Giovanni Villani, in a passage which is curious in more ways than one, tells how the citizens of Florence established races for their troops, and, among other prizes, was one which consisted of a Bucherame di bambagine (of cotton).
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

When a poem, or a part of a poem, shall be adduced, which is evidently vicious in the figures and centexture of its style, yet for the condemnation of which no reason can be assigned, except that it differs from the style in which men actually converse, then, and not till then, can I hold this theory to be either plausible, or practicable, or capable of furnishing either rule, guidance, or precaution, that might not, more easily and more safely, as well as more naturally, have been deduced in the author's own mind from considerations of grammar, logic, and the truth and nature of things, confirmed by the authority of works, whose fame is not of one country nor of one age.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

But in the morning, in my own flat, I woke to a different atmosphere, and as I lay in bed and recalled the things he had told me, stripped of the glamour of his earnest slow voice, denuded of the focussed, shaded table light, the shadowy atmosphere that wrapped about him and me, and the pleasant bright things, the dessert and glasses and napery of the dinner we had shared, making them for the time a bright little world quite cut off from everyday realities, I saw it all as frankly incredible.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Page 64 Chapter IV Rizal’s Early Childhood José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda , the seventh child of Francisco Engracio Rizal Mercado y Alejandro and his wife, Teodora Morales Alonzo Realonda y Quintos, was born in Kalamba, June 19, 1861.
— from Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot by Austin Craig

We shall only have, then, to turn to the opposite characteristics, in order to discover the abstract formula, this time a general and complete one, for every real and possible method of comedy.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

Tell me this: why does it happen that at the very, yes, at the very moments when I am most capable of feeling every refinement of all that is "sublime and beautiful," as they used to say at one time, it would, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that ...
— from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Thus in the art of acquiring riches there are no limits, for the object of that is money and possessions; but economy has a boundary, though this has not: for acquiring riches is not the business of that, for which reason it should seem that some boundary should be set to riches, though we see the contrary to this is what is practised; for all those who get riches add to their money without end; the cause of which is the near connection of these two arts with each other, which sometimes occasions the one to change employments with the other, as getting of money is their common object: for economy requires the possession of wealth, but not on its own account but with another view, to purchase things necessary therewith; but the other procures it merely to increase it: so that some persons are confirmed in their belief, that this is the proper object of economy, and think that for this purpose money should be saved and hoarded up without end; the reason for which disposition is, that they are intent upon living, but not upon living well; and this desire being boundless in its extent, the means which they aim at for that purpose are boundless also; and those who propose to live well, often confine that to the enjoyment of the pleasures of sense; so that as this also seems to depend upon what a man has, all their care is to get money, and hence arises the other cause for this art; for as this enjoyment is excessive in its degree, they endeavour to procure means proportionate to supply it; and if they cannot do this merely by the art of dealing in money, they will endeavour to do it by other ways, and apply all their powers to a purpose they were not by nature intended for.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

Tell me this: why does it happen that at the very, yes, at the very moments when I am most capable of feeling every refinement of all that is "good and beautiful," as they used to say at one time, it would, as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that....
— from White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In no instance except this, which comprehends half the human race, are the higher social functions closed against any one by a fatality of birth which no exertions, and no change of circumstances, can overcome; for even religious disabilities (besides that in England and
— from The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill

In the outer hall, amid a crowd of footmen, Egremont recognized his valet who immediately came forward.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

It was an age when the pride of architecture had been indulged to the full; edifices, public and private, mansions and temples, ran off far away from each market-town or borough, as from a centre, some of stone or marble, but most of them of that composite of fine earth, rammed tight by means of frames, for which the Saracens were afterwards famous, and of which specimens remain to this day, as hard in surface, as sharp at the angles, as when they first were finished.
— from Callista : a Tale of the Third Century by John Henry Newman

Without opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post, the highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached.
— from Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

The quantity I have mentioned evidently bears a very inconsiderable proportion to the total erosion of the stream during that period, because the wash of the banks consists chiefly of fine earth rather than of sand, and after the pond was once filled, or nearly so, even this material could no longer be deposited in it.
— from The Earth as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

Elijah and the Angel Elijah and the chariot of fire Elijah raises the widow's son In the fiery furnace The handwriting on the wall Daniel in the den of lions (color plate) Jonah thrown on the dry land Haman denounced by the Queen THE NEW TESTAMENT The Holy Child in the manger (color plate) Following the star The flight into Egypt
— from Child's Story of the Bible by Mary A. (Mary Artemisia) Lathbury

A tremendous howl was set up, and knives and hatchets were flourished; but Mr Pemberton, who is in charge of Fort Erie, ran in and pacified them.
— from Away in the Wilderness by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

"And take the capital city of France?" exclaimed Richard.
— from With the Black Prince by William O. Stoddard

They poise each hope which bids the wise obey, And shed broad blessings from their widening sway; To raise the afflicted, stretch the healing hand, Drive crushed oppression from each rescued land, Bold in alternate right, or sheath or draw The sword of conquest, or the sword of law; Spare what resists not, what opposes bend, And govern cool, what they with warmth defend.' Hill has the merit of having turned the tables upon Pope, who had put him into the treatise on the Bathos , and then into the Dunciad , where, however, the lines have more of compliment than censure, since he is made to mount 'far off among the swans of Thames.'
— from The Age of Pope (1700-1744) by John Dennis

To this ideal we are committed and it carries certain obligations; for every right carries a duty, and every duty, a right.
— from The Soul of Democracy The Philosophy of the World War in Relation to Human Liberty by Edward Howard Griggs