My impression is, that I dined off Dora, entirely, and sent away half-a-dozen plates untouched.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

He used to advise people who got drunk to look in the glass, and then they would abandon their unseemly habit; and he said that it was never decorous to drink to the degree of drunkenness, except at the festivals of the God who had given men wine.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

When [4912] Chaerea saw the singing wench's sweet looks, he was so taken, that he cried out, O faciem pulchram, deleo omnes dehinc ex animo mulieres, taedet quotidianarum harum formarum!
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

On their coming into administration, they found the demolition of Dunkirk entirely at a stand: instead of demolition, they found construction; for the French were then at work on the repair of the jettees.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

Such an inference, in default of direct evidence as to how the priesthood did actually arise, can never amount to demonstration.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

His instructions enjoined him to approach, to listen, to watch, but not to risk any doubtful or dangerous enterprise against the city.
— 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

This first stage attained, the Immortal travels at will throughout the universe, enjoys all the advantages of perfect health without dreading disease or death, eats and drinks copiously—nothing is wanting to complete his happiness. (2) The Perfect Man, or Hero ( Chên-jên ).
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

'Sir King' they brought report 'we hardly found, So bushed about it is with gloom, the hall Of him to whom ye sent us, Pellam, once A Christless foe of thine as ever dashed Horse against horse; but seeing that thy realm Hath prospered in the name of Christ, the King Took, as in rival heat, to holy things; And finds himself descended from the Saint Arimathaean Joseph; him who first Brought the great faith to Britain over seas; He boasts his life as purer than thine own; Eats scarce enow to keep his pulse abeat; Hath pushed aside his faithful wife, nor lets Or dame or damsel enter at his gates Lest he should be polluted.
— from Idylls of the King by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

Cavendish, Lord Frederick , brother of the ninth Duke of Devonshire, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and a Liberal; was made Chief-Secretary for Ireland in 1882, but chancing to walk home one evening through the Phoenix Park, he fell a victim, stabbed to the heart, of a conspiracy that was aimed at Mr. Burke, an unpopular subordinate, who was walking along with him, and came to the same fate.
— from The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by P. Austin Nuttall

Of the line of early bitches of the same breeding may briefly be mentioned Reynold’s Famous, dam of Gilbert’s Fun; Kelley’s Nell, dam of Ross and Trimount King; Saunder’s Kate, dam of Ben Butler; Nolan’s Mollie, dam of Doctor, Evadne and Nancy.
— from The Boston Terrier and All About It A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog by Edward Axtell

By dint of doing exactly as he advised, fifteen minutes later found them ringing Mr. Johnson’s doorbell.
— from Dorothy Dixon Solves the Conway Case by Dorothy Wayne

But of Scott's combination of poetry, humour, knowledge of life, reading, grasp of character, and command of effective dialogue and description, both were utterly destitute: and both fell into the mistake (which even Dumas did not wholly avoid) of attempting to give the historical effect by thrusting in lardings of pure history, by overloading descriptions of dress, etc., and, in short, by plastering the historic colour on, instead of suffusing it, as Scott had managed to do.
— from The English Novel by George Saintsbury

A being then recalled, there is a universal demand from the company for the required age, and a great deal of doubt expressed as to his ability to guess it.
— from How to Behave and How to Amuse: A Handy Manual of Etiquette and Parlor Games by George H. (George Henry) Sandison

So, for the fiftieth time, perhaps, the cuckoo was [Pg 59] vanishing in the foliage, when a sudden thought cramped the legs and cut short the obstinate pursuit of the young lawyer; he then, for the first time, remembered the wholesome advice his uncle had given him on his arrival.—"Beware, my fine fellow, beware of going alone in the forest, for to those who know not how to read their way, that is, on the bark of the trees, the mossy stones, and dry or broken twigs, the forest is full of snares and danger, of deceitful echos and strange noises that attract and mislead the inexperienced sportsman."
— from Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches by Henri de Crignelle

These consisted in the uncritical manner in which, by blindly copying their predecessors, they confused the dates of different events; and in the readiness with which they believed the most improbable statements, upon imperfect evidence, and often upon no evidence at all.
— from History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3 by Henry Thomas Buckle