From time to time the superstructure of tactics has to be altered or wholly torn down; but the old foundations of strategy so far remain, as though laid upon a rock.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Hence do the tribes of Italy and all the Oenotrian land seek answers in perplexity; hither the priest bears his gifts, and when he hath lain down and sought slumber under the silent night on the spread fleeces of slaughtered sheep, sees many flitting phantoms of wonderful wise, hears manifold voices, and attains converse of the gods, and hath speech with Acheron and the deep tract of hell.
— from The Aeneid of Virgil by Virgil

Start when she does, and let her decide how fast or slowly she will ride.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

From that time, during all the rest of the Rostóvs’ journey, at every halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natásha never left the wounded Bolkónski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a wounded man. Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew die in her daughter’s arms during the journey—as, judging by what the doctor said, it seemed might easily happen—she could not oppose Natásha.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

I shiver and think it time to be disconsolate, but, taking a farewell glance at dead Nature in her shroud, I perceive a flock of snowbirds skimming lightsomely through the tempest and flitting from drift to drift as sportively as swallows in the delightful prime of summer.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

To feel ones self stronger or, expressed otherwise: happiness always presupposes a comparison (not necessarily with others, but with one's self, in the midst of a state of growth, and without being conscious that one is comparing).
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

In the second place, some eminent naturalists believe that a long course of domestication tends to eliminate sterility in the successive generations of hybrids, which were at first only slightly sterile; and if this be so, we surely ought not to expect to find sterility both appearing and disappearing under nearly the same conditions of life.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

Much have we to support us in our strife With things which else would crush us, nor alone Secret refreshings of the inward life, But many a flower of sweetest scent is strown Upon our outward and our open way; None sweeter than are at some seasons known To them who dwell for many a prosperous day Under one roof, and have, as they would hope, One purpose for their lives, one aim, one scope— To labour upward on the path to heaven.
— from The Story of Justin Martyr, and Other Poems by Richard Chenevix Trench

And when a big straggling city is built of wood in a hot climate which keeps the wood so dry that a spark will set it ablaze, when the water-supply is small, and the water-carriers, who feed the fire-engines from their leathern water-pots, are chiefly bent upon securing their pay for the help they give; and when, to crown all, the sufferers themselves are generally of the belief that what is to happen will happen, and that there is very little use in trying to avert calamity—you may believe that a fire, once started, spreads not by houses, but by streets, leaving acres of black ruins dotted with the still standing chimneys.
— from Miscellanea by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

It was strange to feel one’s sane, straightforward mind forced along this labyrinth of dazed comprehension, turning in the cruelly knotted paradox of this impossible love-story.
— from The Shadow of Life by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

"There are seven ways in which to back your number for one spin," she said, carried away a little by Mary's spirit. "
— from The Guests Of Hercules by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

We find such norms and rules in the Australian aboriginal society, different kinds being enforced by different forms of social sanction.
— from The Family among the Australian Aborigines, a Sociological Study by Bronislaw Malinowski

6 , Front of mouth; g , outer maxillæ; g′ , an articulation separating the mouth from the membrane of the first segment of the body; h , first pair of maxillipeds; whole figure on same scale with the labrum, fig.
— from A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 2 of 2) The Balanidæ, (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidæ, etc., etc. by Charles Darwin

It is a great building of red sandstone and marble, "upstanding from a platform reached on three sides by flights of steps so tall, so majestically wide, that they are like a stone mountain."
— from Peeps at Many Lands—India by John Finnemore