In treatises on many kinds of cultivated plants, certain varieties are said to withstand certain climates better than others: this is very strikingly shown in works on fruit trees published in the United States, in which certain varieties are habitually recommended for the northern, and others for the southern States; and as most of these varieties are of recent origin, they cannot owe their constitutional differences to habit.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

First then, it is confessed almost to a proverb, that the art of dissembling is a very necessary accomplishment; and therefore it is a common verse among school-boys:— To feign the fool when fit occasions rise, Argues the being more completely wise.
— from In Praise of Folly Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts by Desiderius Erasmus

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

This use is found in Plautus, Terence, Cato, Varro, and Sallust.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane

“You do not really think, Mr. Thorpe,” said Catherine, venturing after some time to consider the matter as entirely decided, and to offer some little variation on the subject, “that James's gig will break down?”
— from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Take of Earthworms well cleansed, three pound, Snails, with shells on their backs cleansed, two gallons, beat them in a mortar, and put them into a convenient vessel, adding stinging Nettles, roots and all, six handfuls, wild Angelica, four handfuls, brank Ursine, seven handfuls, Agrimony, Bettony, of each three handfuls, Rue one handful, common Wormwood two handfuls, Rosemary flowers six ounces, Dock roots ten ounces, the roots of Sorrel five ounces, Turmerick, the inner bark of Barberries, of each four ounces, Fenugreek seeds two ounces, Cloves three ounces, Hart’s-horn, Ivory in gross powder, of each four ounces, Saffron three drams, small spirits of Wine four gallons and a half, after twenty-four hours infusion, distil them in an alembick.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

He bared his arms, looking intently at their corded veins and sinews.
— from Life in the Iron-Mills; Or, The Korl Woman by Rebecca Harding Davis

Than curse vainly and superficially, far better not to curse at all.
— from The Rough Road by William John Locke

In nearly all cases these esquires in the early years of their career, are called "vallettus," after some years of service they are occasionally called "armiger," and finally after the passage of more years are always called "armiger" or "scutifer."
— from Chaucer's Official Life by James R. (James Root) Hulbert

We can visit any spot in heathendom, cheered and borne up by the same assurance amidst every difficulty, discouragement, and danger.
— from Parish Papers by Norman Macleod

This separation first takes place on the physical plane; it is made easier by hard, violent contacts, and the forms, in their turn, become more complex, varied, and specialised in proportion as the soul is the more perfectly individualised.
— from Reincarnation: A Study in Human Evolution by Théophile Pascal

The alternative was to lead round from the head of the line, when the choice would have arisen between a gradual change of course and a reverse of course, viz., a sixteen-point turn.
— from The British Navy in Battle by Arthur Joseph Hungerford Pollen

They fail to ask themselves, perhaps, whether a long poem so entirely ‘interior’ can possibly have the clearness, variety, and solidity of effect that the best long poems have possessed; whether it can produce the same impression of a massive, building, organising, ‘architectonic’ power of imagination; and whether all this and much else is of little value.
— from Oxford Lectures on Poetry by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley

The fatuous eye, the features of complacent vanity and self-satisfied reverie were there, either intensified by drink, or perhaps suggesting it through some other equally hopeless form of hallucination.
— from A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's, and Other Stories by Bret Harte

But Luke must have seen more, for he married her one day before the caballard started back, and went over on Canada Verde and set up a ranch of his own.
— from Sixes and Sevens by O. Henry

But when old age is reached, all this is over and done with, partly because the blood runs cooler and the senses are no longer so easily allured; partly because experience has shown the true value of things and the futility of pleasure, whereby illusion has been gradually dispelled, and the strange fancies and prejudices which previously concealed or distorted a free and true view of the world, have been dissipated and put to flight; with the result that a man can now get a juster and clearer view, and see things as they are, and also in a measure attain more or less insight into the nullity of all things on this earth.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer