These questions of conversion are not especially difficult, but when it must be explained to what such qualities as very exquisite egoism, declared envy, abnormal desire for honor, exaggerated conceit, and great idleness may lead to, the problem requires great caution and intensive study.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

we have slept, my lords, My beard has grown into my lap."
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

such bugs and goblins in my life, That on the supervise, no leisure bated, No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, My head should be struck off.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, as ever, your loving Amy." "Paris" "Dear Girls,— "In my last I told you about our London visit,—how kind the Vaughns were, and what pleasant parties they made for us.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

] and indeed the laws seem to be very good, and I pray God I may live to see it built in that manner!
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

He had covered the distance and gone in more like a cat than a dog; and with the same cat-like swiftness he had slashed with his fangs and leaped clear.
— from White Fang by Jack London

At that point, I had kissed a total of three girls in my life, not counting that moment when I went back to school and got a hero's welcome.
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

This is the Tribunal Extraordinaire; which, in few months, getting into most lively action, shall be entitled Tribunal Revolutionnaire, as indeed it from the very first has entitled itself: with a Herman or a Dumas for Judge President, with a Fouquier-Tinville for Attorney-General, and a Jury of such as Citizen Leroi, who has surnamed himself Dix-Aout, 'Leroi August-Tenth,' it will become the wonder of the world.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Everything good in man leans on what is higher.
— 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.

'Then give 'im my love,' she sez, 'an' tell 'im I shan't never forget 'is pride and 'is selfishness,' she sez,—an' she give me a crown into the bargain, she did.
— from The Amateur Gentleman by Jeffery Farnol

At least he wrote to me three or four years before his death: “I never read any English grammar in my life, thank God, except Cobbett’s a few years ago, and in that I found errors of ignorance,—as was to be expected.”
— from James Russell Lowell, A Biography; vol. 1/2 by Horace Elisha Scudder

Henry, having again withdrawn from his attempts to reduce the capital, had left the sixteen tyrants who governed it more leisure to occupy themselves with internal politics.
— from History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce — Complete (1584-1609) by John Lothrop Motley

His manner on the ground is much like the robin's; he lowers the head, runs a few steps rapidly, then erects himself very straight for a moment.
— from In Nesting Time by Olive Thorne Miller

Once the machine loses its power it must go into a glide to maintain its stability, and at the end of the glide it must land on water, trees, fields, or roofs of houses in towns.
— from Opportunities in Aviation by Arthur Sweetser

"George is my legally adopted brother, boys.
— from A Little Dusky Hero by Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock

Whether a man preaches his gospel grotesquely or gravely is merely like the question of whether he preaches it in prose or verse.
— from Heretics by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

You have grown into my life.
— from Anna the Adventuress by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

I went to Lord Dacre's: but whether the heat and fatigue were too much for me, or whether the thunder turned me sour, for I am at least as weak as small-beer, I came back with the gout in my left hand and right foot.
— from The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 by Horace Walpole

The early Irises are not difficult to grow in moderately light and well drained soil, but they should usually be afforded a warm and sheltered site.
— from The Book of Old-Fashioned Flowers And Other Plants Which Thrive in the Open-Air of England by Harry Roberts