It is great prudence to gain as many friends as we honestly can, especially when it may be done at so easy a rate as a good word.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

They were called deserters, and frequently bills were set up upon their doors and written, 'Here is a doctor to be let', so that several of those physicians were fain for a while to sit still and look about them, or at least remove their dwellings, and set up in new places and among new acquaintance.
— from A Journal of the Plague Year Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London by Daniel Defoe

Where no good-will or friendship appears, it is difficult to conceive on what we can found our hope of advantage from the riches of others; though we naturally respect the rich, even before they discover any such favourable disposition towards us.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

He grew less desponding, and—so sanguine and buoyant is youth—even hoped that affairs at Dotheboys Hall might yet prove better than they promised.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

But, after all, it is not a right thing to do.' "'Ah!' sighed I to myself, 'am I also to be a burden on the conscience of this poor woman?
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

She eats and drinks and sleeps like a sensible creature, she looks straight in my face when I talk about that man, and only blushes a little bit when Teddy jokes about lovers.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

But this mode of defraying a share of the public expenses is hardly felt: the payer, unless a person of education and reflection, does not identify his interest with a low scale of public expenditure as closely as when money for its support is demanded directly from himself; and even supposing him to do so, he would doubtless take care that, however lavish an expenditure he might, by his vote, assist in imposing upon the government, it should not be defrayed by any additional taxes on the articles which he himself consumes.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

Thus in China, at the moment of death, a small hole is made through the roof; while the custom of opening the window, to allow the soul of the dying man to depart, is universal in Germany and not unknown in England.
— from Plutarch's Romane Questions With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beans by Plutarch

She bore these to the table like a handmaid, but like a delicate and superior handmaid, and it pleased her to constitute herself a delicate and superior handmaid.
— from Hilda Lessways by Arnold Bennett

When in the usual course of Divine Providence, who punishes nations as well as individuals, His destroying angel shall on this account pass over this country—and sooner or later, pass it will—I may be permitted to hope that over New England his hand will be stayed.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16) by United States. Congress

"Mamma," said Ellen after a little, again raising her head and looking her mother full in the face, as if willing to apply the severest test to this hard doctrine, and speaking with an indescribable expression, "do you love Him better than you do me ?"
— from The Wide, Wide World by Susan Warner

If you were drawing a straight line across your shoulders—well, let's not do it that way.
— from Warren Commission (12 of 26): Hearings Vol. XII (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

I'm not afeard of 'em;" and Tabby tossed her head defiantly, as she paused to shift her basket from one arm to the other.
— from Spinning-Wheel Stories by Louisa May Alcott

It is a curious experience sitting with Sir Richard Martin, Lord Grey, and the General, in the telegraph office, and listening to a conversation being ticked to us from Salisbury, some 800 miles away, just as if the sender (Judge Vintcent) were in the next room—the message being a string of startling details of more murders, impis gathering, heroic patrols making dashing rescues, preparations for defence, and state of food supplies and ammunition.
— from The Matabele Campaign Being a Narrative of the Campaign in Suppressing the Native Rising in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, 1896 by Baden-Powell of Gilwell, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, Baron

She longed to do as some girl of whom she had once been told by an old Invalide had done in the '89—a girl of the people, a fisher-girl of the Cannébière who had loved one above her rank, a noble who deserted her for a woman of his own order, a beautiful, soft-skinned, lily-like scornful aristocrat, with the silver ring of merciless laughter, and the languid lustre of sweet contemptuous eyes.
— from Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida Selected from the Works of Ouida by Ouida