“Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Men who were neither land-owners nor farmers perceived with ease the obtrusive evils of a tax on corn, but they and their leaders were far less influenced by arguments against protection generally than by the immediate and almost visible advantage of cheapening the bread of artisans and laborers.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Occasionally, one gets a glimpse into his daily life at Dux, as in this note, scribbled on a fragment of paper (here and always I translate the French literally): ‘I beg you to tell my servant what the biscuits are that I like to eat; dipped in wine, to fortify my stomach.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

First, let it be remembered that we have innumerable instances, both in our domestic productions and in those in a state of nature, of all sorts of differences of inherited structure which are correlated with certain ages and with either sex.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

But what in the name of all that is wonderful made the fellow leave it behind?
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

The gods of the hearth exist for us still; and let all new faith be tolerant of that fetishism, lest it bruise its own roots.
— from Silas Marner by George Eliot

You formerly lived, I believe in the Allées de Meilhan, on the fourth floor?”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

I then rose, and taking a roll containing fifty louis I begged her to keep them for me, promising to come for them in two years, and take them from her hands through the grating of her terrible prison.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of thoughtless enjoyment, provision should be made for the more important years of life, when reflection takes place of sensation.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out mine.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

The saying "first loss is best" applies in this case with force.
— from Riding and Driving by Edward L. (Edward Lowell) Anderson

Within its folds lies imbedded by nature an unstinted store of marble, out of which are chiselled (4) temples and altars of rarest beauty and the glittering splendour of images sacred to the gods.
— from On Revenues by Xenophon

Tenedos , a rocky but fertile little island belonging to Turkey, in the Ægean, 3 m. off the mainland of Turkey in Asia, and 12 m. S. of the entrance to the Dardanelles; it was the place the Greeks made a feint they had returned to during the Trojan War.
— from The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by P. Austin Nuttall

What is the first lesson inscribed by his Maker on every man's heart, instinct, intellect?
— from Checkmate by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

The first lesson in bravery is to assume the appearance of it; the second, to sustain the appearance; and third will find you with all that courage “that doth become a man.”
— from Rattlin the Reefer by Edward Howard

Ibsen took the blows as they fell, dodging, as I have said, when he felt like it, but receiving them in the main quite stolidly.
— from My Life by Josiah Flynt

This island, called Joanes, is 150 leagues in length, and from its Cape Maguari to Cape Norte, on the opposite continent, the largest of the two estuaries is forty-five leagues in breadth, whilst the lesser is twelve leagues broad, from the same Cape Maguari to Tigioca point, on the southern continent.
— from Spanish America, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Bonnycastle, Richard Henry, Sir

Seven years before, an English fleet had sailed down the Kattegat and without a declaration of war or any warning had bombarded Copenhagen and had taken away the Danish fleet, lest it be of value to Napoleon.
— from The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

The lodge was tightly closed, and steam was issuing in wisps from little interstices between the bark sheets.
— from The Island of Yellow Sands: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys by Ethel C. (Ethel Claire) Brill

“We are all four lost, if by the least gesture you discover that you recognize him.”
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas