celtic chieftains, whose lives were continually exposed to peril, had usually, in the most retired spot of their domain, some place of retreat for the hour of necessity ... a tower, a cavern, or a rustic hut."
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott

It was as if Nature, having tried her hand at a great many ordinary persons, each with one gift of sympathy or graciousness, had culled and compacted the best of them into Eunice Goodward; which was precisely the case except that Peter through his unfamiliarity with the Best Society couldn't be expected to know that the intelligence which had put together so much perfectness was no less calculating than that which goes to the matching of a string of pearls.
— from The Lovely Lady by Mary Hunter Austin

Yet, why think of sheep and schemes of belated vengeance?––the grass was gone; the browse was cleaned; even the palo verde trees were growing scarce.
— from Hidden Water by Dane Coolidge

He wrote Answers to Brutus in relation to Cato, Exhortations to Philosophy, and the History of his own Life, which he continued, in thirteen books, down to the war of Cantabria.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius