Frank Palgrave came one day, more contentious, contemptuous, and paradoxical than ever, because Napoleon III seemed to be threatening war with Germany.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

Then setting spurs to his horse, he passed through freely, his horse not fearing nor being anything affrighted at the sight of the dead bodies; for he had accustomed him, according to the doctrine of Aelian, not to fear armour, nor the carcasses of dead men; and that not by killing men as Diomedes did the Thracians, or as Ulysses did in throwing the corpses of his enemies at his horse’s feet, as Homer saith, but by putting a Jack-a-lent amongst his hay, and making him go over it ordinarily when he gave him his oats.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

H2 anchor Chapter 3.XIX.—How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

The moment I came on deck, my old friend Oscar greeted me with his usual joyous bark, and with the sagacity peculiar to his species, proceeded to shew me all the damage done to the vessel during the night.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

Chapter 3.XIX.—How Pantagruel praiseth the counsel of dumb men.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

To buy things at sales is very much like buying things at an auction; if you really know what you want and something about values, you can often do marvellously well; but if you are easily bewildered and know little of values, you are apt to spend your good money on trash.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

In summe, I cannot imagine, how anything can be more prejudiciall to a Monarchy, than the allowing of such books to be publikely read, without present applying such correctives of discreet Masters, as are fit to take away their Venime; Which Venime I will not doubt to compare to the biting of a mad Dogge, which is a disease the Physicians call Hydrophobia, or Fear Of Water.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

And it does not blow through the tender maiden who stays indoors with her dear mother, unlearned as yet in the works of golden Aphrodite, and who washes her soft body and anoints herself with oil and lies down in an inner room within the house, on a winter's day when the Boneless One 1322 gnaws his foot in his fireless house and wretched home; for the sun shows him no pastures to make for, but goes to and fro over the land and city of dusky men 1323 , and shines more sluggishly upon the whole race of the Hellenes.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

It saves time if the umpire makes out a scoring card beforehand, giving the name of each scout, and a number of columns showing each act of his, and what mark that scout wins, also a column of deducted marks for exposing themselves.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook The First Edition, 1911 by Boy Scouts of America

The lecture was given in the largest church of Des Moines, on a Sunday evening, and most of the other churches adjourned their services that they might hear this “remarkable man.”
— from Vanishing Landmarks: The Trend Toward Bolshevism by Leslie M. (Leslie Mortier) Shaw

Then, with this fiery, suggestive testimony, on examining those sections whose trees are a hundred years old or two hundred, we find the same fire records, though heavily veiled with mosses and lichens, showing that a century or two ago the forests that stood there had been swept away in some tremendous fire at a time when rare conditions of drouth made their burning possible.
— from Steep Trails California, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, the Grand Canyon by John Muir

"Why should I pay the cost of defending Mr. Griffenbottom's seat?"
— from Ralph the Heir by Anthony Trollope

He was now impatient to be home; and, having transferred his son to the care of Dr Meyer, he bade farewell to his friends, and was in London by the end of November.
— from Thomas Campbell by J. Cuthbert (James Cuthbert) Hadden

Black majestic clouds gathered darker over head, and the wild whistle of the coming tempest grew every moment more shrill; but little were the boding sounds noted within the cottage of Donald McLane, for sterner and fiercer was the storm of sorrow gathering in the human heart of the one lonely watcher, bending over the low pallet where lay, in a still dreamless slumber, the forerunner of one more dreamless yet, the form of her only child.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 1, July 1849 by Various

Dr. Kaufmann, therefore, very well expresses what appears to be the general conviction of his co-religionists, when he suggests that ‘in the very circumstance of dispersion may lie fulfilment’ (p. 87).
— from Jewish Portraits by Magnus, Katie, Lady

It concerned lovers of fair-play, because it was to be settled whether it is right to accuse a man of peculation whom you wish to convict of disagreeable manners.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 25, November, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

[1228] "Il sera bien, en cette occasion, de montrer le regret que le Roi et ses ministres ont de sa mort, et le cas qu'ils font des seigneurs des Pays-Bas!" Ibid., p. 536.
— from History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, Vols. 1 and 2 by William Hickling Prescott

After operating in the mountains several months, where much apple brandy, fat beef, milk and honey abounded, we returned to Randolph and the adjoining counties of Davidson, Moore, Montgomery and Chatham, where there was much work to do.
— from The Southern Soldier Boy: A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy by James Carson Elliott