Then as he is not here, never mind him, and do you tell me: By the gods, Meno, be generous, and tell me what you say that virtue is; for I shall be truly delighted to find that I have been mistaken, and that you and Gorgias do really have this knowledge; although I have been just saying that I have never found anybody who had.
— from Meno by Plato

136 They cast out their mooring stones and made fast the hawsers; they then got out upon the sea shore, mixed their wine, and got dinner ready.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

But scarce had turned the corner nigh, Which to the neighbouring alley leads, When Eugene like a ghost did rise
— from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] A Romance of Russian Life in Verse by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

The background, composed of handkerchiefs, coats, shirts, hats, and other old articles 'On Leaving,' had a general dim resemblance to human listeners; especially where a shiny black sou'wester suit and hat hung, looking very like a clumsy mariner with his back to the company, who was so curious to overhear, that he paused for the purpose with his coat half pulled on, and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompleted action.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

An English brig, which had put into San Francisco, lost both her anchors; the Rosa was driven upon a mud bank in San Diego; and the Pilgrim, with great difficulty, rode out the gale in Monterey, with three anchors a-head.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

I’d a good deal rather be a pirate, now that I’ve tried it.”
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

We are busy picking up the threads of our life where we dropped them, with this difference only, that many of us seem a good deal richer than we were before.
— from The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes

M. Molé and the whole Council said the same, and Baron Louis, uncle of General de Rigny, thought it well to go to Neuilly and demand an explanation from the King.
— from Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1836-1840 by Dino, Dorothée, duchesse de

But it is impossible for the pencil to give due raggedness to the rags, or to convey a certain picturesque mellowness of colour that the garments assume.
— from The Paris Sketch Book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh; and the Irish Sketch Book by William Makepeace Thackeray

But tall, somber Stygians, standing back in the shadows, glowered darkly, remembering their ancient glories.
— from Shadows in Zamboula by Robert E. (Robert Ervin) Howard

The poet has finely described it:— "Behind him sinks, and swells, and spreads a sea Of hills, and vales, and groves: before him glide Don, Rivelin, Loxley, wandering in their pride, From heights that mix their azure with the cloud; Beneath his spire and grove are glittering; And round him press his flock, a woe-worn crowd.
— from Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2) by William Howitt

You really are an awful girl, Daisy Rymple.”
— from Polly: A New-Fashioned Girl by L. T. Meade

To their ultimate plane Gilles de Retz descended.
— from Historia Amoris: A History of Love, Ancient and Modern by Edgar Saltus

" "No." "The cows are going dry rapidly.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

Durtal's material for this study consisted of: a copy of the memorial addressed by the heirs of Gilles de Rais to the king, notes taken from the several true copies at Paris of the proceedings in the criminal trial at Nantes, extracts from Vallet de Viriville's history of Charles VII, finally the Notice by Armand Guéraut and the biography of the abbé Bossard.
— from Là-bas by J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans