A social organism of any sort whatever, large or small, is what it is because each member proceeds to his own duty with a trust that the other members will simultaneously do theirs.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

Perhaps the reader may wonder how he was able to produce a sufficient sum for so many days: that he may not be surprized, therefore, it cannot be unnecessary to acquaint him that he had borrowed a guinea of a servant belonging to the coach and six, who had been formerly one of his parishioners, and whose master, the owner of the coach, then lived within three miles of him; for so good was the credit of Mr Adams, that even Mr Peter, the Lady Booby's steward, would have lent him a guinea with very little security.
— from Joseph Andrews, Vol. 1 by Henry Fielding

For which in no seemly wise, with shameless will, I have left my country, the glories of my home and even my parents—things that were dearest to me; and far away all alone I am borne over the sea with the plaintive kingfishers because of thy trouble, in order that I might save thy life in fulfilling the contests with the oxen and the earthborn men.
— from The Argonautica by Rhodius Apollonius

For love at Rome, apart from Virgil's story of Dido [1] and his second Eclogue, we have no evidence more precise than the writings of the three great poets, Ovid, Tibullus and Propertius.
— from On Love by Stendhal

When they argued also that what is highly expedient may prove to be morally right, they ought rather to say not that it "may prove to be" but that [391] it actually is morally right.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

I did, I know: and I made a fool of myself, and worse, perhaps, about her: but she does, not move one fibre of my heart now, she does not make it beat a bit faster, and she does not give my eye more pleasure than a wax doll would give me.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

The danger attached to a situation so responsible, under a government so fickle as the Burmese, induced your brother to use every means possible to prevent his being sent.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

The women of Paris, who have so much wit, have no just idea of this inconvenience, and in their zeal to economize my purse they ruined me.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

ou mên hyparchousan ge tautên tên homoiôsin, alla phainomenên monon einai phasin hoi mête technikên oiomenoi tên physin einai mête pronoêtikên tou zôou mêth' holôs tinas oikeias echein dynameis, hais chrômenê ta men alloioi,
— from Galen: On the Natural Faculties by Galen

Although the little draughtsman has decided to give to the nose, to the ear, and possibly to the manly beard and the equally manly pipe, the advantage of a side view, he goes on exhibiting those sovereign members, the two round eyes, and the mouth with its flash of serried teeth, in their full front-view glory.
— from Children's Ways Being selections from the author’s "Studies of childhood," with some additional matter by James Sully

One evening, when he was kneeling prostrate according to his custom, an unknown voice said to him— “Paphnutius, there are on earth more people than you imagine, and if I were to show you what I have seen, you would die of astonishment.
— from Thais by Anatole France

We wished to let ourselves down in the easiest manner possible --THEREFORE WE CHOSE IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION!"
— from The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 by American Anti-Slavery Society

It is to be presumed that were he to return to society he would do harm there, that he would be very vicious; and it is even more probable that he would be a wicked man, than it is sure that the other temperate and chaste recluse would be a virtuous man, for in society faults increase, and good qualities diminish.
— from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary by Voltaire

The die is brought into use in the second part of the trick in the following manner:—Proceed as above, so far as substituting the real for the imaginary halfpennies is concerned, and at the same time pass round the die, in order that it may be duly inspected and examined, meanwhile place the block in the box secretly, pinching it tightly so as to hold the block therein.
— from Cassell's Book of In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun by Various

The difficulty which arises in the physical investigation of the mind, from the apparent simplification of those thoughts and feelings which, on more attentive reflection, are felt to be as if com [160] pounded of many other thoughts and feelings, that have previously existed together, or in immediate succession, is similar to the difficulty which we experience in the physics of matter, from the imperfection of our senses, that allows us to perceive masses only, not their elemental parts, and thus leads us to consider as simple bodies, what a single new experiment may prove to be composed of various elements.
— from Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (Vol. 1 of 3) by Thomas Brown

Equilibration may pass through a transition stage of balanced motions (as in a planetary system) or of balanced functions (as in a living body) on the way to ultimate equilibrium; but the state of rest in inorganic bodies, or death in organic bodies, is the necessary limit of the changes constituting evolution.
— from Pioneers of Evolution from Thales to Huxley With an Intermediate Chapter on the Causes of Arrest of the Movement by Edward Clodd

[Pg 2] Navigation Company had builded its first crude masonry locks in the narrow natural impasse at Little Falls, so that the bateaux of the early settlers, which made the rest of the route in comparative ease, might pass through its one very difficult bottle-neck.
— from The Story of the Rome, Watertown, and Ogdensburg Railroad by Edward Hungerford

He expressed much pleasure that his son had found friends in our family.
— from Cora and The Doctor; or, Revelations of A Physician's Wife by Madeline Leslie