And besides other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other whales sometimes are.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

Mr Fledgeby's evil star showing her the pepper-box on the chimneypiece, she climbed upon a chair, and got it down, and sprinkled all the plasters with a judicious hand.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Unable to endure such misery and being less courageous than his wife, my grandfather, in despair at seeing his sick wife deprived of all care and assistance, hanged himself.
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

Fromm, Klug, Weis, und Mild, gehört in des Adels Schild —The words pious, prudent, wise, and gentle are appropriately suitable on the shield of a noble.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are turned up with the soil.
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

But I despise, my dear Graveairs, I despise all such slander.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

At which shout, Henriot descends from his upper room, far gone in drink as some say; finds his Place de Greve empty; the cannons' mouth turned towards him; and, on the whole,—that it is now the catastrophe!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Now King Thidrec of Bern saw what Grimhild is doing, and speaks to King Attila.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

Such scenes did not frequently occur between the two friends, and this little flurry was soon over; but it served to warn Lurida that Miss Euthymia Tower was not of that class of self-conscious beauties who would be ready to dispute the empire of the Venus of Milo on her own ground, in defences as scanty and insufficient as those of the marble divinity.
— from A Mortal Antipathy by Oliver Wendell Holmes

At last I found one open; I called for a bottle and without caring whether it was good or bad I gulped it down; a second followed and then a third.
— from The Confession of a Child of the Century by Alfred de Musset

Oranges do not grow in Dundee, and sugar is not manufactured there, but enterprise and industrial education are native to the soil.
— from The Revival of Irish Literature Addresses by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, K.C.M.G, Dr. George Sigerson, and Dr. Douglas Hyde by George Sigerson

Fortunately, as I found myself going, I dispatched a servant (about one) to the apothecary for an ounce of laudanum.
— from The Opium Habit by Horace B. Day

[81] For the scientific reader, I may perhaps be permitted to add, that the very difficult Subject, at which here I can only venture to glance, is discussed at some length in one of my Pathological Lectures, delivered at St. Thomas’s Hospital in 1850, published at that time in the Lancet , and subsequently reprinted.—J. S., 1854.
— from Reports Relating to the Sanitary Condition of the City of London by John Simon

"Yes, I had to tell her," he continued, "and I am glad I did, and she loved me just the same.
— from Gretchen: A Novel by Mary Jane Holmes

What his humour loses in boldness, it gains in depth and slyness.
— from Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country by Alexander Smith

At the same time, most of the artillerymen spiked their guns in despair, and scattered their powder about.
— from The Camp-fires of Napoleon Comprising The Most Brilliant Achievemnents of the Emperor and His Marshals by Henry C. (Henry Clay) Watson

Methought, when he was reading the gospel I discerned a sound as of the hall-door opening, and of steps.
— from Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century by Georgiana Fullerton