Ceci ne se fera pas tout seul, mais seulement si les gens choisissent de défendre une langue.
— from Entretiens / Interviews / Entrevistas by Marie Lebert

qua, di la` discesero a la posta; porser li uncini verso li 'mpaniati, ch'eran gia` cotti dentro da la crosta; e noi lasciammo lor cosi` 'mpacciati.
— from Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno by Dante Alighieri

I was not quite such good company during dinner as I could have wished to be, for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention was distracted by observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and that his shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the wall of the entry, with a bottle at its mouth.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

And then, as she held him close to her in the darkness, suddenly Jims laughed—a real, gurgly, chuckly, delighted, delightful laugh.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

Lord Graham commended Dr. Drummond at Naples, as a man of extraordinary talents; and added, that he had a great love of liberty.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

The said captain Cochegrue was gay as a hundred schoolboys at the breaking up of class, and made his good cousin drink deeply, who spilled everything country fashion, and pretended to be drunk, spluttering out a hundred stupidities, as, that “tomorrow he would buy Paris, would lend a hundred thousand crowns to the king, that he would be able to roll in gold;” in fact, talked so much nonsense that the captain, fearing some compromising avowal and thinking his brain quite muddled enough, led him outside with the good intention, instead of sharing with him, of ripping Chiquon open to see if he had not a sponge in his stomach, because he had just soaked in a big quart of the good wine of Suresne.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

The many periods or stages through which the earth has passed in reaching her present state of refinement, have been stamped one upon the other so that the Geologist can determine definitely what would be the result of a certain period from the characteristics of the foregoing.
— from Strange Visitors A series of original papers, embracing philosophy, science, government, religion, poetry, art, fiction, satire, humor, narrative, and prophecy, by the spirits of Irving, Willis, Thackeray, Brontë, Richter, Byron, Humboldt, Hawthorne, Wesley, Browning, and others now dwelling in the spirit world; dictated through a clairvoyant, while in an abnormal or trance state by Henry J. Horn

[1] (202) 234-3763 consulate(s) general: Chicago, Dallas, Duluth (Georgia), Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York (2), Nogales (Arizona), Santa Ana (California), San Francisco, Washington (DC), Woodbridge (Virginia) consulate(s): Boston, Elizabeth (New Jersey)
— from The 2009 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

But Sir G. Carteret did declare that in wisdom it was better to do so; but that, in obedience to the Parliament, he was for setting out the fifty sail talked on, though it spent all the money, and to little purpose; and that this was better than to leave it to the Parliament to make bad constructions of their thrift, if any trouble should happen.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys

[112] I. Whether General Custer did, or did not, obey General Terry’s orders; whether these orders were, or were not, well considered, and such as could be carried out; whether, if General Custer did disobey General Terry’s orders he was warranted in so doing by the circumstances in which he found himself, are questions of the deepest interest to the student of military matters and the historian thereof.
— from Indian Fights and Fighters: The Soldier and the Sioux by Cyrus Townsend Brady

154 Paulitschke, Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas, Die geistige Cultur der Danâkil, &c. p.
— from The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas by Edward Westermarck

There is nothing sooner breaks down the barrier of feigned indifference than the illness of one whom we are schooling ourselves to avoid; and thus, in the heart of Gadsby, coldness, distrust, disdain, yielded at once to the most painful solicitude and deep tenderness.
— from Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, September 1850 by Various

The lease to Mr. Converse, in 1631, was renewed Nov. 9, 1636, in form as follows: “The Governor and treasurer, by order of the general court, did demise to Edward Converse the ferry between Boston and Charlestown, to have the sole transporting of passengers and cattle from one side to the other, for three years from the first day of the next month, for the yearly rent of forty pounds to be paid quarterly to the treasurer: Provided, that he see it be well attended and furnished with sufficient boats; and that so soon as may be in the next spring he set up a convenient house on Boston side, and keep a boat there as need shall require.
— from Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880 by William W. (William Willder) Wheildon