I knew how she feels, and that there is no other satisfied ambition, whether of king, conqueror, or poet, that ever reaches half-way to that serene far summit or yields half so divine a contentment.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

The marks of service cannot be more degrading than service itself; and it is the mere chicane of philosophy to extend reform only to cuffs and collars, while we do not dispense with the services annexed to them.
— from A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Complete Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners by Charlotte Biggs

Just before my accession, a small group of financiers, desiring to profit by the governmental impotence to which we had been reduced by the Knight decision, had arranged to take control of practically the entire railway system in the Northwest—possibly as the first step toward controlling the entire railway system of the country.
— from Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt

We need the men who are capable of abstract thought, [ 21 ] capable of perceiving the essential relations and significance of the facts, and of drawing correct inductions from them.
— from Socialism: Positive and Negative by Robert Rives La Monte

Everywhere those great waves produced phenomena which were so striking as to attract the attention of all classes of people, to ensure record in most parts of the world, and to call for the earnest investigation of the scientific men of many lands—and the conclusion to which such men have almost universally come is, that the strange vagaries of the sea all over the earth, the mysterious sounds heard in so many widely distant places, and the wonderful effects in the skies of every quarter of the globe, were all due to the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in 1883.
— from Blown to Bits; or, The Lonely Man of Rakata by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

From the terrace of his château of Peyreguilhot, the eye ranges over a fine expanse of the valley of the Garonne, which at no great distance from Tonneins mingles with the Lot beneath the promontory of Nicole.
— from France and the Republic A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 by William Henry Hurlbert

It is the higher nature that must be aroused to inspire women to carry out practically this exalting, refining principle, and through this crucible many have come forth like gold seven times purified, tried as by fire yet without the smell upon their garments.
— from Representative Women of Deseret: A Book of Biographical Sketches by Augusta Joyce Crocheron

It was the work of successful buccaneers as unscrupulous as any crew of pirates that ever robbed and murdered on the ocean.
— from Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology by John D. (John Denison) Baldwin

Health, cheerfulness, and easy circumstances, the ordinary consequence of Temperance and Industry, will at least leave the field clear and open, will tend to preserve the scales of the judgment even: while the consciousness of possessing the esteem, respect, and sympathy of your neighbours, and the sense of your own increasing power and influence, can scarcely fail to give a tone of dignity to your mind, and incline you to hope nobly of your own Being.
— from Aids to Reflection; and, The Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

She was leading Pépé by the hand, while Jean followed her; all three of them exhausted by their journey, frightened and lost in that vast city of Paris, their eyes raised to the house fronts and their tongues for ever inquiring the way to the Rue de la Michodière, where their uncle Baudu lived.
— from The Ladies' Paradise by Émile Zola