According to Mr. Bishop, larceny is "the taking and removing, by trespass, of personal property which the trespasser knows to belong either generally or specially to another, with the intent to deprive such owner of his ownership therein; and perhaps it should be added, for the sake of some advantage to the trespasser, a proposition on which the decisions are not harmonious."
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Here he was brought into contact with every grade of society, from the king's ministers to the poor sailors of the fleet.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

In his speeches there were no flowery passages, no empty graces of style, but there was a plain common sense peculiar to himself, and a depth of sententious maxims which is said to have resembled Thucydides.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

I know not how it is, and by what spirit we are led, and what we who would be deemed spiritual are aiming at, that we give so great labour and so eager solicitude for transitory and worthless things, and scarcely ever gather our senses together to think at all of our inward condition.
— from The Imitation of Christ by à Kempis Thomas

642 He taught that those who made fortunate dreams were to be permitted to sleep in the temple, where they might dream both for themselves and others; that those who practised temperance and justice, and none else, might expect good, or some gift or sign from the God, from time to time.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

Mr. Henry went and walked at the low end of the hall without reply; for he had an excellent gift of silence.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

To see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness of the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full dress and ceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it represented; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was raging in so many hearts this polite show went calmly on from day to day, and year to year, in such good order and composure; to behold the Lord Chancellor and the whole array of practitioners under him looking at one another and at the spectators as if nobody had ever heard that all over England the name in which they were assembled was a bitter jest, was held in universal horror, contempt, and indignation, was known for something so flagrant and bad that little short of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one—this was so curious and self-contradictory to me, who had no experience of it, that it was at first incredible, and I could not comprehend it.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Only Eilithyia, goddess of sore travail, had not heard of Leto's trouble, for she sat on the top of Olympus beneath golden clouds by white-armed Hera's contriving, who kept her close through envy, because Leto with the lovely tresses was soon to bear a son faultless and strong.
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

War, and his especial gallantry, on several occasions, attracted the notice of Wellington. Made a brevet maj.
— from The Waterloo Roll Call With Biographical Notes and Anecdotes by Charles Dalton

And let what I have been saying be regarded as a kind of sacred legend or oracle, and let this be our proof that, in one point of view, there may be a difficulty for a city to have good laws, but that there is another point of view in which nothing can be easier or sooner effected, granting our supposition.
— from Laws by Plato

What envious god or sacrilegious man has dared to do this thing?
— from Five Plays by Lord Dunsany

With a very few exceptions, dancing parties, balls and hops are made up of young men and girls of every grade of society, from the poorest to the wealthiest in the community.
— from There is No Harm in Dancing by W. E. Penn

A great talent, slow but powerful and a potent force, surprising objectivism if the question is about a sentiment, because it is equal to almost complete indifference, such an exceptional gift of seeing the entire soul of humanity and things that it approaches this naturalistic writer to mystics—all that gives him a very great and unusual originality.
— from So Runs the World by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Aside from the earnest group of spectators moving from one place to another, the town seemed perfectly quiet.
— from My Cave Life in Vicksburg, with Letters of Trial and Travel by Mary Ann Webster Loughborough

Most of us must be well acquainted with the delightful account which Erasmus gave of Sir Thomas More's country-house at Chelsea, and the life of its occupants.
— from The Old Masters and Their Pictures, For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art by Sarah Tytler

As late as 1729 a little English girl of some wealth and but nine years old was taken from her boarding school by her guardian and married to his son.
— from Child Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle

The creek in which the Nonsuch rode concealed was so completely land-locked that not a breath of air stirred within it as the boats left the ship’s side, the surface of the water was mirror-like in its absolute placidity, and it was only when the men began to descend into the boats, rocking them more or less as they entered them, and so sent a few ripples undulating away across the glassy surface, or when some fish stirred in the depths below, that the phosphorescence latent in the black water awakened and sent forth little threads and evanescent gleams of sea-fire.
— from The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer by Harry Collingwood

She provides the stores, examines the accounts of the pharmacy and the kitchen, pays the salaried employees, gives or sends to each deaconess the modest sum allowed her for personal needs, and transacts the daily business of the house.
— from Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America by Jane M. (Jane Marie) Bancroft

Entering the junior day-room with some apprehension, the sleuth-hound found an excited gathering of suspects waiting to interview him.
— from The Politeness of Princes, and Other School Stories by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse