398.—Of all our faults that which we most readily admit is idleness: we believe that it makes all virtues ineffectual, and that without utterly destroying, it at least suspends their operation.
— from Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims by François duc de La Rochefoucauld

Turovtsin—good, simple man—felt unmistakably a fish out of water, and the smile with which his thick lips greeted Stepan Arkadyevitch said, as plainly as words: “Well, old boy, you have popped me down in a learned set!
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

This odd little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky-blue satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened with silver buckles at the knees.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

I thought that the entertainment was now over, and, feeling rather queer, was about to ask She if we could rise, when suddenly what at first I took to be a baboon came hopping round the fire, and was instantly met upon the other side by a lion, or rather a human being dressed in a lion’s skin.
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

Nor did it, and like sputterings of insurrection all over the place, prevent Judge Taft—the “Mark Tapley of this Philippine business” as he humorously told the Senate Committee of 1902 he had been called—from cabling home, during the presidential campaign of 1900, a series of superlatively optimistic bulletins, 43 based on the testimony of Filipinos who had abandoned the cause of their country as soon as patriotism meant personal peril, all such testimony being eagerly accepted, as testimony of the kind one wants and needs badly usually is, in total disregard of information directly to the contrary furnished by General MacArthur and other distinguished soldiers who had been then on the ground for two years.
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

35 Dal detto al fatto v'è un gran tratto —From saying to doing is a long stride.
— 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.

Anselmo said no more, but he had said enough to cover Lothario with shame and confusion, and he, feeling as it were his honour touched by having been detected in a lie, swore to Anselmo that he would from that moment devote himself to satisfying him without any deception, as he would see if he had the curiosity to watch; though he need not take the trouble, for the pains he would take to satisfy him would remove all suspicions from his mind.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

One day, at dinner, this malicious little cub was so nettled with something I had said to him, that, raising himself upon the frame of her majesty’s chair, he took me up by the middle, as I was sitting down, not thinking any harm, and let me drop into a large silver bowl of cream, and then ran away as fast as he could.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

The sledge was still visible; nor did I again lose sight of it, except at the moments when for a short time some ice-rock concealed it with its intervening crags.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The freedom with which they fly is extraordinary, it is more with the power of the Swallow than any game-bird; they mount very high up into the air, and go wheeling round and round, now mounting nearly out of sight, then rushing headlong down in a long swooping curve till near the earth, when, perhaps, they will turn off sharp at some angle and go tearing away in some opposite direction.
— from Egyptian Birds For the most part seen in the Nile Valley by Charles Whymper

Anyone who deliberately incurs a liability should have the highly beneficial experience of earning the money to liquidate it I propose to give you the chance to do so.”
— from The Treasure of Hidden Valley by Willis George Emerson

The best bait for the Dolphin is a long strip of Shark's flesh.
— from Audubon and His Journals, Volume 2 (of 2) by John James Audubon

When the latter had finished, Turnbull broke in: "Mr. Glover does not tell you, monsieur, that the cave they were in was attacked by six negroes, led by two mulattoes, and he shot them all, nor that he and the nurse carried Madame Duchesne down in a litter some twenty miles to the town, although he had one of his ribs broken by a pistol shot."
— from A Roving Commission; Or, Through the Black Insurrection at Hayti by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

The golden age of the South had departed; with John C. Calhoun passed away the last really commanding figure among Dixie's statesmen, and from him to Jefferson Davis is a long step downward.
— from American Men of Action by Burton Egbert Stevenson

There was not a bird of such methodical and business-like habits in all the world, as the blind blackbird, who dreamed and dozed away his days in a large snug cage, and had lost his voice, from old age, years before Tim first bought him.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Ye who have felt the ache Of visible beauty burning through your brain, And vainly tried to break Through forms of beauty, Beauty to attain; Ye who have felt the weight Of much desire in a little space; God in your narrow brain, and in the face Of mortals the large lineaments of Fate; Ye who have felt the pang, Even in love's most full communion Of the soul's loneliness, which may not hang For all its love, another soul upon; Draw near, draw near to me now, ye who long Above the common things, For truth approaches us on flaming wings And all life's tangle shall be straightened now,
— from The Deluge, and Other Poems by John Presland