Mary was in her usual corner, laughing over Mrs. Piozzi's recollections of Johnson, and looked up with the fun still in her face.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

But when we compare the dray-horse and race-horse, the dromedary and camel, the various breeds of sheep fitted either for cultivated land or mountain pasture, with the wool of one breed good for one purpose, and that of another breed for another purpose; when we compare the many breeds of dogs, each good for man in different ways; when we compare the game-cock, so pertinacious in battle, with other breeds so little quarrelsome, with "everlasting layers" which never desire to sit, and with the bantam so small and elegant; when we compare the host of agricultural, culinary, orchard, and flower-garden races of plants, most useful to man at different seasons and for different purposes, or so beautiful in his eyes, we must, I think, look further than to mere variability.
— 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

[1] [1] See the charming Letters of M. Pecchio.
— from On Love by Stendhal

Having got so far, I may consider further, referring to another demonstration in the book, that if some one gives Spinoza joy—Hobbes, for instance—my delight in Spinoza's increased perfection, consequent upon his joy and my love of him, accompanied by the idea of Hobbes, its external cause, constitutes love on my part for the redoubtable Hobbes as well.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

And the Athenians, too, your own citizens, like other men, punish and take vengeance on all whom they regard as evil doers; and hence, we may infer them to be of the number of those who think that virtue may be acquired and taught.
— from Protagoras by Plato

There is no more inconsistency in this than was inevitable in his age and country; there is no use in turning upon him the cross lights of modern philosophy, which, from some other point of view, would appear equally inconsistent.
— from The Republic by Plato

If I could loan out my physical books without giving up possession of them, I would .
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

But when we compare the dray-horse and race-horse, the dromedary and camel, the various breeds of sheep fitted either for cultivated land or mountain pasture, with the wool of one breed good for one purpose, and that of another breed for another purpose; when we compare the many breeds of dogs, each good for man in very different ways; when we compare the game-cock, so pertinacious in battle, with other breeds so little quarrelsome, with "everlasting layers" which never desire to sit, and with the bantam so small and elegant; when we compare the host of agricultural, culinary, orchard, and flower-garden races of plants, most useful to man at different seasons and for different purposes, or so beautiful in his eyes, we must, I think, look further than to mere variability.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

As we thus see that the open state of all ordinary flowers, and the consequent loss of much pollen, necessitate the development of so prodigious an excess of this precious substance, why, it may be asked, are flowers always left open?
— from The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom by Charles Darwin

Bodily cleanliness, liberty of movement, prolonged repose in the crib, and rational feeding have obtained this remarkable result of silencing the baby, of rendering it more robust and of liberating the mother from the slavery of her mission.
— from Pedagogical Anthropology by Maria Montessori

There wasn’t any furniture in the main room except a table, three small chairs and one great big old-fashioned Morris chair like one my pop always sat in at home in our living room.
— from The Sugar Creek Gang Digs for Treasure by Paul Hutchens

This was true, abundantly true, of the single ship in fight: but when it came to the question of combining the force of a great many guns, mounted on perhaps twenty-five or thirty heavy ships, possessing unequal qualities, but which must nevertheless keep close to one another, in certain specified positions, on dark nights, in bad weather, above all when before the enemy; when these ships were called upon to perform evolutions all together, or in succession, to concentrate upon a part of the enemy, to frustrate by well combined and well executed movements attacks upon themselves, to remedy the inconveniences arising from loss of sails and masts and consequent loss of motive power, to provide against the disorders caused by sudden changes of wind and the various chances of the sea,—under these conditions, even one not having the [Pg 41] knowledge of experience begins to see that such demands can only be met by a body of men of special aptitudes and training, such as in fact has very rarely, if ever, been found in perfection, in even the most highly organized fleets of any navy in the world.
— from The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol 1 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Acts and Laws of His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, Boston, 1726; Acts and Resolves ... of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, 1692–1780 [Massachusetts Province Laws]; Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, Page 317 reprinted from the editions of 1660 and 1672, Boston, 1887, 1890; General Court Records; Massachusetts Archives; Massachusetts Historical Society Collections; Perpetual Laws of Massachusetts, 1780–1789, Boston, 1789; Plymouth Colony Records; Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay.
— from The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870 by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

With a sigh of pleasurable regret we stood on the deck of the P. and O. steamer Peshawur , and steamed past the ugly docks and frontage, which must create such an unfavourable impression on new arrivals to Bombay; looked our last on Back Bay and on Colaba Lighthouse, on Malabar Point and Malabar Hill.
— from Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent