(This latter I consider one of my best experiences and deepest lessons in human nature behind the scenes and in the masses.)
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

He defends, on the other hand, the right of free inquiry against the priesthood and the pedantry of the schools, holding that the supernatural must be sharply distinguished from the natural, and mere conjectures concerning insoluble problems from positions susceptible of experimental proof; while, in opposition to submission to authority, he remarks that the current coin of opinion must be estimated, not by the date when and the person by whom it was minted but by the value of the metal alone.
— from History of Modern Philosophy From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time by Richard Falckenberg

A poem is generally read in solitude, and a picture can be seen by only a few at a time; but a concert or opera may be enjoyed by 5,000 or more at a time—the more the merrier.
— from Chopin and Other Musical Essays by Henry T. Finck

There were groans and hisses at even our own troops, the militia, that had come out at the call of our mayor; but every effort to get up any counter applause proved a failure.
— from Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 04 (of 20) by Charles Sumner

Love is the cause of our most biting evils.
— from Thais by Anatole France

Professor Faraday as early as 1824 had noticed a change in colour gradually produced in glass containing oxide of manganese by exposure to the rays of the sun.
— from Inventions in the Century by William Henry Doolittle

One was leaning on the unglazed window frame, and a couple of old men basking, even in that September day, in the glow of the fire, while a few women and children loitered around, thinking it rather fine to hear Master Original-Sin declaim on the backsliding of the Scots in upholding the son of the oppressor.
— from Under the Storm by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

Under this act they were authorized to lay out and construct a railroad from some point on the Kill von Kull, at or near Bergen Point, to the Newark Turnpike road leading from Jersey City to Newark, with the privilege of constructing one or more branches extending to the several ferries in the County of Hudson, south of Hoboken.
— from Jersey City and Its Historic Sites by Harriet Phillips Eaton