We are all conscious that there is another man inside of us, that there accompanies us through life a divine, silent messenger, that other, higher, better self, which speaks from the depths of our nature and which gives its consent, its "amen" to every right action, and condemns every wrong one.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

fact, we feel dispossessed of our nature and cramped in our life.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

With our vast advantages, contrasted with the vast disadvantages of other nations, American business all the time should be the best and steadiest in the world.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

There will be sojourners come from the earth, who, longing after the taste of the sweet cream, of their own skimming off, from the best milk of all the dairy of the Galaxy, will set themselves at table down with us, drink of our nectar and ambrosia, and take to their own beds at night for wives and concubines our fairest goddesses, the only means whereby they can be deified.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

But for many centuries it was the custom of nurses and mothers to threaten refractory children with being carried off at the end of the year by Nicholas; and in this way each year closed, in the young apprehension, with a Judgment Day, a Weighing of Souls, and a Devil or Old Nick as agent of retribution.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

However, a democracy is safer and less liable to sedition than an oligarchy; for in this latter it may arise from two causes, for either the few in power may conspire against each other or against the people; but in a democracy only one; namely, against the few who aim at exclusive power; but there is no instance worth speaking of, of a sedition of the people against themselves.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

My imagination began to construct dangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep the run of them.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

The analysis of our social progress proves indeed that, while the radical dispositions of our nature are necessarily invariable, the highest of them are in a continuous state of relative development, by which they rise to be preponderant powers of human existence, though the inversion of the primitive economy can never be absolutely complete.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

for we always conversed, whenever good fortune and my ingenuity gave us the chance, with the greatest gaiety and cheerfulness, mingling tears, sighs, jealousies, doubts, or fears with our words; it was all on my part a eulogy of my good fortune that Heaven should have given her to me for my mistress; I glorified her beauty, I extolled her worth and her understanding; and she paid me back by praising in me what in her love for me she thought worthy of praise; and besides we had a hundred thousand trifles and doings of our neighbours and acquaintances to talk about, and the utmost extent of my boldness was to take, almost by force, one of her fair white hands and carry it to my lips, as well as the closeness of the low grating that separated us allowed me.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

We had now all got on our "Cape Horn rig"—thick boots, south-westers coming down over our neck and ears, thick trowsers and jackets, and some with oil-cloth suits over all.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

Whilst atavistic forms have hitherto been known only as isolated and exceptional cases, interesting indeed in the highest degree, but devoid of significance in the course of the development of organic nature, a real importance in this last respect must now be attached to them.
— from Studies in the Theory of Descent, Volume II by August Weismann

The opportunity is now given to some philanthropic party to either donate or sell on easy terms land, as above described, on or near any one of the car lines.
— from Fifteen Years with the Outcast by Fflorens Roberts

Yet, ­ and here is the point, where genius even of the most perfect kind, allotted but to few in the course of many ages, does not preclude the necessity in part, and in part counterbalance the craving by sanity of judgment, without which genius either cannot be, or cannot at least manifest itself, ­ the dependency of our nature asks for some confirmation from without, though it be only from the shadows of other men's fictions.
— from The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Though he had knowledge to understand the depth of our necessities, and power to prevent them, or rescue us from them, yet his knowledge would be fruitless, and his power useless, if he were of a rigid nature, and not touched with any sentiments of kindness.
— from The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2 by Stephen Charnock

It is singular enough that soda, which is a form of borax, is the actual constituent part of some of our most permanent colours—we need but mention ultramarine; and here we are tempted to transcribe a passage from the translator's preface, which exactly falls in with this our view.—"The use made by the early Italian artists of lyes (lisciva) is deserving of our notice and consideration.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 by Various

God was not three incomprehensible Persons rolled into one, not Jesus, not Jehovah, not the Father creating the world in six days out of nothing, and muddling it, and coming down from heaven into it as his own son to make the best of a bad job.
— from Mary Olivier: a Life by May Sinclair

The animals were, most of them, wandering about wherever they pleased, the mules and horses taking their dinner out of nosebags, and the mules keeping up a gentle exercise by kicking at one another.
— from The Voyage of the Rattletrap by Hayden Carruth

We had been laying down our own notions as God's great justice.
— from The Cost by David Graham Phillips

We should efface the trace of this innumerable diversity of opinions; not adorn ourselves with it, and fill posterity with crotchets.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne