"If you don't force your neighbour to feed and clothe you, to transport you from place to place and defend you from your enemies, surely in the midst of a life entirely resting on slavery, that is progress, isn't it?
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

"But, papa, you always say Mr. Wakem has brought Philip up like a girl; how came you to think you should get any business knowledge out of him?
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

And I congratulate you that, though you have friendships with princes, and have as much forensic reputation as anybody, yet you are not in the same plight as the tragic Merops, nor have you like him by the felicitations of the multitude been induced to forget the sufferings of humanity; but you remember, what you have often heard, that a patrician's slipper 712 is no cure for the gout, nor a costly ring for a whitlow, nor a diadem for the headache.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

I suspect some ambush; Therefore by all my love I do conjure you To take your eldest son, and fly towards Milan.
— from The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Why, how can you talk to your mother?
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Besides, how can you tell that your religion and mine are the same; your forms wound me, and I hate funerals.
— from Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

How could you tell that you would fall down the cellar stairs in a fit, if you didn't sham a fit on purpose?”
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“How can you tell that you won’t?” “I shall not, because I don’t wish it.”
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

And Lupin continued: "Yes, thanks to you, my dear friend.
— from The Hollow Needle; Further adventures of Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc

Your success with Dunbar Budthorne caused you to think you might hypnotize me, and force me to tell you where you could find Nadia.
— from Dick Merriwell Abroad; Or, The Ban of the Terrible Ten by Burt L. Standish

"How can you tell, till you have tried, that there is no corresponding strength?" asked Gerald, turning full upon him again.
— from Only an Incident by Grace Denio Litchfield

How can you tell that you will have such anxieties as you suggest?
— from The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 986, November 19, 1898 by Various

“It was your imagination that caused you to think you saw him fall.
— from Hal Kenyon Disappears by Gordon (Adventure story writer) Stuart

If you have ever wandered solitary through an unknown city, listened to a foreign tongue and to none other, eaten alien viands, fallen into strange misadventures, and all without a single friendly ear to confide your troubles to, you will sympathize with the joyous swelling of my heart as I faced my barrister at that luncheon.
— from The Adventures of M. D'Haricot by J. Storer (Joseph Storer) Clouston

"Hoo cam ye to tyne yer bairn, wuman?"
— from Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald

You tell me that you love me, yet only treat me as a plaything; when sorrow or anxiety comes you turn to your mother, and I—I, who should be the nearest and the dearest, am not so much as allowed to know what is troubling you.
— from An Interloper by Frances Mary Peard

The special artists claim you, they track you from afar.
— from Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 105, July 22nd, 1893 by Various