Man, searching by his intellect into the divine conception, and seeing that order is the purpose of God, freely combines to prosecute the great design; and whilst he sacrifices his personal interests to this consummate order of all created things, expects no other recompense than the pleasure of contemplating it.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

This is effected, first as in the Servian constitution, by balancing wealth and numbers; for it cannot be supposed that those who possessed a higher qualification were equal in number with those who had a lower, and yet they have an equal number of representatives.
— from Laws by Plato

This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined client:—the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him and elude his vigilance—the child, because she was the object of Mrs Quilp’s commiseration and constant self-reproach—the single gentleman, because of his unconcealed aversion to himself—Kit and his mother, most mortally, for the reasons shown.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

For either unto God or man, whatsoever it is that doth happen in the world hath in the ordinary course of nature its proper reference; neither is there anything, that in regard of nature is either new, or reluctant and intractable, but all things both usual and easy.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

‘Henceforth I shall envy no one,’ returned I. ‘Indeed! Are you so happy then?’ said she, thoughtfully; and something very like a cloud of disappointment shadowed her face.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

It may be objected to this theory, that the eye generally receives an equal number of rays at all times, and that therefore a great object cannot affect it by the number of rays, more than that variety of objects which the eye must always discern whilst it remains open.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

It also deserves notice, as indirectly bearing on our subject, that the eye and adjoining parts are subject to an extraordinary number of reflex and associated movements, sensations, and actions, besides those relating to the lacrymal glands.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

Confidential to Army Commanders, Corps Commanders, and Chiefs of Staff Departments: The next grand objective is to place this army (with its full equipment) north of Roanoke River, facing west, with a base for supplies at Norfolk, and at Winton or Murfreesboro' on the Chowan, and in full communication with the Army of the Potomac, about Petersburg; and also to do the enemy as much harm as possible en route:
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

As for other acquaintances, there is a chill air surrounding those who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold room; human beings, mere men and women, without furniture, without anything to offer you, who have ceased to count as anybody, present an embarrassing negation of reasons for wishing to see them, or of subjects on which to converse with them.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

CLEINIAS: Proceed. ATHENIAN: I say that governments are a cause—democracy, oligarchy, tyranny, concerning which I have often spoken in the previous discourse; or rather governments they are not, for none of them exercises a voluntary rule over voluntary subjects; but they may be truly called states of discord, in which while the government is voluntary, the subjects always obey against their will, and have to be coerced; and the ruler fears the subject, and will not, if he can help, allow him to become either noble, or rich, or strong, or valiant, or warlike at all.
— from Laws by Plato

These specimens embrace not only rich gems and mosaic work, but also fine examples
— from Reminiscences of Glass-making by Deming Jarves

Before the field is broken the members of the Corporation repair to it with a surveyor, and it is marked out into equal lots, according to the existing number of resident members of the body.
— from The English Village Community Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition) by Frederic Seebohm

The altars of malachite, at the ends of the transepts, were given by the Emperor Nicholas of Russia.
— from Walks in Rome by Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert) Hare

d their hands and ran the tape line ecstatically over the bulge in his inside pocket where reposed a red nubbin of corn with an even number of rows.
— from Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry

Tajikistan 2.3% (2008 est.) 2.4% (2007 est.) note: official rates; actual unemployment is higher Tanzania NA% Thailand 1.4% (2008 est.)
— from The 2009 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

Cargill and Allender were attracted at that moment by the entry of one of their friends, a wealthy young man who, with his wife, had forsaken Ohio for residence in the French capital, and while they chatted I eagerly scanned the article, which ran as follows,— “Paris will welcome the return of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna of Russia, whose portrait we give on another page.
— from Whoso Findeth a Wife by William Le Queux

Pyrrhus of Epirus had, at Asculum, in the year 279, 45,000 infantry against an equal number of Romans, but he had elephants, practically equivalent to artillery.
— from Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times, May 1918 Vol. VIII, Part I, No. 2 by Various