Or you make a model of the Hampton Court maze, and put a rat in the middle, assaulted by the smell of food on the outside.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell

oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!’
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

But we must deny the fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

Good and lawful men of the said District, then and there sworn and charged to inquire for the said United States of America, and for the body of said District, do, upon their oaths, present, that Susan B. Anthony now or late of Rochester, in the county of Monroe, with force and arms,... did knowingly, wrongfully and unlawfully vote for a Representative in the Congress of the United States for the State of New York at large, and for a Representative in the Congress of the United States for said twenty-ninth Congressional District, without having a lawful right to vote in said election district (the said Susan B. Anthony being then and there a person of the female sex), as she, the said Susan B. Anthony then and there well knew, contrary to the form of the statute of the United States of America in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the United States of America and their dignity, etc.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

There were atoms in the ancient world even, but since we've learned that you've discovered the chemical molecule and protoplasm and the devil knows what, we had to lower our crest.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In the greater part of the libels which have been written against the present system of finances in France, the abuses of the controle make a principal article.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

"I don't want to learn any more," said Amina, much disgusted; "I shall tell him I can make a pillau, and dry sweetmeats, and roll rose-leaves.
— from Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

l. 1 , to an ancient man against her will, whom she could not affect; she was continually melancholy, and pined away for grief; and though her husband did all he could possibly to give her content, in a discontented humour at length she hanged herself.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

" She then left the room; and Elinor dared not follow her to say more, for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give no information that would convince Marianne; and painful as the consequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was obliged to submit to it.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Buy braw troggin, &c. Here's an honest conscience might a prince adorn; Frae the downs o' Tinwald, so was never worn.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

Aristotle called man “ a political animal ” ; it is still more true, as Sabatier declares, that “ man is incurably religious. ”
— from Systematic Theology (Volume 1 of 3) by Augustus Hopkins Strong

I fancied I could make a pleasant Abstract of a much too long and clumsy Book, and draw a few Readers to the well-nigh forgotten Author.
— from Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2 by Edward FitzGerald

Sir Bale certainly had doubts, and vacillated; for moral evidence made powerfully in favour of poor Feltram, though the evidence of circumstance made as powerfully against him.
— from J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 The Haunted Baronet (1871) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

He must have made a good thing out of me, but he always gave me clean mats and pillows, and the best stuff you could get anywhere.
— from Indian Tales by Rudyard Kipling

A little later, Mr. Webster returned to Boston, and was "rapturously received" at the Revere House, April 29, 1850, by a "great multitude," when Benjamin R. Curtis made a public address, and expressed his "abounding gratitude for the ability and fidelity" which Mr. Webster had "brought to the defence of the Constitution and of the Union," and commended him as " eminently vigilant, wise, and faithful to his country, without a shadow of turning ."
— from The Trial of Theodore Parker For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence by Theodore Parker

Mr. King and Mr. List, counsellors of this court, testify that Mr. Davis sat with, consulted with and conversed with the counsel who addressed the court, made a prolonged and careful examination of the papers, and was the first who raised the doubt of their sufficiency.
— from Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave: Held in Boston, in February, 1851. by Charles G. (Charles Gideon) Davis

And if of a hobby you can make a principle—" "A principle?"
— from In and out of Three Normandy Inns by Anna Bowman Dodd

On a table stood a ragged chair, with, beside it, a clock minus a pendulum and covered all over with cobwebs.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol