Responsibility to an authority which has gone through none of the labor, acquired none of the capacity, and for the most part is not even aware that either, in any peculiar degree, is required, can not be regarded as a very effectual expedient for accomplishing these ends.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

Through the centre of the orchestra and parallel to the direction of the "proscaenium," a line is laid off, and centres are marked where it cuts the circumference to the right and left (E, F) at the ends of the half-circle.
— from The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio

Photius was more resolved to punish, and less prompt to pardon: he flew to Ephesus; extorted from a trusty eunuch of his another the full confession of her guilt; arrested Theodosius and his treasures in the church of St. John the Apostle, and concealed his captives, whose execution was only delayed, in a secure and sequestered fortress of Cilicia.
— 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

It may also happen that men begin to unite one with another before they possess anything, and that, subsequently occupying a tract of country which is enough for all, they enjoy it in common, or share it out among themselves, either equally or according to a scale fixed by they Sovereign.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Past Richmond bridge at the doorstep of the office of Reuben J Dodd, solicitor, agent for the Patriotic Insurance Company, an elderly female about to enter changed her plan and retracing her steps by King’s windows smiled credulously on the representative of His Majesty.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

This state of things inevitably gives rise to eternal feuds among the elements freed from the wholeness and wholesomeness of human ideals, and interminable economic war is waged between capital and labour.
— from Nationalism by Rabindranath Tagore

They have a particular store of phrases for proclaiming their profound sympathy for humanity, for defining what is the most correct and rational form of philanthropy, and continually attacking romanticism, in other words, everything fine and true, each atom of which is more precious than all their mollusc tribe.
— from White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

His astronomical theories absorbed him; calculations were scrawled with coal on the bare walls of his garret: a hard-earned guinea, or an article of dress, was exchanged for a book without remorse; he neither heard his children cry, nor observed his companion's emaciated form, and the excess of calamity was merely to him as the occurrence of a cloudy night, when he would have given his right hand to observe a celestial phenomenon.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Nevertheless, with such means as they had, it was determined to resist to the last, and to provide timber and money, and to equip a fleet as they best could, to take steps to secure their confederates and above all Euboea, to reform things in the city upon a more economical footing, and to elect a board of elders to advise upon the state of affairs as occasion should arise.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Yes, if you will allow me to say so, I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see her, The same undying soul of earth's, activity's, beauty's, heroism's expression, Out from her evolutions hither come, ended the strata of her former themes, Hidden and cover'd by to-day's, foundation of to-day's, Ended, deceas'd through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain, Silent the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt, silent all those century- baffling tombs, Ended for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors, ended the primitive call of the muses, Calliope's call forever closed, Clio, Melpomene, Thalia dead, Ended the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana, ended the quest of the holy Graal, Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind, extinct, The Crusaders' streams of shadowy midnight troops sped with the sunrise, Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone, Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone, Palmerin, ogre, departed, vanish'd the turrets that Usk from its waters reflected, Arthur vanish'd with all his knights, Merlin and Lancelot and Galahad, all gone, dissolv'd utterly like an exhalation; Pass'd!
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Percy’s stay proved to be shorter than he expected, for at the end of a month he was one morning marched up to Ardley, and brought face to face with George Canninge, who was quiet and firm with him, asking him a few sharp questions, and ending by giving him a couple of five-pound notes and a letter to a shipping firm in London, the head of which firm told him to come into the office the very next day, and was very short, but informed him that his salary as clerk would begin at once at sixty pounds a year, and that if he did his duty he should rise.
— from The New Mistress: A Tale by George Manville Fenn

On the 1st of November our men began to make a raft to enable us to cross a river which was not even frozen at the edges.
— from The Journey to the Polar Sea by John Franklin

Amazed at such luxury, exceeding that of many a patrician family in Europe, I thought our Amphitryon was either one of those wealthy merchants whose ships carry the American flag over the broad ocean, or those manufacturers who build up enormous fortunes at the expense of the public.
— from The Secrets of the Great City A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and the Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City by James Dabney McCabe

Her Mistress, who found the sweetness of the incomes of her new-come Servant gave her much more liberty, and countenance, than she had done any before, cloathing her in as good a habit, as might become such an excellent Face, and the Esteem that Gentlemen of Quality had for it.
— from The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants: The Fourth Part by Francis Kirkman

In most cases, however, force-field failure is due to overload by enemy fire, and the ensuing suit failure and powerpack disruption cause total destruction of armor and operator both.
— from Concordance: A Terran Empire concordance by Ann Wilson

The Foreign Office was at one time the home of the Italian dancer, La Barberini, the only woman who ever for a time enslaved Frederick the Great.
— from Face to Face with Kaiserism by James W. (James Watson) Gerard

“Oh, we all have a Florine,” said Etienne, flinging away the end of his cigar and thinking of Madame Schontz.
— from The Muse of the Department by Honoré de Balzac