He that tempts a married woman to adultery is no less severely punished than he that commits it, for they believe that a deliberate design to commit a crime is equal to the fact itself, since its not taking effect does not make the person that miscarried in his attempt at all the less guilty.
— from Utopia by More, Thomas, Saint

Perhaps you are entitled by your merit, and I believe you are, to a richer and a better wife than Melinda; but take my word for it, she is not to be won at that rate;—or, if you are so lucky as to carry her, between you and me, you may say, as Teague said, By my soul, I have gained a loss!
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I will tell you then (but ‘tis not necessary for us to halt that I may tell you the tale), that Paquette la Chantefleurie was a pretty maid of eighteen when I was one myself, that is to say, eighteen years ago, and ‘tis her own fault if she is not to-day, like me, a good, plump, fresh mother of six and thirty, with a husband and a son.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

You want double the value for your money anybody else would, and now that you've got a house that for its size is not to be beaten in the county, you don't want to pay for it.
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy

The nurse must do her work no matter how tired or blue or “frazzled” she feels, if she is not too sick to be on duty; for all time lost, she knows, is to be made up to the hospital before training is completed.
— from Applied Psychology for Nurses by Mary F. Porter

My boy would be quite inconsolable, and I should too, my dear friend, if she is not to be among our guests.
— from The Motor Maids' School Days by Katherine Stokes

For our philosophers are still determined to reason it 'thus and thus,' without taking into account the circumstance, that 'the sequent effect' with which 'nature finds itself scourged,' is not touched by their reasons .
— from The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded by Delia Salter Bacon

We had been lying on the beach for, I should imagine, nearly two hours, in silence watching the ocean alight in the trough of every wave with brilliant flashing phosphorescence and silver moonlight, and thinking of our terrible position, when Mr Ferguson, who had remained so motionless that I had believed him to be asleep, and naturally after his two nights’ fatigue, spoke— “Galbraith,” he said, “I have been reflecting that our wisest plan after all will be to make across the country, for, unarmed as we are, we are like to find the animals about here as dangerous as the natives, who possibly might be friendly and hospitable should we fall in with them.”
— from Richard Galbraith, Mariner; Or, Life among the Kaffirs by E. W. (Emma Watts) Phillips

When its trap is finished, it stretches itself near the bottom, remaining stiff and without motion like a piece of wood, and the last segment bent at an angle with the rest, so as to form a strong point of support in the struggles which it often necessarily has with vigorous prey.
— from An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. 1 or Elements of the Natural History of the Insects by William Kirby

All of these gardens were to be found in Sakai, Idzumi, nearly two hundred years ago, and the more enduring features of some of them may still be in existence.
— from Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings by Edward Sylvester Morse

As to the source of the Tweed there is the curious paradox that what passes for its source is not the real fons et origo of the stream.
— from In the Border Country by W. S. (William Shillinglaw) Crockett