We ought from like effects to conclude like faculties, and from greater effects greater faculties; and consequently confess that the same reasoning, and the same ways by which we operate, are common with them, or that they have others that are better.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

And, in the first place, to cite only a few leading examples, there certainly are few finer architectural pages than this façade, where, successively and at once, the three portals hollowed out in an arch; the broidered and dentated cordon of the eight and twenty royal niches; the immense central rose window, flanked by its two lateral windows, like a priest by his deacon and subdeacon; the frail and lofty gallery of trefoil arcades, which supports a heavy platform above its fine, slender columns; and lastly, the two black and massive towers with their slate penthouses, harmonious parts of a magnificent whole, superposed in five gigantic stories;—develop themselves before the eye, in a mass and without confusion, with their innumerable details of statuary, carving, and sculpture, joined powerfully to the tranquil grandeur of the whole; a vast symphony in stone, so to speak; the colossal work of one man and one people, all together one and complex, like the Iliads and the Romanceros, whose sister it is; prodigious product of the grouping together of all the forces of an epoch, where, upon each stone, one sees the fancy of the workman disciplined by the genius of the artist start forth in a hundred fashions; a sort of human creation, in a word, powerful and fecund as the divine creation of which it seems to have stolen the double character,—variety, eternity.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

In placing before the public the concluding volume of the Annals of Rajputana I have fulfilled what I considered to be a sacred obligation to the races amongst whom I have passed the better portion of my life; and although no man can more highly appreciate public approbation, I am far less eager to court that approbation than to awaken a sympathy for the objects of my work, the interesting people of Rajputana.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

In examining the balance of power as established by the Federal Constitution; in remarking on the one hand the portion of sovereignty which has been reserved to the several States, and on the other the share of power which the Union has assumed, it is evident that the Federal legislators entertained the clearest and most accurate notions on the nature of the centralization of government.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

The moderns, then, after they have abolished slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less easy to attack and far less easy to conquer than the mere fact of servitude: the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the race, and the prejudice of color.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

Now—if you would not take offense, and you should not, I am sure, when no offense is meant; I might offer to lend you—say, fifty pounds, or half their lowest value, accepting the valentines as security, and—" Phyllis's face lighted eagerly; then clouded again.
— from Old Valentines A Love Story by Munson Aldrich Havens

A young man of an old Long Island family had married a beautiful girl, a young woman such as Walter Scott would have taken to impersonate his character of Amy Robsart, who, besides this natural and naïve style of beauty, possessed great administrative ability, and withal much taste, a great amount of energy, and a fortune large enough to carry through any enterprise she conceived.
— from Society as I Have Found It by Ward McAllister

We could not get in our heavy blows for long enough to crush Scheer, and he could not get in his mosquito attacks with sufficient success wholly to stave us off.
— from The Silent Watchers England's Navy during the Great War: What It Is, and What We Owe to It by Bennet Copplestone

He burned with a fever of haste to be off toward the East—over the far rim of hills, and the farther higher mountain range, to a land that had warmed genially under three hundred years of civilised occupancy—where people had lived and fraternised long enough to create the atmosphere he craved so ardently.
— from The Spenders: A Tale of the Third Generation by Harry Leon Wilson

His birth as a full-fledged critic awaited only the stirring of the springs of his eloquence, as is evident from the excellence of what is practically his first literary essay, the “Character of Burke.”
— from Hazlitt on English Literature: An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by William Hazlitt

[389] Rivers which transport sand, gravel, pebbles, heavy mineral matter in short, tend to raise their own beds; those charged only with fine, light earth, to cut them deeper.
— from Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

Yet I still cherish a wistful regard for these delicate-footed, wary creatures, who develop so suddenly from madcap frolic into dignity, discretion and reserve, keeping even in the most domestic surroundings a latent sense of a free life elder than civilization, when, as Swinburne tells his silken crony: "Wild on woodland ways your sires Flashed like fires.
— from Sigurd Our Golden Collie, and Other Comrades of the Road by Katharine Lee Bates

Dissolve of aloes, 1 oz., in strong decoction of fresh rue, 1 ⁄ 2 pint; next fold a piece of soft muslin in eight folds large enough to cover the chest and part of the stomach; steep this in the decoction, and dry it in the shade; lastly, place in a small bag, one side of which is formed of scarlet silk or wool, and the other, intended to be worn next the skin, of the finest net or gauze.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume II by Richard Vine Tuson

The expedition passed from Lake Erie to Chautauqua Lake and proceeded southward to the Alleghany, where the work of taking formal possession began.
— from The Colonization of North America, 1492-1783 by Herbert Eugene Bolton

It strengthens the diaphragm and, obeying one of the fundamental laws, exercises the central muscles of the body.
— from How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions by S. S. (Samuel Silas) Curry