I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories."
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

And on this account I have always been pleased with the custom of the Peripatetics and Academics, of disputing on both sides of the question; not solely from its being the only method of discovering what is probable on every subject, but also because it affords the greatest scope for practising eloquence; a method that Aristotle first made use of, and afterward all the Aristotelians; and in our own memory Plilo, whom we have often heard, appointed one time to treat of the precepts of the rhetoricians, and another for philosophical discussion, to which custom I was brought to conform by my friends at my Tusculum; and accordingly our leisure time was spent in this manner.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

When two o'clock arrived the professional reed-drawers tossed off the last half-pint in their flagon, put down their hooks, tied their last sheaves, and went away.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

They also say that divination has a universal existence, since Providence has; and they define it as an act on account of certain results, as Zeno and Chrysippus, in the second book of his treatise on Divination, and Athenodorus and Posidonius, in the twelfth book of his discourses on Natural Philosophy, and in the fifth book of his treatise on Divination, all agree in saying; for Panætius denies that it has any certain foundation.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

The ninth act contains several fine passages describing the scenery of the Vindhya range.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

After the Covenanters' last visit the good dames of Aberdeen, allowing their zeal to outrun their judgment, as is sometimes still the wont of female politicians, decked their dogs with blue ribbons in scorn of the rebel colours.
— from Montrose by Mowbray Morris

4. O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimm'd by human tears!
— from Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts by Girl Scouts of the United States of America

The great source of all this wealth of the ecclesiastical order in Castile, as in most other countries, was the benefactions and bequests of the pious—of those, more especially, whose piety had been deferred till the close of life, when, anxious to make amends for past delinquencies, they bestowed the more freely that it was at the expense of their heirs.
— from History of the Reign of Philip the Second King of Spain, Vol. 3 And Biographical & Critical Miscellanies by William Hickling Prescott

As is well known, it is only burghers and some privileged Hollanders who are employed in Government service, from President down to policeman.
— from Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked by C. H. Thomas

What all the family felt, however, when they got home, was that an apology was, in the first place, due to Jumbo for the imputation on his character, and it was offered (on a plate of beef bones) in the amplest manner, and accepted in a similar spirit.
— from Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

Such scenes of 198 gladness make the heart almost afraid,—afraid lest there should be some keen sorrow lurking in ambush to awaken us from pleasant dreams to the stern, disenchanting experiences of real life.
— from The New Eldorado: A Summer Journey to Alaska by Maturin Murray Ballou

Taking into his charge all sciences, methods, collections of facts, principles, doctrines, truths, which are the reflexions of the universe upon the human intellect, he admits them all, he disregards none, and, as disregarding none, he allows none to exceed or encroach.
— from The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin by John Henry Newman

And while the flutes piped dolorously to this unlovely spectacle, there was a rushing to and fro of unlovely figures; a bleeding, half-blind leper, seizing another of the accursed beings,—snatching her, as it were, from the grave, in all her loathsome clay,—dragged her into the bewildering maelstrom of the waltz.
— from Summer Cruising in the South Seas by Charles Warren Stoddard