When one undertakes to think on his feet and speak extemporaneously before the public, the power and the skill of the entire man are put to a severe test.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

In the person of Nero, it is observed by Suetonius, the race of the Caesars became extinct; a race rendered illustrious by the first and second emperors, but which their successors no less disgraced.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

Sometimes he was disturbed in his thefts by the flight of a good strong English arrow, which came from a sturdy English bow drawn by a good strong English arm.
— from English Villages by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

The defect of science is that it is inadequate or abstract, that the account it gives of things is not full and sensuous enough; but its merit is that, like sense, it makes external being present to a creature that is concerned in adjusting itself to its environment, and informs that creature about things other than itself.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

What they saw and what they said had as little to do with education as possible, until one evening, as they were looking at the sun set across the Nile from Assouan, Spencer Eddy brought them a telegram to announce the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

So when he saw his flatt'ring artes to fayle, And subtile engines bett from batteree; With greedy force he gan the fort assayle, 40 Whereof he weend possessed soone to bee, And with rich spoile of ransackt chastitee.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

No science will ever give them bread so long as they remain free, so long as they refuse to lay that freedom at our feet, and say: "Enslave, but feed us!"
— from The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

As already stated, the Alcaic measure was of all the Greek verse-forms Hölderlin's favorite, and the one most frequently and successfully employed by him.
— from Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry by Wilhelm Alfred Braun

The boys were getting anxious for another shooting expedition; but before undertaking that, I wished to do some basket-making, as sacks were beginning to fail us, and there was constant demand for baskets in which to carry and keep our roots and fruits.
— from Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Frequently a struggle ensues between two males for the possession of the same female, and both seizing her at once pull her in two or terribly lacerate her with their teeth.
— from The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. II (1st Edition) by Charles Darwin

No one yet dared so far to deny the religious character of marriage, as to have avowed mere political views in wishing for a separation, either before the world, or even to himself.
— from A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) by Leopold von Ranke

Should any cartel take place by which the army under General Burgoyne, or any part of it, may be exchanged, the foregoing article to be void, as far as such exchange be made.
— from The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 by J. F. (Joseph Florimond) Loubat

Page 586, line 7 from foot, add " Spongotrochus ehrenbergii , Bütschli, 1882, L. N. 41 , Taf. xxvi.
— from Report on the Radiolaria Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-1876, Second Part: Subclass Osculosa; Index Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-76, Vol. XVIII by Ernst Haeckel

Very suitable for a summer evening, but yet on the whole a depressing meal.
— from A Country Gentleman and His Family by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant