"But, dash it——" "Oh, never mind.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

It is a foul bird that dirties its own nest.
— 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.

I believe, after all, he got it chiefly from Nature, who had poured some of her music into this honest conceited soul, as she had been known to do into other narrow souls before his.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

275 There 108 they seized the ships which had been hauled up on shore in which they had previously been transported from Lesbos; they launched as many of these vessel as they thought sufficient to convey them, and the rest they burnt there in the docks, in order not to supply their enemy with the means of quickly pursuing them.
— from The Anabasis of Alexander or, The History of the Wars and Conquests of Alexander the Great by Arrian

So it is with the Dakota Indians of North America; and, according to Mr. Matthews, they then hold their heads erect, frown, and often stalk away with long strides.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

But let me observe here that, when I say the people abandoned themselves to despair, I do not mean to what men call a religious despair, or a despair of their eternal state, but I mean a despair of their being able to escape the infection or to outlive the plague which they saw was so raging and so irresistible in its force that indeed few people that were touched with it in its height, about August and September, escaped; and, which is very particular, contrary to its ordinary operation in June and July, and the beginning of August, when, as I have observed, many were infected, and continued so many days, and then went off after having had the poison in their blood a long time; but now, on the contrary, most of the people who were taken during the two last weeks in August and in the three first weeks in September, generally died in two or three days at furthest, and many the very same day they were taken; whether the dog-days, or, as our astrologers pretended to express themselves, the influence of the dog-star, had that malignant effect, or all those who had the seeds of infection before in them brought it up to a maturity at that time altogether, I know not; but this was the time when it was reported that above 3000 people died in one night; and they that would have us believe they more critically observed it pretend to say that they all died within the space of two hours, viz., between the hours of one and three in the morning.
— from A Journal of the Plague Year Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London by Daniel Defoe

This visit had infused new vigor into Dantès; he had, till then, forgotten the date; but now, with a fragment of plaster, he wrote the date, 30th July, 1816, and made a mark every day, in order not to lose his reckoning again.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

Curly is fourth; he is a pickle, [a person who gets in pickles-predicaments] and so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly, “Stand forth the one who did this thing,” that now at the command he stands forth automatically whether he has done it or not.
— from Peter Pan by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

Just at this juncture, Dan, my associate in the reportorial department, told me, casually, that two citizens had been trying to persuade him to go with them to New York and aid in selling a rich silver mine which they had discovered and secured in a new mining district in our neighborhood.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

The matter of after-images, probably because of their short duration, is of no criminalistic importance.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

This city had taken the position formerly occupied by Hamath, which was now possibly one of its dependencies; it owed no allegiance to Damascus, and rallied around it all the tribes of Coele-Syria, whose assistance Hadadezer, but a short while before, had claimed in his war with the foreigner.
— from History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) by G. (Gaston) Maspero

That nest prospered, as bobolinks' nests doubtless generally do; for, notwithstanding the enormous slaughter of the birds by Southern sportsmen during their fall migrations, the bobolink appears to hold its own, and its music does not diminish in our Northern meadows.
— from Bird Stories from Burroughs Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs by John Burroughs

Indeed, the whole dispute is of no more concernment to the common reader than it is to a ploughman whether February this year had twenty-eight or twenty-nine days in it; but for the satisfaction of the more curious (of which number I am sure your lordship is one)
— from Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry by John Dryden

The flesh must have its due, in order not to burn.
— from Historical Miniatures by August Strindberg

Depilto is only nine miles from Ocotal, but we took three hours to reach it, as I made many stoppages to examine the rocks and to catch fleet-limbed speckled tiger-beetles on the sandy roads.
— from The Naturalist in Nicaragua by Thomas Belt

Social conditions in our evolution, present distinct problems from those which characterize other nations and demand, therefore, a direct study on the ground and must not be viewed through the doctrines developed in other nations and amid other conditions.
— from The Social Evolution of the Argentine Republic by Ernesto Quesada

Indeed there is such a very striking resemblance between the Bushmen of Africa and these Digger Indians of North America; that, were it not for the distinction of race, and some slight differences in personal appearance, they might pass as one people.
— from Odd People: Being a Popular Description of Singular Races of Man by Mayne Reid

“Will you do it or not?” demanded Tom.
— from Tom Temple's Career by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

Noble souls are divided into ordinary noble ones, and the more advanced.
— from Letters from a Sûfî Teacher by Sharaf al-Din Ahmad ibn Yahya Maniri