“Gosh, I'm not doing so bad; hittin' 'em up like a regular stage dancer!”
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

It will set a Bashfull Suiter a wooing; It heates the chill blood of the Aged; It will cause a man to speake past his owne or any other man’s capacity, or understanding; It sets an Edge upon Logick and Rhetorick; It is a friend to the Muses; It inspires the poore Poet, that cannot compasse the price of Canarie or Gascoign ; It mounts the Musician ’bove Eccla; It makes the Balladmaker Rime beyond Reason; It is a Repairer of a {5} decaied Colour in the face; It puts Eloquence into the Oratour; It will make the Philosopher talke profoundly, the Scholler learnedly, and the Lawyer acute and feelingly.
— from The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: An Entertaining History (Illustrated with over Fifty Quaint Cuts) by John Bickerdyke

Whatever is revolt against her immediate indolence and efficiency, his ideal is nearly always a situation in which she will figure as a magnificent drone, a sort of empress without portfolio, entirely discharged from every unpleasant labour and responsibility.
— from In Defense of Women by H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken

To him who is without experience, there is no sight more beautiful than that of a young man of an ingenuous nature entering upon life, and resting upon his own good impulses to keep him from evil.
— from The Connexion Between Taste and Morals: Two lectures by Mark Hopkins

In the municipalities there were a certain number of these latter, entailing unremunerative labor and responsibility which no one could refuse to accept when his name was drawn from the bolsa.
— from A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1 by Henry Charles Lea

Then it should also be possible to endow university lectureships and readerships in contemporary criticism, lectureships and readerships in which questions of style and method could be illustrated by quotation (not necessarily of a flattering sort) from contemporary work.
— from Mankind in the Making by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

As always in scenarios and acting editions use “left” and “right” as “left” and “right” of the actor, not of the audience.
— from Dramatic Technique by George Pierce Baker

For what the present Government has apparently done in the way of preventing rather than encouraging union, Liberals are ready enough to find excuses.
— from A Short History of English Liberalism by W. Lyon (Walter Lyon) Blease

"Yes, we've got 'em," replied Joe; "but now we don't know how to fix 'em, 'cause you see we've got to put 'em up like a roof, an' we hain't got anything for the ends."
— from Mr. Stubbs's Brother A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' by James Otis

The tears and woes of the old South may change into smiles and good cheer, forgetting the glory that once encircled us like a radiant halo.
— from Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War by Eugenia Dunlap Potts