The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Tumult was not his element; it was the tragic feature of his life that he was forced to dwell so much in that.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

The devil snatch me, if they be not already within the middle of our close, and cut so well both vines and grapes, that, by Cod’s body, there will not be found for these four years to come so much as a gleaning in it.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

But, as it was, unwilling anew to subject himself to rebuffs, he resolved, now that he had seen the San Dominick safely moored, immediately to quit her, without further allusion to hospitality or business.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

Marianne had now been brought by degrees, so much into the habit of going out every day, that it was become a matter of indifference to her, whether she went or not: and she prepared quietly and mechanically for every evening's engagement, though without expecting the smallest amusement from any, and very often without knowing, till the last moment, where it was to take her.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

My father and I went ashore immediately at Portsmouth, leaving Strap with the captain to go round with the ship and take care of our effects; and I discovered so much impatience to see my charming Narcissa, that my father permitted me to ride across the country to her brother's house; while he should hire a post-chaise for London, where he would wait for me at a place to which I directed him.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

"It is right," said Danton, swallowing much indignation, "to repress the Royalists: but we should not strike except where it is useful to the Republic; we should not confound the innocent and the guilty.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

The lamp looked pale and ashamed; the carvings on the walls, like chained dreams, stared meaningless in the light as they would fain hide themselves.
— from The Gardener by Rabindranath Tagore

Happily, tipping has, up to date, been more or less of an exotic in America, but I have grave fears that the Chicago Exhibition, attracting as it does so many incurable tippers from Europe, will cause the disease to take firm root in the States, and entail years of suffering hereafter.
— from The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

And you, Aristippus, like a thousand other sentimental conservatives, cannot hear the suggestion that woman might do something more in this world than she is now doing without giving tongue at once: "Woman's sphere is the home,"—"Woman's mission is to be beautiful, to cheer, and to elevate."
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics by Various

Outside the door, standing meekly in the hallway, awaiting summons to enter, were half a dozen of his comrades, about to be sentenced to similar punishment for blunders of greater or less magnitude.
— from Cadet Days: A Story of West Point by Charles King

My stepmother did see me in the taxi, but her brain doesn't move very swiftly, nor does she, for that matter—and I'm sure she wouldn't try to follow me.
— from Back to Billabong by Mary Grant Bruce

iii. 7), says: “They are women which commonly be old, lame, bleare-eied, pale, fowle, and full of wrinkles; they are leane and deformed, showing melancholie in their faces.”
— from Folk-lore of Shakespeare by T. F. (Thomas Firminger) Thiselton-Dyer

But with unhurried chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, Majestic instancy, They beat—and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet— 'All things betray thee who betrayest Me.'"
— from Heroic Spain by Elizabeth Boyle O'Reilly

In the afternoon the men went out again for a long excursion and the ladies walked about the gardens, which well deserve to be examined in detail, so marvellous is the labour expended upon them, though attention to detail has in no way destroyed the general effect.
— from Memoirs of the Duchesse De Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1841-1850 by Dino, Dorothée, duchesse de

The opinions taken, the Regent turning towards M. le Duc, said, "Monsieur, I think you would like to read what you intend to say to the King at the Bed of Justice."
— from Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 12 by Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de

"The ordinary notion of absolute government, derived from the form it assumes in Europe at the present day," says Merivale, "is that of a strict system of prevention, which, by means of a powerful army, an ubiquitous police, and a censorship of letters, anticipates every manifestation of freedom in thought or action, from whence inconvenience may arise to it.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 44, June, 1861 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various