And they who entertain beasts ought rather to be said to serve them, than to be served by them.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

But he that honours a reasonable soul in general, as it is reasonable and naturally sociable, doth little regard anything else: and above all things is careful to preserve his own, in the continual habit and exercise both of reason and sociableness: and thereby doth co-operate with him, of whose nature he doth also participate; God.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

The truths which are ultimately accepted as the first principles of a science, are really the last results of metaphysical analysis, practised on the elementary notions with which the science is conversant; and their relation to the science is not that of foundations to an edifice, but of roots to a tree, which may perform their office equally well though they be never dug down to and exposed to light.
— from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill

He kept brushing his hand before his eyes as I spoke—and when I went back to Martha’s offer the evening before, of receiving Miss Matty as a lodger, he fairly walked away from me to the window, and began drumming with his fingers upon it.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Gottheil , Rev. Paul Eduard, brother of Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, of the Temple Emmanuel, New York, born at Franstadt (Germany), April 5, 1818, died at Stuttgart in 1893.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

Vain were his solicitations to Jaisalmer and Jodhpur; and though it cannot be matter of wonder that he found no commiseration from either Bhatti or Rathor, we must reprobate the unnational conduct of Maldeo, who, the Mogul historian says, attempted to make him captive.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

Numberless cultivated Americans traveling in Europe never by any chance speak English or carry English books on railroad trains, as a protection against the other type of American who allows no one to travel in the same compartment and escape conversation.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

To eat "with the blood" was amongst the Hebrews a crime worthy of death; to eat with unwashed hands was a dreadful offence in the eyes of the Pharisees of Jerusalem; and in the recent famine in Bengal, we have seen that individuals would rather die of absolute hunger, and allow their children to perish too, than eat bread or rice which may have been touched by profane hands, or drink milk that had been expressed by British milkmaids from cows' udders.
— from Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied Symbols by Thomas Inman

The solution of this question is as follows: Pure reason does not in its ideas point to particular objects, which lie beyond the field of experience, but only requires completeness of the use of the understanding in the system of experience.
— from Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant

Among the latter was one called Narnald Cluada, a man of mean extraction, but of renowned good faith and a loyal merchant, rich beyond measure in lands and monies, who had by a wife of his several children, whereof the three eldest were daughters.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

At Tiptree Heath there was a sharp cavalry engagement between our red Lancers and several squadrons of a sky-blue hussar regiment.
— from The Invasion of 1910, with a full account of the siege of London by William Le Queux

It is entirely built of red granite—not sandstone as at first appears, for that would be too easy and crumbling a substance for such massive walls and ramparts.
— from Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

177 The retreat was conducted without serious molestation by the enemy, but, on reaching Antu, it was found that owing to the rain a freshet had come down, the river rising twelve feet, and had swept the stockade away and carried off over seventy of the boats.
— from A History of Sarawak under Its Two White Rajahs 1839-1908 by C. A. Bampfylde

There's an exquisite blending of restraint over them and boldness with cautious prudence.
— from Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon

This definition is borrowed word for word from a German book, originally written before the Boer War and republished in 1902, when the war was ending, by an officer—the distinguished General Bernhardi—who founded his conclusions not on experience but on report, and addressed those conclusions to the German Cavalry, whose tactics, training, and organization by his own admission were, and seemingly are still, so dangerously antiquated in the direction of excessive reliance on the steel as to present no parallel to our own Cavalry.
— from War and the Arme Blanche by Erskine Childers

broad and flat, scanty beards, either black or red; their noses compressed and short, and their complexions tawny.
— from Buffon's Natural History. Volume 04 (of 10) Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c by Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de

no doubt these reasons, if only unconsciously, were at the bottom of the extraordinary body of repressive legislation put upon the books
— from The American Credo A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken

The same year (1158) which saw Valdemar ascend the Danish throne saw Absalon elected bishop of Roskilde.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg

Already it is so abundant that it is necessary to examine every branch of ripe grapes, and clip
— from Our Common Insects A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, Gardens and Houses by A. S. (Alpheus Spring) Packard