" B. Percival Dike LINEN, n. "A kind of cloth the making of which, when made of hemp, entails a great waste of hemp.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Mallongan tempon ili ŝajnis esti tre feliĉaj inter la arboj kaj floroj de la nova mondo.
— from A Complete Grammar of Esperanto by Ivy Kellerman Reed

He could speak robin (which is a quite distinct language not to be mistaken for any other).
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The fine things we read together interested us so strongly that we did not think of love, nor of the pleasure we took in each other’s company; but as the saying goes, the devil lost nothing by us.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

] to see him and his wife, and would have gone to my Aunt Wight, but that her only child, a daughter, died last night.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

RIOT, Paris, in May 1750, Cornlaw ( in 1775 ), at Palais de Justice ( 1787 ), triumph, of Rue St. Antoine, of July Fourteenth ( 1789 ), and Bastille, at Strasburg, Paris, on the veto, Versailles Chateau, October Fifth ( 1789 ), uses of, to National Assembly, Paris, on Nanci affair, at De Castries' Hotel, on flight of King's Aunts, at Vincennes, on King's proposed journey to St. Cloud, in Champ-de-Mars, with sharp shot, Paris, Twentieth June, 1792, August Tenth, 1792, Grain, Paris, at Theatre de la Nation, selling sugar, of Thermidor, 1794, of Germinal, 1795, of Prairial, final, of Vendemiaire.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

I was better used to the dim light now.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Henery appeared in a drab kerseymere great-coat, buttoned over his smock-frock, the white skirts of the latter being visible to the distance of about a foot below the coat-tails, which, when you got used to the style of dress, looked natural enough, and even ornamental—it certainly was comfortable.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

120-130 He, also, who had put him to death, lives no longer than the other, and breathes forth the air which he has so lately received.
— from The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII by Ovid

[512] Howitt, Australian Medicine Men , J.A.I. , XVI, p. 34; Lafitau, Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains , I, p. 370; Charlevoix, Histoire de la Nouvelle France , VI, p. 68.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

To Ailsa Paige June and July passed like fevered dreams; the brief sweet spring had suddenly turned into summer in a single day—a strange, stifling, menacing summer full of heavy little thunder-storms which rolled crackling and banging up the Hudson amid vivid electric displays, leaving no coolness behind their trailing wake of rain.
— from Ailsa Paige: A Novel by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

In winter, as is the case with most Ducks, large numbers arrive from abroad, and may be found in shallow bays, estuaries, and inland waters in company with other species.
— from Birds of Britain by J. Lewis (John Lewis) Bonhote

But, when the wit began to wheeze, And wine had warmed the politician, Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.
— from The Home Book of Verse — Volume 4 by Burton Egbert Stevenson

The danger to American democracy lies not in the least in the concentration of administrative power in responsible and accountable hands.
— from State of the Union Addresses by Theodore Roosevelt

Rogers was gassing about it in the dormitories last night."
— from The Loom of Youth by Alec (Alexander Raban) Waugh

long, poop , signifie la natte, "estera ò petate," dit Pio Perez, qui donne encore à pop le sens d'un arbrisseau ou d'une plante qu'il ne décrit point, mais qui, fort probablement, doit être de la nature
— from The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 2, Civilized Nations The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 2 by Hubert Howe Bancroft

"It's an awful business," declared Lord Nick.
— from Gunman's Reckoning by Max Brand

“I dined last night with my old friends the Southleighs; and there, for the first time, I met Mrs Guy Spencer.
— from This House to Let by William Le Queux

Di li nostri travagghi; e na gran parti Duvemu an iddi di li nostri beni; Vi pari, chi sarria riconoscenza
— from A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla by Leigh Hunt

The fire was burning low, and Dick lost no time in heaping on some of the newly cut brushwood, and then he reloaded and the guide did the same.
— from The Rover Boys In The Mountains; Or, A Hunt for Fun and Fortune by Edward Stratemeyer