For if a writer possesses any clear thought or knowledge it will be his aim to communicate it, and he will work with this end in view; consequently the ideas he furnishes are everywhere clearly defined, so that he is neither diffuse, unmeaning, nor confused, and consequently not tedious.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

We must also see clearly what series of influences can prevail to change all those things which would have been different under normal conditions.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

The affairs of Rome were in the last disorder, the people refusing to fight, while internal quarrels and seditious speeches took place daily, until news came that Lavinium was being invested by the enemy.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

But structures thus indirectly gained, although at first of no advantage to a species, may subsequently have been taken advantage of by its modified descendants, under new conditions of life and newly acquired habits.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

Spanheim de Usu Numismatum, &c. xii
— 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

Had he doubted for a moment the stability of human nature, the foundations of his system would have fallen out; the forms of perception and thought would at once have lost their boasted necessity, since to-morrow might dawn upon new categories and a modified a priori intuition of space or time; and the avenue would also have been closed by which man was led, through his unalterable moral sentiments, to assumptions about metaphysical truths.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

The scout, remembering only his own sturdy and iron nature, had probably exacted a task that David, under no circumstances, could have performed.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

The eyes should be protected by goggles and the room should be darkened; under no circumstances should the little patient be allowed to read.
— from The Mother and Her Child by William S. (William Samuel) Sadler

thou dr a nkest , &c.—For a reason given in the sequel, these forms are less exceptionable than s u ngest , dr u nkest , &c.
— from A Handbook of the English Language by R. G. (Robert Gordon) Latham

c. 51 — “in luctu atque miseriis, mortem ærumnarum requiem, non cruciatum esse: illam cuncta mortalium mala dissolvere: ultra neque curæ neque gaudio locum esse“.
— from Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 2 by George Grote

Thou s a ngest , thou dr a nkest , &c.—For a reason given in the sequel, these forms are less unexceptionable than s u ngest , dr u nkest , &c.
— from The English Language by R. G. (Robert Gordon) Latham

De lil' white chillun play with me but not de udder nigger chilluns much.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Texas Narratives, Part 1 by United States. Work Projects Administration

The wounded men had to lie in the damp and dirt until night came to shelter them; then some one would help, or if that were not possible, the wounded would have to make his own pain-strewn way back to a dressing station.
— from Private Peat by Harold Reginald Peat

Déjà un nombre considérable de tranches s'étaient succédé dans l'estomac complaisant de ce nouveau Gargantua, quand on vint lui annoncer que la cavalerie de Henri IV, emportée par sa folle audace,
— from French Conversation and Composition by Harry Vincent Wann

The bell was immediately heard, and the stranger, making the best of his way into the hall, found the doors wide open, and an indiscriminate assemblage of supplicants, displaying to the best advantage a variety of modes and manifestations of distress, unhappily not confined to those unhallowed days of wretchedness and misrule.
— from Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 by John Roby