The most distinctive poems—the most permanently rooted and with heartiest reason for being—the copious cycle of Arthurian legends, or the almost equally copious Charlemagne cycle, or the poems of the Cid, or Scandinavian Eddas, or Nibelungen, or Chaucer, or Spenser, or bona fide Ossian, or Inferno—probably had their rise in the great historic perturbations, which they came in to sum up and confirm, indirectly embodying results to date.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

"Well, one morning the lodger came in to see us; he asked about a promise to paper his rooms.
— from White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

How much the mind is usually affected thereby every one will be able to perceive in himself.] § 21 On the other hand, in the transcendental synthesis of the manifold content of representations, consequently in the synthetical unity of apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but only that “I am.”
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

The impulse of uncivilized men, like that of children, is to seize upon every desirable object without further consideration, even though it be already in the possession of another.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

20 The truth is that instead of leaving everything to the chance of our continuing in the same unselfish frame of mind we were really in when the Spanish-American War started, Aguinaldo and his people, not sure but what in the wind-up they might even be thrown back upon the tender mercies of Spain, played their cards [ 26 ] boldly and consistently from the beginning with a view of organizing a de facto government and getting it recognized by the Powers as such at the very earliest practicable moment.
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

"In the first place, no batteries must be constructed in the straits until all questions between foreigners and Japanese have been settled by the Tycoon's government and the foreign ministers at Yedo."
— 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

Plodding at random across the plough, they had heard the sheep and had made for them; and now, leading from the sheep-pen, they found a beaten track that made Page 110 [Pg 110] walking a lighter business, and responded, moreover, to that small inquiring something which all animals carry inside them, saying unmistakably, "Yes, quite right; this leads home!"
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

I have known many of them, and can tell you, that no one who had taken up in youth this opinion, that the Gods do not exist, ever continued in the same until he was old; the two other notions certainly do continue in some cases, but not in many; the notion, I mean, that the Gods exist, but take no heed of human things, and the other notion that they do take heed of them, but are easily propitiated with sacrifices and prayers.
— from Laws by Plato

However, if any bees be diseased thereby, the cure is, to set urine by them, but set it in a vessel, that they cannot drown themselves, which may be remedied, if you put pieces of cork in it.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

Ask your own heart whether you will make me of less importance than consideration for the opinion of the world,--whether you can inflict this sorrow upon yourself and your Heinrich ."
— from A Twofold Life by Wilhelmine von Hillern

[57] Cases have now and then been met with where the retroversion of the uterus has continued to an advanced period of pregnancy without producing serious injury to the patient: Dr. Merriman has even recorded some, where the uterus has continued in this state up to the full term.
— from A System of Midwifery by Edward Rigby

See correspondence in The Spectator upon the sufferings of old horses exported alive to Antwerp.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 by Various

But when the Roman came in, there sprang up a school of thought that has done more than any other thing to hand down the fame of Ptolemy's university to succeeding ages.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 01, April to September, 1865 A Monthly Eclectic Magazine by Various

The present delta of the Vistula was a shallow morass, dotted here and there with a flat island, and continued in that state until towards the end of the thirteenth century, when dykes, raised by the industry of man, prevented the constantly recurring inundations of the river, and converted gloomy swamps into fertile meadows.
— from The Subterranean World by G. (Georg) Hartwig

You must know, wherever the king and queen are, nobody comes into their sight unsent for, not even the master and mistress of the house, unless they are publicly acquainted that their majesties are coming, and mean to see them.
— from The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay — Volume 1 by Fanny Burney

"Allyn," Theodora said, when they had gone around another corner in the same uncertain fashion; "now you must mind sister and do just what she says."
— from Teddy: Her Book A Story of Sweet Sixteen by Anna Chapin Ray

Stacy's right eye was badly swollen, yet he refused to cover it, though the fine dust of the plain got into it, causing it to smart until the tears ran down his cheek.
— from The Pony Rider Boys in the Alkali; Or, Finding a Key to the Desert Maze by Frank Gee Patchin

There had been Auditors in the Colony of New York from 1680 down to the time of its organization as an independent State, and that office was continued in the State until it was merged in the office of Comptroller.
— from A Century in the Comptroller's Office, State of New York, 1797 to 1897 by James A. (James Arthur) Roberts

Bill had gone out with his nets, and most probably would not be back until night; so the child had been left alone with some food in the dreary room, to play or cry itself to sleep, unless Mrs Sims should be there to attend to its wants.
— from Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes by George Manville Fenn