When our old students return to Tuskegee now, as they often do, and go into our large, beautiful, well-ventilated, and well-lighted dining room, and see tempting, well-cooked food—largely grown by the students themselves—and see tables, neat tablecloths and napkins, and vases of flowers upon the tables, and hear singing birds, and note that each meal is served exactly upon the minute, with no disorder, and with almost no complaint coming from the hundreds that now fill our dining room, they, too, often say to me that they are glad that we started as we did, and built ourselves up year by year, by a slow and natural process of growth.
— from Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

Make way, make way!” pushed through the crowd more energetically than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on the center sofa.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Finally he was heard of in Mexico, and a friend of his, a bar-keeper on a salary, scraped together a little money and sought him out, bought his “feet” for a hundred dollars, returned and sold the property for $75,000.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

And it bears the fruit of Deceit, Ruddy and sweet to eat, And the raven his nest has made In its thickest shade.
— from Songs of Innocence, and Songs of Experience by William Blake

He listened to the tritest saying that fell from the lips of our extraordinary companion with devotional rapture, and secretly took down notes of his conversation.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

Therefore I will give thee in return gold and silver in abundance, that thou mayest not ever repent that thou didst render a service to Dareios the son of Hystaspes."
— from The History of Herodotus — Volume 1 by Herodotus

But to feel the truth and authority of an abstract maxim (as, for instance, Do right and shame the devil), a maxim applicable to experience on any plane, nothing is needed but a sound wit and common honesty.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Mirabel’s awful proud of having so many dead relations, and she told me what they all died of, and what they said, and how they looked in their coffins.
— from Anne of Avonlea by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

If it be so, It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows That ever I have felt.
— from The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare

Laws denying, representation and suffrage to the intruder?
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

We see that tribes intermingled, exchanging and distorting traditions of their gods; that migrations disturbed the local force of legends; that the time for celebrating the birth of Spring in the far South or East became sadly misplaced when transplanted to the North; and that, finally, the deep reverence and strange tales attached to trees, flowers, and minerals, being too deeply seated to perish, were fed by being transferred to other objects more or less similar.
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various

[87] Gerda dropped Ronnie, and sprang to her feet with a sharp exclamation.
— from The School by the Sea by Angela Brazil

“But how does running away solve the difficulty?”
— from Gloria Mundi by Harold Frederic

This mind has demolition reached, And seen the last of all desire!"
— from The Approach to Philosophy by Ralph Barton Perry

Joe drew rein, and stopped the equipage in the middle of the road, just where the shadow of a tall poplar by the wayside would shelter them from the sun; and there he sat, looking hot about the temples, and trying to settle his eyes on the tips of his horse's ears, because these could not return the look, while he dared not turn elsewhere for fear a mocking glance should meet him and complete his discomfiture, as he sat there awaiting his answer, feeling like a fool who has surrendered his shoulders to the smiters--a trapped animal awaiting the arrival of the hunters--the man who has put it in a girl's power to say she refused him.
— from A Rich Man's Relatives (Vol. 3 of 3) by Robert Cleland

Yet if Affliction once her warres begin, And threat the feebler Sense with sword and fire; The Minde contracts her selfe and shrinketh in, And to her selfe she gladly doth retire: As Spiders toucht, seek their webs inmost part; As bees in stormes vnto their hiues returne; As bloud in danger gathers to the heart; As men seek towns, when foes the country burn.
— from The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies. Volume 1 of 2. by Davies, John, Sir

The whole extent of this prince's dominions reacheth about six thousand miles in length, and from three to five in breadth.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

When they had spoken these words, one of the most antient Judges did rise and say, Touching this murther, which deserveth great punishment, this malefactor himselfe cannot deny, but our duty is to enquire and try out, whether he had Coadjutors to help him.
— from The Golden Asse by Apuleius

The prepossessing manner of the princess, her immense fortune, and her ability to discuss Russian affairs, served to win not alone the confidence of all, but their sympathy as well.
— from Makers and Romance of Alabama History by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Riley