When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground—nor indeed the placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my father’s doing——he had never thought himself any way concerned in the affair——till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its boundaries)——which being altogether my father’s own act and deed, it naturally awakened every other argu- 299 ment in its favour, and upon summing them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he was bound to do something for it——and that now or never was the time.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

For to assert that salvation is not only possible but urgently necessary, that every soul is now in an intolerable condition and should search for an ultimate solution to all its troubles, a restoration to a normal and somehow blessed state—what is this but to assert that the nature of things has a permanent constitution, by conformity with which man may secure his happiness?
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

However, as neither the purchasing this tract of ground—nor indeed the placing of it where it lay, were either of them, properly speaking, of my father's doing—he had never thought himself any way concerned in the affair—till the fifteen years before, when the breaking out of that cursed law-suit mentioned above (and which had arose about its boundaries)—which being altogether my father's own act and deed, it naturally awakened every other argument in its favour, and upon summing them all up together, he saw, not merely in interest, but in honour, he was bound to do something for it—and that now or never was the time.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

I had no doubt that it would differ entirely from my own, since his came down from an unknown sphere towards which I was striving to raise myself; convinced that my thoughts would have seemed pure foolishness to that perfected spirit, I had so completely obliterated them all that, if I happened to find in one of his books something which had already occurred to my own mind, my heart would swell with gratitude and pride as though some deity had, in his infinite bounty, restored it to me, had pronounced it to be beautiful and right.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!
— from Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. (Andrew Cecil) Bradley

90 He could pardon small faults, and use severity to great ones; yet did not always punish, but was frequently satisfied with penitence.
— from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus

It was love that had worked the revolution in him, changing him from an uncouth sailor to a student and an artist; therefore, to him, the finest and greatest of the three, greater than learning and artistry, was love.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
— from A Modest Proposal For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick by Jonathan Swift

He told me how he had a project for all us Secretaries to join together, and get money by bringing all business into our hands.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

General Chamberlain, in his despatches, bears warm testimony to their devotion; and points out that although there were men in the native regiments of almost every tribe on the frontier, including those which were fighting against us, still there were no desertions, nor [Pg 199] was there any instance of backwardness in engaging the enemy.
— from Recollections of a Military Life by Adye, John, Sir

" Secondly, That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory.
— from The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete by Abraham Lincoln

Before we dismiss this subject, we must add that the advocates of continuous matter, while fighting against us, shield themselves with two other arguments.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875 by Various

The tide was full when we reached the stream, the sun shone from an unclouded sky, the wind had gone to sleep, and the rank marsh grass hid innumerable pit-falls.
— from Days in the Open by Lathan A. (Lathan Augustus) Crandall

By paying out the chains, the ship had fallen farther astern, until she took the ground abaft on the edge of the sand-bank so often mentioned; and, once fast at that end, her bows had fallen off, pressed by the wind, as long as the depth of the water would allow.
— from Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper

While the opinion of the court by Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred-Scott case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial Legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it.
— from The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete by Abraham Lincoln

Next Tuesday they are warned at Braintree, all above fifteen and under sixty, to attend with their arms; and to train once a fortnight from that time is a scheme which lies much at heart with many. . . .
— from Abigail Adams and Her Times by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

truth, the South seized upon them as threats of disunion, and still louder than before, if possible, called for a united South to vindicate slavery's rights in the Territories.
— from Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 A Political History of Slavery in the United States Together With a Narrative of the Campaigns and Battles of the Civil War In Which the Author Took Part: 1861-1865 by Joseph Warren Keifer

The English burial-place was a garden of fairest flowers at this season—a paradise of roses and clematis, azaleas and camelias—and much more beautiful for its wilder growth of trailing foliage and untended shrubs, the pale cold blue of the periwinkle that carpeted slope and bank, and for the background of old grey wall, severe in its antique magnificence, a cyclopean rampart, relic of time immemorial, clothed and beautified with weed and floweret that grew in every cleft and cranny.
— from All along the River: A Novel by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

At a time when many of the older orders of monks were falling from their first rigid simplicity -- falling into those habits of extravagance which in days to come caused their fall and ultimate suppression -- the Cistercians still held to their early regime of austere simplicity and plainness of life; and though no longer absolutely secluding themselves from the sight or sound of their fellow men, or living in complete solitude, they were still men of austere life and self-denying habits, and retained the reputation for sanctity of life that was being lost in other orders, though men had hardly begun to recognize this fact as yet.
— from In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince by Evelyn Everett-Green