After three centuries of Spanish ecclesiastical domination in the Philippines, it was to be expected that the wards would turn against their mentors the methods that had been used upon them, nor is it especially remarkable that there was a decided tendency in some parts to revert to primitive barbarism, but that concurrently a creative genius—a bard or seer—should have been developed among a people who, as a whole, have hardly passed through the clan or village stage of society, can be regarded as little less than a psychological phenomenon, and provokes the perhaps presumptuous inquiry as to whether there may not be some things about our common human nature that the learned doctors have not yet included in their anthropometric diagrams.
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

In 1676 he married a rich wife, at Caen, his native town, where he settled and revived the local 'Academy.'
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

He paused in his breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me once, to put
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The mob hitherto had been passive spectators of the scene, but as the intelligence of the Pickwickians being informers was spread among them, they began to canvass with considerable vivacity the propriety of enforcing the heated pastry-vendor’s proposition: and there is no saying what acts of personal aggression they might have committed, had not the affray been unexpectedly terminated by the interposition of a new-comer.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Láwas ug katarúngan ang ákung iatúbang sa ímung lantúgì, I come here not to fight, but to talk it out (offer my reasoning).
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

Matsuki afterwards changed his name to Terashima Tôzô, or perhaps merely reassumed it, and held office pretty constantly since the revolution of 1868, chiefly in connexion with foreign affairs.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

In spite of being four years less than a hundred in age, he greeted us very heartily, and as he did not wish us to sit inside, for his chimney happened not to be drawing very well, and was filling the straw-thatched cottage with peat smoke, we sat down outside on the grass and began talking; and as we came to fairies this is what he said:— Nature of Fairies.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

Polyphemus's den gives us a perfect pattern of such a peace, and such a government, wherein Ulysses and his companions had nothing to do, but quietly to suffer themselves to be devoured.
— from Second Treatise of Government by John Locke

Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway, and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

Then, without wasting time over the matter, he took leave of Biondello and agreeing for a price with a shrewd huckster, carried him near to the Cavicciuoli Gallery and showing him a gentleman there, called Messer Filippo Argenti, a big burly rawboned fellow and the most despiteful, choleric and humoursome man alive, gave him a great glass flagon and said to him, 'Go to yonder gentleman with this flask in hand and say to him, "Sir Biondello sendeth me to you and prayeth you be pleased to rubify him this flask with your good red wine, for that he would fain make merry somedele with his minions."
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

If a man does a thing unconsciously, it costs him no trouble; but if he tries to do it by taking trouble, he fails.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer

You can have no truer friend, no nobler guide.
— from Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3] by J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie

In leaving the clinic he noted that Mr. Furnay's chauffeur had dropped his handkerchief at the doorway in his hurry to be gone—but Oliver by this time was in too great a hurry to stop and retrieve it.
— from Clean Break by Roger D. Aycock

Distinctly I could hear now the soft knocking upon the outer door!
— from The Lost Ambassador; Or, The Search For The Missing Delora by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

Caroline has noticed the thickness of a letter sheet between this velvet and this table: she hits upon a letter to Hector instead of hitting upon one to Madame de Fischtaminel, who has gone to Plombieres Springs, and reads the following: “My dear Hector: “I pity you, but you have acted wisely in entrusting me with a knowledge of the difficulties in which you have voluntarily involved yourself.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

God could have nothing to do with their [27] devilments, Seth said.
— from The Way of the Wind by Zoé Anderson Norris

They had tied Francis’ legs, and were in the act of tying his arms, with the men who held the noose and the black cap hovering near to put them on him, when the voice of a singer was heard approaching from without; and the song he sang was: “Back to back against the mainmast, Held at bay the entire crew....” Leoncia, almost fainting, recovered at the sound of the 42 voice, and cried out with sharp delight as she descried Henry Morgan entering, thrusting aside the guards at the gate who tried to bar his way.
— from Hearts of Three by Jack London

There was a culm heap near the Givenchy brickyards which was rather favoured as a lookout spot.
— from Kings, Queens and Pawns: An American Woman at the Front by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Not likely that the feminine members of Jute, military, railway, or law circles would open their arms any wider to this young, and beautiful, widowed creature with the mop of naturally curling hair, now that, if so minded, she could verbally and positively flap one of the finest tiger skins that had ever come out of Bengal in their heat-stricken faces.
— from Leonie of the Jungle by Joan Conquest