I do not think they are very apt to do as my poor friend Hale did.'
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

An attention even to trivial matters, in order to please, is also expected and demanded by society; and no one is surprised, if he find a man in company to observe a greater elegance of dress and more pleasant flow of conversation, than when he passes his time at home, and with his own family.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

Here in Suffolk Street lives Moll Davis; and we did see her coach come for her to her door, a mighty pretty fine coach.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Ruskin put his criticism into imaginative prose, and is superb in his changes and contradictions; and Browning put his into blank verse and made painter and poet yield us their secret; and M. Renan uses dialogue, and Mr. Pater fiction, and Rossetti translated into sonnet-music the colour of Giorgione and the design of Ingres, and his own design and colour also, feeling, with the instinct of one who had many modes of utterance; that the ultimate art is literature, and the finest and fullest medium that of words.
— from Intentions by Oscar Wilde

If Writings are thus durable, and may pass from Age to Age throughout the whole Course of Time, how careful should an Author be of committing any thing to Print that may corrupt Posterity, and poison the Minds of Men with Vice and Error?
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

that thinks he can never mistake, but can foresee all contingencies at the greatest distance, and make provision for the worst presages?
— from In Praise of Folly Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts by Desiderius Erasmus

" Upward we took our way along the crag, Which jagged was, and narrow, and difficult, And more precipitous far than that before.
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri

The Romans, having no tangible adversaries and with darkness and mist prevailing, found no chance to employ their valor.
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek during the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form by Cassius Dio Cocceianus

Here I should like to speak of the brides of the Lord; but I remember “The Nun” of Diderot, and my pen falls from my hand.
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

Of the mountains, now always in sight, and a constant source of inspiration to the eager explorers, those to the north and northwest were yet snow-capped, and Lewis says: “They glisten with great beauty when the sun shines on them 131 in a particular direction, and most probably from this glittering appearance have derived the name of the Shining Mountains.”
— from Explorers and Travellers by A. W. (Adolphus Washington) Greely

Eperson checked his horse and got down and made places for them on his coat.
— from The Cottage of Delight: A Novel by Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben

He drew a musket patch from his pocket and began to clean the sooty powder pan of the musket.
— from Caribbee by Thomas Hoover

And why?—Because the greater majority of human beings are full of the deepest and most passionate feelings, not as yet having been 'educated' OUT of them!"
— from Ardath: The Story of a Dead Self by Marie Corelli

Monsieur devours, and Madame picks fastidiously at the dishes with sullen gestures and disdainful mouthings.
— from A Chambermaid's Diary by Octave Mirbeau

Theophilus devised a malignant plan for disturbing their peace.
— from Saint John Chrysostom, His Life and Times A sketch of the church and the empire in the fourth century by W. R. W. (William Richard Wood) Stephens