The Kuruppu receives a money present of 2½ fanams for every tāli tied in his presence.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

But that they to whom God has given, as He has to us, to be the founders of a new state as yet free from enmity—that they should create themselves enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses, would be superhuman folly and wickedness.
— from Laws by Plato

If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

The Romans of a more prosperous age, who trusted to the arms of the legions the safety of the frontier camps, 44 were very far from entertaining a suspicion, that it would ever become necessary to fortify the seat of empire against the inroads of the barbarians.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The remains of solid buildings that have been found in that quarter are those of Jesuit mission-houses, and not of a formal fort established by the French government.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

Alice waited a minute to see if he would speak again, but as he never opened his eyes or took any further notice of her, she said ‘Good-bye!’ once more, and, getting no answer to this, she quietly walked away: but she couldn’t help saying to herself as she went, ‘Of all the unsatisfactory—’ (she repeated this aloud, as it was a great comfort to have such a long word to say) ‘of all the unsatisfactory people I ever met—’ She never finished the sentence, for at this moment a heavy crash shook the forest from end to end.
— from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

And the greatest proof of this is that not even the light which comes down nearest to the earth from the sun is mixed with anything, nor does it admit dirt and defilement, but remains wholly pure and without stain and free from external influences among all existing things.)
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 1 by Emperor of Rome Julian

The chariot of Paternal Deity, Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel undrawn, Itself instinct with Spirit, but convoyed By four Cherubick shapes; four faces each Had wonderous; as with stars, their bodies all
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

I therefore postponed operations until about eight the next night, when the arrival of a medical student with whom I had some acquaintance, (Mr. Theodore L—l,) relieved me from farther embarrassment.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

But in solitude she was far from every thing that could disturb those dreams in which the tranquility of nature never failed to entrance her.
— from Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two by William Carleton

Aikin claims that by studying the whispering voice we can find for every vowel sound that position of the resonator which gives us the maximum of resonance.
— from The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song by F. W. (Frederick Walker) Mott

For Action treads the path In which Opinion says he follows good, Or flies from evil; and Opinion gives Report of good or evil, as the scene Was drawn by Fancy, lovely or deform'd: Thus her report can never there be true Where Fancy cheats the intellectual eye, With glaring colours and distorted lines.
— from The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside by Mark Akenside

Adieu! Remain as you are, enjoy through your senses, obey your nature; turn pale with pale men, blush with women, play with children, pray with sinners, look up to heaven when you are stricken; tremble, hope, yearn; you will have a comrade, you still may laugh and weep, give and receive.—For me—I am an exile far from heaven; like a monster, far from earth!
— from The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other Stories by Honoré de Balzac

They were, for the most part, men of mature age; but the rest of the company consisted of young fellows from eighteen to twenty-five, the ready and capable agents who carried out the commands of their seniors.
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

The thought that speaks here will run as fire leaps along yonder dead tree, burning up the hate that we have felt for each other, and linking us, tribe to tribe, nation to nation, till the coast is lighted by one belt of council fires, our forests threaded with war-paths, and the fields, cleared by our enemies, grow corn for the Indian alone.
— from Silent Struggles by Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens

Free from constraint, free from prejudices, free from every idol; free from every dogma, whether of class, caste, or nation; free from every religion.
— from The Forerunners by Romain Rolland

That they had sprung from obscurity, that they had acquired great wealth, that they exhibited it insolently, that they spent it extravagantly, that they raised the price of every thing in their neighbourhood, from fresh eggs to rotten boroughs, that their liveries outshone those of dukes, that their coaches were finer than that of the Lord Mayor, that the examples of their large and ill governed households corrupted half the servants in the country, that some of them, with all their magnificence, could not catch the tone of good society, but, in spite of the stud and the crowd of menials, of the plate and the Dresden china, of the venison and the Burgundy, were still low men; these were things which excited, both in the class from which they had sprung and in the class into which they attempted to force themselves, the bitter aversion which is the effect of mingled envy and contempt.
— from Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 4 With a Memoir and Index by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

So there ought to be a fairy for every little boy and girl, but there isn't.
— from The Story of Peter Pan, Retold from the fairy play by Sir James Barrie by Daniel O'Connor