I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

He remarked "a poor town it was in those days," a couple of rows of smoky cabins, tenanted by dirty women and ragged children, while the tall, unkempt frontiersmen lounged about in greasy hunting-shirts, breech-clouts, leggings, and moccasins.
— from The Winning of the West, Volume 1 From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 by Theodore Roosevelt

Others threw themselves voluntarily over the barricades into the waist, and thought themselves happy to lie concealed amongst the cattle; but the greatest part escaped up the main-shrouds and sheltered themselves either in the tops or rigging; and though the Indians attacked only the quarter-deck, yet the watch in the forecastle, finding their communication cut off, and being terrified by the wounds of the few who, not being killed on the spot, had strength sufficient to force their passage along the gangways, and not knowing either who their enemies were or what were their numbers, they likewise gave all over for lost, and in great confusion ran up into the rigging of the foremast and bowsprit.
— from Anson's Voyage Round the World The Text Reduced by Richard Walter

However there is no reason for astonishment at persons to whom this idea seems novel, for lovers, and in general all those who admire visible beauty do not realize that they admire it only because (it is the image) of the intelligible beauty.
— from Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2 In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods by Plotinus

“O Figuero, I fit for chop,” murmured Pana, who found little amusement in gazing idly at an Englishman through a window when there were good things to eat in the hotel.
— from The Message by Louis Tracy

In from the far-away lands she is steering now, Straight for her anchorage, fearless and free,— Lo, as I gaze, how she seems to be nearing now, Sun-lighted shores, a still haven, and me !
— from Poems of the Heart and Home by Yule, J. C., Mrs.

If he remained he would become like them, while his father lived alone in Galilee!
— from The Brook Kerith: A Syrian story by George Moore

Anhydrous, inodorous, insipid, opaque, brittle, easily pulverisable, and of a dark leaden-grey or steel colour; it has a striated crystalline texture, and breaks with a rough spicular fracture; is insoluble in both water and alcohol; soluble, with decomposition, in hot strong acids and alkaline solutions; melts at a red heat, and is partly dissipated in white fumes, leaving an impure grey-coloured oxide mixed with some undecomposed tersulphide ( ANTIMONY-ASH ).
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume I by Richard Vine Tuson

And they are most uncommon too—just the colour of lilac, and 'put in with a smutty finger' like an Irish girl's.
— from Poppy: The Story of a South African Girl by Cynthia Stockley