Paulinus was ordained bishop by the Archbishop Justus, on the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord 625, and so came to King Edwin with the aforesaid maiden as an attendant on their union in the flesh.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede, the Venerable, Saint

Our heart, therefore, has greatly rejoiced in the benefit bestowed by the bounty of the Lord, for that He has vouchsafed, in your confession, to kindle a spark of the orthodox religion, by which He might the more easily inflame with the love of Himself the understanding, not only of your illustrious consort, but also of all the nation that is subject to you.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede, the Venerable, Saint

I steal away from occasions of vexing myself, and turn from the knowledge of things that go amiss; and yet I cannot so order it, but that every hour I jostle against something or other that displeases me; and the tricks that they most conceal from me, are those that I the soonest come to know; some there are that, not to make matters worse, a man must himself help to conceal.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

But there is a sort of ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honour and courage to knowledge; an ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge itself.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was born some years before the fire of Rome, 37 he could derive only from reading and conversation the knowledge of an event which happened during his infancy.
— 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

I do not know, nor do I care to know who thou mayest be: be it Thou or only thine image, to-morrow I will condemn and burn Thee on the stake, as the most wicked of all the heretics; and that same people, who to-day were kissing Thy feet, to-morrow at one bend of my finger, will rush to add fuel to Thy funeral pile...
— from The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

All at once that shifty look came into his eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and with it the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum attendants come to know so well.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

[Pg 57] I will, however, explain, more clearly than Kant either would or could, the method whereby he accomplishes this difficult task.
— from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer

(c) It checked the knowledge of Life.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

‘Then,’ says he, ‘maybe you’d give yourself a brushing, and get into that coach; the king wants to see you.
— from The Lilac Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

And I want you to persuade Cary to keep them."
— from The Business of Life by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

Professional men are compelled to know more or less of them, and it has been my lot to be greatly interested; in fact, somewhat involved in a matter in which Blanchard, or, as you know him, 'Collins,' was the principal actor; and I'll say to you here, that it would give me the keenest pleasure to give you any aid in my power as against that wretch."
— from Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives by George S. McWatters

The true Reason why I made use of the Title, Private Vices, Publick Benefits , I sincerely believe, was to raise Attention: As it is generally counted to be a Paradox, I pitch'd upon it in Hopes that those who might hear or see it, would have the Curiosity to know, what could be said to maintain it; and perhaps sooner buy the Book, than they would have done otherwise.
— from A Letter to Dion by Bernard Mandeville

How can they know anything?
— from Donald Ross of Heimra (Volume 2 of 3) by William Black

This is not true of that institution brought into existence by the preaching of Messiah and the Apostles, sometimes called the kingdom of God, but more properly the Church of Christ.
— from History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Volume 1 Period 1. History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet by Smith, Joseph, Jr.

Towns were compelled to keep standard measures by Stat. 8 Henry VI. cap.
— from Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2 (of 2) by Alice Stopford Green

We had not risen from any reckless excitement to assert new rights, or to experiment on new theories; we should have been contented to keep what we lawfully possessed.
— from Select Speeches of Kossuth by Lajos Kossuth

Even the appearance of the lady does not cause the knight to cease his prayers, and she remains looking upon him, half-divided between her duty and a sudden feeling of admiration and involuntary esteem for which she is unable to account, except by considering him as an apparition sent from heaven,—when a violent noise without, accompanied by the cries of hunters and their horns, effectually put a stop to the religious occupation of all within the church.
— from Béarn and the Pyrenees A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre by Louisa Stuart Costello