The desire of living in the same style, as the rank just above them, infects each individual and every class of people, and meanness is the concomitant of this ignoble ambition; but those professions are most debasing whose ladder is patronage; yet out of one of these professions the tutors of youth are in general chosen.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

Whenever we believe that others are depreciating or even considering our personal appearance, our attention is vividly directed to the outer and visible parts of our bodies; and of all such parts we are most sensitive about our faces, as no doubt has been the case during many past generations.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

A very simple expedient in a room where massive furniture and low windows make the daylight dressing-table difficult, is the European custom of putting an ordinary small table directly in the window and standing a good sized mirror on it.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

As Christians, they could not enter into the senate, which, according to Gibbon himself, always assembled in a temple or consecrated place, and where each senator, before he took his seat, made a libation of a few drops of wine, and burnt incense on the altar; as Christians, they could not assist at festivals and banquets, which always terminated with libations, &c.; finally, as "the innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with every circumstance of public and private life," the Christians could not participate in them without incurring, according to their principles, the guilt of impiety.
— 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

They likewise said that the wise man would not be so much absorbed in the pursuit of what is good, as in the attempt to avoid what is bad, considering the chief good to be living free from all trouble and pain; and that this end was attained best by those who looked upon the efficient causes of pleasure as indifferent.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

At this important crisis, the military government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in whose venal minds the slightest hope of private emolument outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning the pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.
— 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

Nor can the principle of ‘increasing life,’ or that of ‘aiming at self-development,’ or that of ‘giving free play to impulse,’ be so defined as to afford us any practical guidance to the end of Egoism, without falling back on the empirical comparison of pleasures and pains.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

She observes the slightest emphasis placed upon a word in conversation, and she discovers meaning in every change of position, and in the varied play of the muscles of the hand.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

= KEY: Match \v.\. SYN: Equal, compare, oppose, pit, adapt, sort, suit, mate.
— from A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms or, Synonyms and Words of Opposite Meaning by Samuel Fallows

This was not at all due to any cleverness on my part, but in the first place to the good offices of Mr. Perkins of Dursley, and in the second place to the easygoing character of prevailing Australian conditions.
— from The Record of Nicholas Freydon An Autobiography by A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

During 150 the meal but little was said by either captors or prisoners, and as soon as it was over the boys took their bundles from the wagon, spread out their blankets, and fell fast asleep almost as soon as they touched them.
— from Snowed Up; or, The Sportman's Club in the Mountains by Harry Castlemon

By marrying Eleanor, Countess of Poitou and Duchess of Aquitaine, Louis had become direct ruler of the middle and south-west of France as well as of his own crown demesnes, but when he divorced his wife he at once forfeited her possessions.
— from Europe in the Middle Ages by Ierne L. (Ierne Lifford) Plunket

We now leave the reader to engage in the profitable pleasure of reading the only Ohio governor's third inaugural: Fellow-citizens of the General Assembly: Questions of National concern, in the existing condition of public affairs, may well be left to those officers to whom the people, in conformity with the constitution of the United States,
— from The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes by J. Q. (James Quay) Howard

ARTICLE XI.—The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.
— from Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition by James Alton James

In every case of prolapse a certain degree of retroversion of the uterus is present.
— from A Text-book of Diseases of Women by Charles B. (Charles Bingham) Penrose

But saintliness of character was in Fénelon commended to the world by equal charm of person and of genius.
— from French Classics by William Cleaver Wilkinson

This silting up began at a remote era, closing one port after another, and Sandwich rose upon their decline.
— from England, Picturesque and Descriptive: A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel by Joel Cook