We were allowed to sit down in shops, and even to bargain for articles that took our fancy; but two kind of purchases were strictly prohibited, maps and the official list of daimiôs and government officials.
— 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

[Because the attempt would be futile, and would expose the blocking force itself to serious risks.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi

Is enlightenment to be found only in the printed wisdom of the past?
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

'Madam,' answered he, 'it is true that amongst the other things I learned at Paris was necromancy, whereof for certain I know that which is extant thereof; but for that the thing is supremely displeasing unto God, I had sworn never to practise it either for myself or for others.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

He trusted easily to be forgiven so slight and natural a deviation from his vows: But He forgot that having pronounced those vows, Incontinence, in Laymen the most venial of errors, became in his person the most heinous of crimes.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them, and to be unwilling to recognise them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal

He could not eat the blackish fish fritters they got on Wednesdays in Lent and one of his potatoes had the mark of the spade in it.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Dr. Channing says,— “ There is another evidence of Christianity still more internal than any on which I have yet dwelt; an evidence to be felt rather than described, but not less real because founded on feeling.
— from Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors by James Freeman Clarke

Even the babies forgot their past troubles, and danced and crowed amazingly.
— from Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers Artemus Ward, George Macdonald, Max Adeler, Samuel Lover, and Others by Various

Seizing my arm as I stood leaning for support against a pillar, she drew me forward to the light, saying, in a tone too proudly bitter ever to be forgotten, ‘You have seen and heard much—more than could have been wrung by years of torture from the proud heart of Leonore St. Clair.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXV, No. 6, December 1849 by Various

Having nothing else to be fond of, I half suspect myself of having been unreasonably fond of you .
— from Armadale by Wilkie Collins

His childish "Let's pretend" sweeps away for the moment the dull persistency of facts and opens a world where it is possible to eat one's cake and have it too, and after dancing escape the bill for the fiddling.
— from The Secret Life: Being the Book of a Heretic by Elizabeth Bisland

If so, Peter and John must have heard these words; they are too plain to be misunderstood; and the occasion is too solemn for them ever to be forgotten.
— from Collected Essays, Volume V Science and Christian Tradition: Essays by Thomas Henry Huxley

If he threw down the crown and abandoned the enterprise, it was surrendering Spain to England, to be forced inevitably into the coalition against France.
— from Joseph Bonaparte Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

It is the height of art that, on the first perusal, plain common sense should appear; on the second, severe truth; and on a third, beauty; and, having these warrants for its depth and reality, we may then enjoy the beauty for evermore.
— from Familiar Letters The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 06 (of 20) by Henry David Thoreau

My idea of Bayard is that he has not been good enough to be popular, and not bad enough to be famous.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 08 (of 12) Dresden Edition—Interviews by Robert Green Ingersoll