But if we see what raving nonsense this, And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth, Compounded out of laughing elements, And think and utter reason with learn'd speech, Though not himself compounded, for a fact, Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then, Cannot those things which we perceive to have Their own sensation be composed as well Of intermixed seeds quite void of sense? H2 anchor INFINITE
— from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus

But if an indispensable duty be in question, the transgression of which violates the moral law itself, and without regard to the welfare of mankind, and as it were tramples on its holiness (such as are usually called duties to God, because in Him we conceive the ideal of holiness in substance), then we give our most perfect esteem to the pursuit of it at the sacrifice of all that can have any value for the dearest inclinations, and we find our soul strengthened and elevated by such an example, when we convince ourselves by contemplation of it that human nature is capable of so great an elevation above every motive that nature can oppose to it.
— from The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant

The advocate looked downcast, but Torriano consoled him by a fee of six sequins, and everybody went away.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

As a matter of fact, they did not affect her in the least, and in her clear, high voice, she used to wonder openly why other women worried over matrimonial troubles or fussed over so slight an encumbrance as a husband.
— from On the Face of the Waters: A Tale of the Mutiny by Flora Annie Webster Steel

The shot sped out from our serried ships, Like the sob of a strong man crying; The sun was veiled as with sudden eclipse, When the shot sped out from our serried ships, And England’s flag was flying.
— from The Red Cross in Peace and War by Clara Barton

In the hieratic, fewer figurative or symbolic signs are employed than in the hieroglyphic; their absence being supplied by means of the phonetic or alphabetical characters, the words being spelt instead of figured; and this is still more the case in the demotic, which is, in consequence, almost entirely alphabetical.
— from The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, July-December, 1827 by Various

“I think there are other reasons why the tactical ideal set out above—viz., that of using long lines of ships on approximately parallel courses at equal speed in the same direction—will be questioned; but even if there were not, that a mobile mine-field can be made to traverse the line of an on-coming squadron, and do so at a range of 10,000 yards, and that ships formed in line ahead offer between five and six times more favourable a target to perpendicular submarine attack than a line of ships abreast, will make it certain that sooner or later there will be a tendency in favour of smaller squadrons and, even with these, of large and frequent changes of course, and possibly of formation, so as to lessen the torpedo menace.
— from The British Navy in Battle by Arthur Joseph Hungerford Pollen

The Ethiopian or Abyssinian princes more than once menaced the Memlouk sultans with the execution of this alarming project, and the fear of so serious an evil is said to have induced the Moslems to conciliate the Abyssinian kings by large presents, and by some concessions to the oppressed Christians of Egypt.
— from The Earth as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

For such a writer as he, the critic steeped in all the latest subtleties of the style of to-day, and indeed the originator of many of these subtleties, the intimate friend of such superb and elaborate literary artists as Tennyson, Browning, George Meredith, Rossetti and Swinburne, it must have been inconceivably difficult to write the ‘working portions’ of his narrative in a style as unbookish at times as if he had written in the pre-Meredithian epoch.
— from Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic by James Douglas

He had made atonement, but the sting remained--or rather a foreboding of something somber and evil that in spite of herself she could not shake off.
— from Infatuation by Lloyd Osbourne

But holdeth the hand of a fair ladye, And floweth the dance a palace within, Half the night, to a golden din, Midst lights in windows and love in eyes, And a constant feeling of sweet surprise; And ever the look of Captain Sword [14] Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.
— from Captain Sword and Captain Pen: A Poem by Leigh Hunt