The fire or light, when kept in by the eyelids, equalizes the inward motions, and there is rest accompanied by few dreams; only when the greater motions remain they engender in us corresponding visions of the night.
— from Timaeus by Plato

A salary was attached to the post, but she very rarely received it, although she was expected to dress like everybody else, that is to say, like very few indeed.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

This piece of extravagance excited the ire of the personage who gave the "treat;" and that ire was still further increas'd when he discover'd two or three loiterers who seem'd disposed to slight his request to drink.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

His late benefactor, it is true, was a Scot—even to the length of being called Alexander McNeil—and Jim came from a long way south of the Tweed; but at the distance of six or seven thousand miles Great Britain, though never diminished, looks foreshortened enough even to its own children to rob such details of their importance.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Some people have a vague, unsubstantial odour that floats about, mocking every effort to identify it.
— from The World I Live In by Helen Keller

Consequently, when everywhere else there is drought, he still has water, and when everywhere else there has been a failure of the harvest, on his lands it will have proved a success.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

Then he drew his sword Excalibur, but it was so bright in his enemies' eyes, that it gave light like thirty torches.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

The two men and the dog remain till the spring in their snowy prison, with nothing before their eyes except the immense white slopes of the Balmhorn, surrounded by light, glistening summits, and are shut in, blocked up and buried by the snow which rises around them and which envelops, binds and crushes the little house, which lies piled on the roof, covering the windows and blocking up the door.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

But this must be sought in linear geometry rather than in logic: for geometry is to some extent pictorial in character, while it strengthens the memory by the great number of its elements, ennobles the imagination by the delicacy of its figures and stimulates the inventive faculty by forcing it to review all these figures in order to choose those suitable to the demonstration of the quantity required.
— from The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico by Benedetto Croce

I have also expressed some doubts as to whether this same God ever established the institution of polygamy.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. Interviews by Robert Green Ingersoll

Lest the foam of joy should vanish, and thy soul with anguish smart, This for every earthly trouble is a sovereign remedy, Therefore listen to my counsel, knowing what will profit thee, Heed not time, for ah, how many a man has longed in pain Tale of evil days to lighten—and found all his longing vain."
— from Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt — Volume 07 by Georg Ebers

Psyche is said to have fallen asleep in Hades through rashly attempting to behold corporeal beauty, and the truth intended to be taught in the Eleusinian Mysteries was that prudent men who earnestly employed themselves in divine concerns were, above all others, in a vigilant state, and that imprudent men who pursued objects of an inferior nature were asleep, and engaged only in the delusion of dreams; and that if they happened to die in this sleep before they were aroused they would be afflicted with similar, but still sharper, visions in a future state.
— from The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites by Dudley Wright

Valdez made every effort to induce the burgomaster to enter into farther negotiations, but the latter remained firm, and no petition for release from the sacred duty of resistance left the city.
— from The Burgomaster's Wife — Complete by Georg Ebers

Everywhere energy, everywhere the invisible element.
— from Mysterious Psychic Forces An Account of the Author's Investigations in Psychical Research, Together with Those of Other European Savants by Camille Flammarion

The earliest English translation is that by king Ælfred, which is particularly interesting from the fact that the royal author {xv} frequently deviates from his original, and introduces various notes, explanations, and allusions of his own.
— from Chaucer's Works, Volume 2 (of 7) — Boethius and Troilus by Geoffrey Chaucer

In the sixteenth century the Church placed before everything else the idea of authority.
— from Life of Father Hecker by Walter Elliott

The same depleted state existed everywhere they investigated and as they walked from room to room their footsteps echoed hollowly.
— from Airplane Boys Discover the Secrets of Cuzco by E. J. (Edith Janice) Craine

"James's Declaration of Indulgence was proclaimed (1687), and now, for the first time, Quakers, Baptists, and Episcopalians enjoyed toleration in Massachusetts.
— from The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2. From 1620-1816 by Egerton Ryerson