For at the dawn of history Europe was covered with immense primaeval forests, in which the scattered clearings must have appeared like islets in an ocean of green.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

On matters of pure theory they might perhaps be allowed to speculate, so long as their speculations either did not approach politics, or had not the remotest connection with its practice.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

For the moment this news was believed at Rome; but when soon afterwards it became known that the Carthaginians were in possession of the Roman camp, and that all the Celts had joined them: while their own troops had abandoned their camp, and, after retiring from the field of battle, were all collected in the neighbouring cities; and were besides being supplied with necessary provisions by sea up the Padus, the Roman people became only too certain of what had really happened in the battle.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.
— from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

It may be admitted that it would profit an incipient species, if it were rendered in some slight degree sterile when crossed with its parent form or with some other variety; for thus fewer bastardised and deteriorated offspring would be produced to commingle their blood with the new species in process of formation.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

Compared with it, provincial stuff is kvass 18 .
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

Even at this moment, when one would think one really would be solemn, your tie reminds me fearfully of the bow-tie that cats wear in pictures!
— from The Garden Party, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

Those who understand such enclosures will think I had very little contrivance when I pitched upon a place very proper for all these (being a plain, open piece of meadow land, or savannah, as our people call it in the western colonies), which had two or three little drills of fresh water in it, and at one end was very woody—I say, they will smile at my forecast, when I shall tell them I began by enclosing this piece of ground in such a manner that, my hedge or pale must have been at least two miles about.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Indeed they were at sea, and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

He was a man of five feet eight, powerfully built, with broad shoulders, dry, muscular, and endowed with an iron health; his face, whose lines were extremely rigid, was imprinted with that expression of energetic will, blended with carelessness, which is peculiar to those men whose existence has been only one continual succession of dangers surmounted.
— from The Border Rifles: A Tale of the Texan War by Gustave Aimard

A conical rubber sleeve, R, incloses the cable, which is pressed by the screw cap, S. A special spring, Y, attached at one end to the top of the lantern, and at the other to the cable, X, is designed to deaden the too sudden shocks that the lantern might be submitted to, and that would tend to pull out the cable.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 by Various

(Though those who quoted him conveniently omitted the portions of his analysis where he concedes that there are cases where intellectual property rights may be necessary and desirable.)
— from The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle

The choir, with its polygonal apse, was built in 1376-1391, and the piers and arches of the nave were rebuilt about the year 1400, the church being reconsecrated in 1412.
— from A History of Architecture in All Countries, Volume 2, 3rd ed. From the Earliest Times to the Present Day by James Fergusson

It was a lively scene, for a spirited race in cutters was in progress between Mr. Bunn and Mr. Sneed.
— from The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound Or, The Proof on the Film by Laura Lee Hope

Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice, progress was slow and difficult; but the passage was safely accomplished, and so across Kane Sea and up 250 Kennedy Channel.
— from Round About the North Pole by W. J. (William John) Gordon

While this conversation was in progress, Lord Seacliff was enjoying a refreshing sleep in his room on the fourth floor.
— from Indiscretions of Archie by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

The pressure of circumstances with its peculiar influence surprised them and forced a transitory greatness upon them, which they never could have possessed and perhaps will never possess again.
— from History of the Revolt of the Netherlands — Complete by Friedrich Schiller

And Pierre had to bring his elbows into play and force a passage athwart the throng, betwixt the shivering cowardice of some, the insolent audacity of others, and the smirchings which sullied the greater number, given the contagion which inevitably prevailed.
— from The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Volume 1 by Émile Zola

And to whom more appertain these considerations, which I propound, than to yourselves, and the debate before you, though I trust of no difficulty, yet at present of great expectation, not whether ye will gratify, were it no more than so, but whether ye will hearken to the just petition of many thousands best affected both to religion and to this your return, or whether ye will satisfy, which you never can, the covetous pretences and demands of insatiable hirelings, whose disaffection ye well know both to yourselves and your resolutions?
— from An Introduction to the Prose and Poetical Works of John Milton Comprising All the Autobiographic Passages in His Works, the More Explicit Presentations of His Ideas of True Liberty. by John Milton