The minute he was on, the horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and the drunk man hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air every jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing till tears rolled down.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

This attempt to introduce a complete revolution in the procedure of metaphysics, after the example of the geometricians and natural philosophers, constitutes the aim of the Critique of Pure Speculative Reason.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

He was capable of profound sacrifices, a tremendous death.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane

As the result of all my reading and meditation, I abstracted two critical aphorisms, deeming them to comprise the conditions and criteria of poetic style;—first, that not the poem which we have read, but that to which we return, with the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power, and claims the name of essential poetry;—secondly, that whatever lines can be translated into other words of the same language, without diminution of their significance, either in sense or association, or in any worthy feeling, are so far vicious in their diction.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Another class of persons shun such an experience as Balshazzar would have shunned, if he could, the handwriting on the wall.
— from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer by Jesse Henry Jones

During this occasional absence, the bishop and church of Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, and all that class of perpetually self-reproductive volumes—Great Nature's Stereotypes—we see them individually perish with less regret, because we know the copies of them to be "eterne."
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

Socrates, on the contrary, conceived that each man, to achieve his aims must first learn to distinguish them clearly; he demanded that rationality, in the form of an examination and clarification of purposes, should precede any selection of external instruments.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

An additional escort, almost an army in itself, in double rank, lined the whole road from the barrier of the Champs Élysées of the great cathedral; and, as the royal coach passed through the city gate, a herald proclaimed that "The king wishing to consecrate by fresh acts of kindness the happy moment when God showered his mercies on him by the birth of a dauphin, and at the same time to give to the inhabitants of his good city of Paris some special mark of his beneficence, granted an exemption from the poll-tax to all the burgesses, traders, and artisans who were not in such circumstances as made the payment easy."
— from The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France by Charles Duke Yonge

A tall young man, clad à la Robespierre, with a broad red mantle that half-covered him, advanced at the head of a knot of confederates armed with revolvers, and exclaimed in a loud tone: “The church of the Madeleine is closed by order of the committee of public safety.”
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

They continued to take and give offence with as little hesitation as before the legislative dispersion which had been attempted, as appears from the preamble to statute 1633, chapter 30, setting forth, that the clan Gregor, which had been suppressed and reduced to quietness by the great care of the late King James of eternal memory, had nevertheless broken out again, in the counties of Perth, Stirling, Clackmannan, Monteith, Lennox, Angus, and Mearns; for which reason the statute re-establishes the disabilities attached to the clan, and, grants a new commission for enforcing the laws against that wicked and rebellious race.
— from Rob Roy — Volume 01 by Walter Scott

What was it that brought so low the head of the man who had stood all day bravely erect, enduring the condolence of people, sustaining himself in the shock of integrity?
— from The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various

Eudes, a general of the Commune, sent the following order to one of his officers:— "Fire on the Bourse, the Bank, the Post Office, the Place des Victoires, the Place Vendôme, the Garden of the Tuileries, the Babylone Barracks; leave the Hôtel de Ville to Commandant Pindy and the Delegate of War, and the Committee of Public Safety and of the Commune will assemble at the mairie of the eleventh Arrondissement, where you are established; there we will organize the defence of the popular quarters of the city.
— from Paris under the Commune The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs) by John Leighton

The Court of Punah saw their advantage in strengthening the Patel, and sent him a strong body of troops, led by Takuji Holkar in person, on condition that both that chief and the Peshwa should participate in the fruits of the campaign.
— from The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan by H. G. (Henry George) Keene

And Tartlet, in a reverie, as he saw this child of Polynesia so demean himself, inquired if these steps, perhaps a little too characteristic, were not natural to the human being, although outside all the principles of his art.
— from Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery by Jules Verne

That iron, when finely divided is capable of producing sparks of fire, is a well known fact; and we see it daily in the operations of the smith, when ignited iron is hammered on the anvil.
— from A System of Pyrotechny Comprehending the theory and practice, with the application of chemistry; designed for exhibition and for war. by James Cutbush

C ó ltr o , a culter or plough share.
— from Queen Anna's New World of Words; or, Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues by John Florio