Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that, while we are reading, writing, and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men—digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave—we are called upon to prove that we are men!
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

Marcus Varro, however, is not willing to credit lying fables against the gods, lest he should find something dishonouring to their majesty; and therefore he will not admit that the Areopagus, the place where the Apostle Paul disputed with the Athenians, got this name because Mars, who in Greek is called Ἄρης, when he was charged with the crime of homicide, and was judged by twelve gods in that field, was acquitted by the sentence of six; because it was the custom, when the votes were equal, to acquit rather than condemn.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

I looked, and then thought I did see something move; but there being no light, but what the stars gave, I could not be certain.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Several anecdotes of this officer’s prowess are given in Col. Cadell’s book, referred to above.
— from The Waterloo Roll Call With Biographical Notes and Anecdotes by Charles Dalton

It was plainly evident that there was great internal commotion in the bishop’s palace.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

A wise man does not go in chase of fortune; but he is by no means insensible to glory, and when he sees it so ill distributed, his virtue, which might have been animated by a little emulation, and turned to the advantage of society, droops and dies away in obscurity and indigence.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

These symbols, weighted with their wide significance, may hold the mind and attract its energies into their vortex; and human genius is certainly not at its worst when employed in framing a good myth or a good argument.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

I’m perfectly willing to own up that I’m glad I consented to keep the child and that I’m getting fond of her, but don’t you rub it in, Matthew Cuthbert.”
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

The gladsome ghosts, in circling troops, attend And with unwearied eyes behold their friend; Delight to hover near, and long to know What bus’ness brought him to the realms below.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil

He listened to Ballard's brief explanation with true German impassiveness, cranked the motor, pulled himself in behind the pilot-wheel, and sent the little car bounding down the mesa hill to the Boiling Water bridge what time the hoister whistles were blowing the six-o'clock quitting signal.
— from The King of Arcadia by Francis Lynde

The Christmas time was coming on when the house finally got itself completed and was ready for living, and with holly and mistletoe and laurel they made it gay for the wedding.
— from Exit Betty by Grace Livingston Hill

It was indeed a morning of beauty after the tempest; and Nature seemed to have arrayed herself in her bridal robes, glittering in all their own matchless jewellery to greet its coming.
— from Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 1 by Edmund Flagg

"All," said the magistrate, as he stood at the threshold, "who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution.
— from A History of the Moravian Church by J. E. (Joseph Edmund) Hutton

which I knew of old meant, “I have an idea of my own, and I mean to get it carried out,” said, “Oh, if you please 'm, if I might be so bold, did you think serious of engagin' the boy that's waitin' in the kitchen?”
— from J. Cole by Emma Gellibrand

How much just such detraction from all mere natural human greatness is contained in the following penetrative maxim: No. 18.
— from French Classics by William Cleaver Wilkinson

And at the end of woe, suddenly our eyes shall be opened, and in clearness of light our sight shall be full: which light is God, our Maker and Holy Ghost, in Christ Jesus our Saviour.
— from Revelations of Divine Love by of Norwich Julian

It is with these as with many others of the most fascinating windows in grisaille; the glass is corroded on the surface, black with the dirt and lichen of ages, cracked and crossed with leads introduced by the repairing glazier, until the design is about as intelligible as would be a conglomeration of huge spiders’ webs.
— from Windows: A Book About Stained & Painted Glass by Lewis F. (Lewis Foreman) Day