no ambition to commend my deeds, The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the dooer; But they persisted deaf, and would not seem To count them things worth notice, till at length 250 Thir Lords the Philistines with gather'd powers Enterd Judea seeking mee, who then Safe to the rock of Etham was retir'd, Not flying, but fore-casting in what place To set upon them, what advantag'd best; Mean while the men of Judah to prevent The harrass of thir Land, beset me round; I willingly on some conditions came Into thir hands, and they as gladly yield me To the uncircumcis'd a welcom prey, 260 Bound with two cords; but cords to me were threds Toucht with the flame: on thir whole Host I flew Unarm'd, and with a trivial weapon fell'd Thir choicest youth; they only liv'd who fled. Had Judah that day join'd, or one whole Tribe, They had by this possess'd the Towers of Gath, And lorded over them whom now they serve; But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt, And by thir vices brought to servitude, Then to love Bondage more then Liberty, 270 Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty; And to despise, or envy, or suspect Whom God hath of his special favour rais'd As thir Deliverer; if he aught begin, How frequent to desert him, and at last To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds?
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

When I saw them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the carcasses of the two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and at the same time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I sat where I was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless ghosts come near the blood till Teiresias should have answered my questions.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

She listened in an astonishment, acknowledged that she had imagined herself in the arms of one she had greatly loved, and had thought the whole affair was a dream, and was not conscious of its absolute reality as to her being fucked.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

The beams that had been dragged apart were no longer burning, but were smoking vigorously; the student, who was working the hose, turned the water, first on the beams, then on the peasants, then on the women who were bringing the water.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

If she could only believe what the children were singing; if she were only sure, how different all would now be; how confidently she would leave them to Providence and their future kingdom!
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

"Consider, then, Cebes," said he, "whether, from all that has been said, these conclusions follow, that the soul is most like that which is divine, immortal, intelligent, uniform, indissoluble, and which always continues in the same state; but that the body, on the other hand, is most like that which is human, mortal, unintelligent, multiform, dissoluble, and which never continues in the same state.
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

The former is only a negative thought in respect of the world of sense, which does not give any laws to reason in determining the will and is positive only in this single point that this freedom as a negative characteristic is at the same time conjoined with a (positive) faculty and even with a causality of reason, which we designate a will, namely a faculty of so acting that the principle of the actions shall conform to the essential character of a rational motive, i.e., the condition that the maxim have universal validity as a law.
— from Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant

When that is done, all we need, besides, is to write the three expressions in a row, with “†” between the Premisses, and “¶” before the Conclusion.
— from Symbolic Logic by Lewis Carroll

In either case the object was to produce physical pain; but the latter method involved no disgrace, and was not derogatory to honor.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer

In view of all this information, when the enemy has scattered his forces in large detachments, and with Napoleon and his Guards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy’s forces confronting you are so considerable as not to allow of your taking the offensive?
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Some years after, he drank too much at a feast, told his story, and immediately disappeared, and was never seen again.
— from The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country by W. F. (William Forsell) Kirby

Having thus passed over the flood, with what Noah and his sons did after; we now come to the second plantation of the world, to wit, by the three sons of Noah; for by these three was the world replenished after the flood.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Complete by John Bunyan

But cui bono ? ‘Your dull ass will never mend his pace with beating.’
— from The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 Volume 23, Number 1 by Various

In short, our aim should be, not to destroy, but effectively and in thoroughgoing fashion to regulate and control, in the public interest, the great instrumentalities of modern business, which it is destructive of the general welfare of the community to destroy, and which nevertheless it is vitally necessary to that general welfare to regulate and control.
— from Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt

Pâyandâr Khân, the Wayfarer, is so far possible that the heir to the throne of Sinde, who bore that name, suddenly lost his senses in consequence of some direful tragedy, disappeared into the desert, and was no more heard of.
— from A Prince of Dreamers by Flora Annie Webster Steel

Their powerful instruments enabled them to see objects on the earth as distinctly as we now see through our telescopes the features of a landscape a few miles distant.
— from Daybreak; A Romance of an Old World by James Cowan

Tangua’s face was the incarnation of scorn; Winnetou’s upper lip had curled till one could see his teeth—he was disgusted that he had taken my part; and his sister kept her eyes down and would no longer look at me.
— from Winnetou, the Apache Knight by Karl May

All other citizens of the State are in the dark about what Nature intends with her State-instinct within them, and they follow blindly; only those who stand outside this instinct know what they want from the State and what the State is to grant them.
— from Early Greek Philosophy & Other Essays Collected Works, Volume Two by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche