They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world.
— from Utopia by More, Thomas, Saint

Adam was by nature reserved in all matters of feeling, and Seth felt a certain timidity towards his more practical brother.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

Dreamers maintain that the sea hides in its bosom vast tracts of blue where those who are drowned roam among the big fishes, amid strange forests and crystal grottoes.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

As far as social facts are concerned, we still have the mentality of primitives.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

I took it for a single flight, and called my companions from the tombs, where they were busy, that they might see this Egyptian wonder ere
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, And changes color like a maid at sight of sword and shield.
— from Lays of Ancient Rome by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

The body, sluggish, aged, cold—the embers left from earlier fires, The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again; The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual; To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns, With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Still a long way to go before reading from a screen feels as comfortable as reading a book.
— from Entretiens / Interviews / Entrevistas by Marie Lebert

As the old man in the comedy cried out in a passion, and from a solicitous fear and care he had of his adopted son; [5988] not of beauty, but lest they should miscarry, do amiss, or any way discredit, disgrace (as Vives notes) or endanger themselves and us.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

For it is only by his thinking it out for himself that it enters as an integral part, as a living member into the whole system of his thought, and stands in complete and firm relation with it; that it is fundamentally understood with all its consequences, and carries the colour, the shade, the impress of his own way of thinking; and comes at the very moment, just as the necessity for it is felt, and stands fast and cannot be forgotten.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

Hawthorne's influence over me was still powerful, and in my first attempts at writing fiction I kept to the essay form and sought for a certain distinction in tone.
— from A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland

As she gathered together some of her scattered papers in the not over tidy interior of the little one-seated desk form, and searched for a certain favorite stubby pencil which she claimed brought her good luck with her problems, Mary at her own desk gave a cry of dismay and sat down limply.
— from The Motor Maids' School Days by Katherine Stokes

Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth, Are copy-paper , of inferior worth; Less prized, more useful, for your desk decreed, Free to all pens, and prompt at every need.
— from The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Illustrated by Tales, Sketches, and Anecdotes by Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich

There they could get a body for about seven francs and could also be taught by English anatomists who settled in that city for the purpose.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg

In the centre of the deep recess, in front of which these statues are placed, is the colossal Flora, who holds up her thin [148] dress in too finicking a style for a colossal goddess; and on the floor—to be seen by ascending a platform—is the precious, great mosaic representing the Battle of the Issus, found at Pompeii.
— from George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3) by George Eliot

She sent away a girl she was fixing a sleeve for, and came forward to meet us, and gave us seats, and seemed very sociable.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, January 1849 by Various

If Arthur dares ascribe it to the first, And, singled from a crowd, will tempt a conquest, This Oswald offers; let our troops retire, And hand to hand let us decide our strife:
— from Dryden's Works Vol. 08 (of 18) by John Dryden