This preference for abstract expressions may be confirmed by numerous examples: a specially ridiculous example is the following.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

These, as empirical, may be contingent from the point of view of our Understanding, and yet, if they are to be called laws (as the concept of a nature requires), they must be regarded as necessary in virtue of a principle of the unity of the manifold, though it be unknown to us.—The reflective Judgement, which is obliged to ascend from the particular in nature to the universal, requires on that account a principle that it cannot borrow from experience, because its function is to establish the unity of all empirical principles under higher ones, and hence to establish the possibility of their systematic subordination.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

Directly he heard of it he wrote to Iwashita that the engagements must be cancelled, but his letter did not reach Paris in time.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

And where everything else must be contented with its part in the universe, shall the theorizing faculty ride rough-shod over the whole?
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

If our criticism can succeed in exposing the illusion in these pretended principles, those which are limited in their employment to the sphere of experience may be called, in opposition to the others, immanent principles of the pure understanding.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Propositions irrelevant to experience may be correct in form, the method they are reached by may parody scientific method, but they cannot be true in substance, because they refer to nothing.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Lest the reader may fancy I am aiming to elevate myself, by claiming too much intimacy with great men, I must state that my only acquaintance with Col. Clifford was formed while I was his hired servant , during the first winter of my escape from slavery.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

Recent excavations which have been made at this spot have brought to light the ruins of the ancient temple of Zeus, and also, among other interesting relics, some plates of lead, on which are engraved inquiries which were evidently made by certain individuals who consulted the oracle.
— from Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens

A startled look ran from eye to eye; Mrs. Bry crimsoned to the verge of congestion, Mrs. Stepney slipped nervously behind her husband, and Selden, in the general turmoil of his sensations, was mainly conscious of a longing to grip Dabham by the collar and fling him out into the street.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

The earth may be considered as a point and as the centre of the orbit of the moon.
— from A History of Science — Volume 1 by Edward Huntington Williams

A just and acceptable enlargement of the list of offenses for which extradition may be claimed and granted is most desirable between this country and Great Britain.
— from State of the Union Addresses (1790-2006) by United States. Presidents

This court afterwards went farther, and George the Second affirmed, that the election of a King of the Romans did not depend on the Electoral college; that is, that the dignity of presumptive heir to the empire might be conferred without any deliberation of the electors, which was making the Imperial crown absolutely hereditary.
— from Memoirs of the Marchioness of Pompadour (vol. 1 of 2) by Pompadour, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de

This figure, of course, does not indicate anything of the [Pg 44] gun-finishing capacity of the country; yet this expansion may be contrasted to the fact that our supply of finished guns prior to 1917 amounted only to 55 weapons a year.
— from America's Munitions 1917-1918 by Benedict Crowell

They are much more likely to be carried away by violent winds; their eggs may be carried on leaves either by storms of wind or by floating trees, and their larvae and pupae, often buried in trunks of trees or enclosed in waterproof cocoons, may be floated for days or weeks uninjured over the ocean.
— from The Malay Archipelago, Volume 1 The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise; A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature by Alfred Russel Wallace

Much evidence may be cited in support of this view.
— from The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century by R. H. (Richard Henry) Tawney

Enmities not merely prevent gradual disappearance of the boundaries within the society—and for this reason these enmities may be consciously promoted, as guaranty of the existing social constitution—but more than this, the enmities are directly productive sociologically.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

With the exception of the chapel in the White Tower there is 394 perhaps no example of a Norman Chapel now existing, unless the remains of the infirmary chapels at Canterbury and Ely may be considered as such.
— from A History of Architecture in All Countries, Volume 2, 3rd ed. From the Earliest Times to the Present Day by James Fergusson

After a while, when he had seemingly taken the sharp edge off his appetite, he condescended to explain further, knowing of course that his kind entertainers must be curious to hear his story.
— from The Boy Scouts on War Trails in Belgium; Or, Caught Between Hostile Armies by Carter, Herbert, active 1909-1917

A very ancient connection can be traced between India and Egypt, manifested by Castes, which are found equally in both countries, and by similiar Mythologies.
— from The Interdependence of Literature by Georgina Pell Curtis