The bachelor replied that although he was not one of the famous poets of Spain, who were, they said, only three and a half, he would not fail to compose the required verses; though he saw a great difficulty in the task, as the letters which made up the name were seventeen; so, if he made four ballad stanzas of four lines each, there would be a letter over, and if he made them of five, what they called decimas or redondillas, there were three letters short; nevertheless he would try to drop a letter as well as he could, so that the name "Dulcinea del Toboso" might be got into four ballad stanzas.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Thus in the art of acquiring riches there are no limits, for the object of that is money and possessions; but economy has a boundary, though this has not: for acquiring riches is not the business of that, for which reason it should seem that some boundary should be set to riches, though we see the contrary to this is what is practised; for all those who get riches add to their money without end; the cause of which is the near connection of these two arts with each other, which sometimes occasions the one to change employments with the other, as getting of money is their common object: for economy requires the possession of wealth, but not on its own account but with another view, to purchase things necessary therewith; but the other procures it merely to increase it: so that some persons are confirmed in their belief, that this is the proper object of economy, and think that for this purpose money should be saved and hoarded up without end; the reason for which disposition is, that they are intent upon living, but not upon living well; and this desire being boundless in its extent, the means which they aim at for that purpose are boundless also; and those who propose to live well, often confine that to the enjoyment of the pleasures of sense; so that as this also seems to depend upon what a man has, all their care is to get money, and hence arises the other cause for this art; for as this enjoyment is excessive in its degree, they endeavour to procure means proportionate to supply it; and if they cannot do this merely by the art of dealing in money, they will endeavour to do it by other ways, and apply all their powers to a purpose they were not by nature intended for.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

15 Else, man not onely is the heard of swine, But he's those devills too, which did incline Them to a headlong rage, and made them worse: For man can adde weight to heavens heaviest curse.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

The Maccabebe scouts, of which the writer commanded a company at the time, took the town a few hours later, Aguinaldo’s rear-guard retiring after a brief resistance, following which we found, among the dead in the trenches, a major other than Villa.
— from The American Occupation of the Philippines 1898-1912 by James H. (James Henderson) Blount

Nor did Agricola, like many young men, who convert military service into wanton pastime, avail himself licentiously or slothfully of his tribunitial title, or his inexperience, to spend his time in pleasures and absences from duty; but he employed himself in gaining a knowledge of the country, making himself known to the army, learning from the experienced, and imitating the best; neither pressing to be employed through vainglory, nor declining it through timidity; and performing his duty with equal solicitude and spirit.
— from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus

The being who discharges the duties of its station, is independent; and, speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and the next, in point of importance, as citizens, is that, which includes so many, of a mother.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

No sooner did Innocent the Third ascend the chair of St. Peter, than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany, and France, the obligation of a new crusade.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

All we can do is to try and distract his mind from dwelling on this one idea.
— from Mohawks: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3 by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

Letters.— Are delivered in the town and suburbs, almost immediately after the arrival of the packet.
— from Guernsey Pictorial Directory and Stranger's Guide Embellished with Numerous Wood-cuts by Bellamy, Thomas, of Guernsey

The frenzies of the last days in the town are luridly witnessed by the things discovered in streets and houses.
— from The Republic of the Southern Cross, and other stories by Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov

Swiftly the Yanks ran forward, leaped over the sand bags down into the trench, and an astonished German on duty there got tumbled over so quickly that he knew not what hit him.
— from The Brighton Boys in the Trenches by James R. Driscoll

Rosecrans, at the head of his cavalry or body guard, dashes in the thickest, and turns the dame fortune, who smiles on heroes, but never smiled on McClellan nor on his tail.
— from Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 by De Gurowski, Adam G., count

There was a harsh-breathed growl, from down in the tonneau; and, on the instant, a tawny giant shape came catapulting over the top of the shut door and hurled itself upon the staggering negro.
— from Further Adventures of Lad by Albert Payson Terhune

For my part, I think the best thing to be done is to take an opportunity of distinctly manifesting at Cairo the continuance of the Anglo-French understanding.
— from Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy, Vol. 2 of 2 by Newton, Thomas Wodehouse Legh, Baron

"The only thing to do is to try and get at the soft side of her: an appeal to the heart, you understand."
— from Dry Fish and Wet: Tales from a Norwegian Seaport by Anthon Bernhard Elias Nilsen

lii NOTE The short summaries or headings to each dialogue in the text are translations from the edition of Vives’ Dialogues by John Thomas Freigius, published at Nürnberg, 1582.
— from Tudor school-boy life: the dialogues of Juan Luis Vives by Juan Luis Vives

[p 71 ] He nodded numbly, and she drew open a drawer in the table and pulled out four fairly large oil paintings done on commercial painting boards.
— from The Sex Life of the Gods by M. E. (Michael E.) Knerr