Strange that to dogs a virtue you may teach, Which, do your best, to men you vainly preach!
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine

Regaining his faculties by slow and faint glimmerings, he at length sat upright; and, displaying a very yellow face, a very red nose, and a very bristly beard: the joint effect of which was considerably heightened by a dirty white handkerchief, spotted with blood, drawn over the crown of his head and tied under his chin: stared ruefully at Ralph in silence, until his feelings found a vent in this pithy sentence: ‘I say, young fellow, you’ve been and done it now; you have!’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Vi diras al vi , you say to yourself (yourselves) .
— from A Complete Grammar of Esperanto by Ivy Kellerman Reed

The world is often reproached because it is deceitful and vain, yet notwithstanding it is not easily given up, because the lusts of the flesh have too much rule over it.
— from The Imitation of Christ by à Kempis Thomas

Expansive persons found him a little dry, and very young girls thought him sarcastic; but this air of friendly aloofness, as far removed as possible from any assertion of personal advantage, was the quality which piqued Lily's interest.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Does not a stream, boundless as ocean, deep as vacuum, yawn between us?"
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

recover thy credit by some noble exploit, as Themistocles did, for he was a most debauched and vicious youth, sed juventae maculas praeclaris factis delevit , but made the world amends by brave exploits; at last become a new man, and seek to be reformed.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

But already doth IT attack me and constrain me, this spirit of melancholy, this evening-twilight devil: and verily, ye higher men, it hath a longing— —Open your eyes!—it hath a longing to come NAKED, whether male or female, I do not yet know: but it cometh, it constraineth me, alas! open your wits!
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Desde ahí ved y escuchad; Watch and listen from there: franca tenéis esa puerta.
— from Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla

He then directed his discourse to Chariclea, speaking in Greek; a language known and studied by the Gymnosophists, and kings of Ethiopia—"And you, Ο maiden," said he, "why do you make no answer to my questions?"—"At the altars of the gods," replied she, "to whom we are destined as victims, you shall know who I am, and who are my parents."
— from The Greek Romances of Heliodorus, Longus and Achilles Tatius Comprising the Ethiopics; or, Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea; The pastoral amours of Daphnis and Chloe; and the loves of Clitopho and Leucippe by of Emesa Heliodorus

"Can't I do anything vor ye, Peter?" asked Mary gently.
— from By Violence by John Trevena

When you discourage a virtue, you encourage a vice.
— from Usury A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View by Calvin Elliott

It is wonderful to see how doughty and valorous your fighting man who stays at home can be!
— from Bohemian Days in Fleet Street by William Mackay

They are dull and veiled; you know them, for you have spoken to him often.”
— from The Isle of Unrest by Henry Seton Merriman

He emphasizes the diminution of the Bishop's worldly estate consequent upon his translation to the costly see of London, his extraordinary charges in the reparation of the four episcopal residences, his lavish expenditure in hospitality, his penitence for "the errour of his late marriage," and concludes:—"He hath left behinde him 8 poore children, whereof divers are very young.
— from Francis Beaumont: Dramatist A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean, And of His Association with John Fletcher by Charles Mills Gayley

Now it is not permitted to have rifles in de Congo State: dey are vat you call contraband.
— from Samba: A Story of the Rubber Slaves of the Congo by Herbert Strang

You know very well, when you went upon the stage at Kingston in Jamaica, how shamefully you exposed yourself, and what disgrace and vexation you brought upon all your friends.
— from Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica by James Boswell