Bud-variations, such as the appearance of a moss-rose on a common rose, or of a nectarine on a peach-tree, offer good instances of spontaneous variations; but even in these cases, if we bear in mind the power of a minute drop of poison in producing complex galls, we ought not to feel too sure that the above variations are not the effect of some local change in the nature of the sap, due to some change in the conditions.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

This is, perhaps, the most important star group in our sky, because of its size, peculiar form, and the fact that it never sets in our latitude, and last, that it always points out the Pole-star, and, for this reason, it is sometimes known as the Pointers.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook The First Edition, 1911 by Boy Scouts of America

Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

Instead of assuming therefore, from the legal prohibition of incest, that there is a natural aversion to incest we ought rather to assume that there is a natural instinct in favour of it, and that if the law represses it, it does so because civilized men have come to the conclusion that the satisfaction of these natural instincts is detrimental to the general interests of society”
— from Totem and Taboo Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics by Sigmund Freud

If the very appearances of grief and joy inspire us with some degree of the like emotions, it is because they suggest to us the general idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the person in whom we observe them: and in these passions this is sufficient to have some little influence upon us.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

They ascended a hillock (called by the Bashkirs a shikhan) and dismounting from their carts and their horses, gathered in one spot.
— from What Men Live By, and Other Tales by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

It is refreshing to find enthusiasm for ideal goods in our sordid age of materialism.'
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

Good your grace, pardon me; Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business Hath rais'd me from my bed; nor doth the general care Take hold on me; for my particular grief Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature That it engluts and swallows other sorrows, And it is still itself.
— from Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare

But the best illustration of this subject to be found in the Bible is given in our Saviour's own experience.
— from The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young, Vol. 3 by Richard Newton

[from a highly-esteemed correspondent].—The great invasion of sand, which has for so many generations spread such wide devastation, and occasioned such grievous loss to landowners on the western coast of Glamorganshire, made another great stride in the storm of Sabbath-day, July 11.
— from The Maid of Sker by R. D. (Richard Doddridge) Blackmore

Published in "Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science" 1866 page 91.) shown that in Nova Scotia, in the neighbourhood of rich auriferous quartz veins that have been greatly denuded, grain gold is only sparingly disseminated throughout the drifts of the valleys, whilst in Australia every auriferous quartz vein has been the source of an alluvial deposit of grain gold, produced by the denudation and sorting action of running water.
— from The Naturalist in Nicaragua by Thomas Belt

A sandy plain, in the early part of the day, is peculiarly favourable for the production of such effects; and on the extensive flat strand which stretches between Mont St. Michel and the coast adjacent to Avranches in Normandy, I have noticed Mont Tombeline reflected as if glass instead of sand surrounded it and formed its mirror.
— from The Glaciers of the Alps Being a narrative of excursions and ascents, an account of the origin and phenomena of glaciers and an exposition of the physical principles to which they are related by John Tyndall

I was ill in bed and could not be present at the meeting; but when Conway reported the particulars to me, I thought I never heard a more wild proposal, nor one fraught with greater improbability of success.
— from Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, Volume 2 (of 4) by Horace Walpole

It is not injured by frost, and in Germany is often seen fringing the edges of the beech forests along the bottom of the valleys where the beech would suffer.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 by Various

I do not mean to say he will not take his part in encouraging, in helping forward the prospective suicide; he will not only give the error rope enough, but show it how to handle and adjust the rope;—he will commit the matter to reason, reflection, sober judgment, common sense; to Time, the great interpreter of so many secrets.
— from The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin by John Henry Newman

Had all the seigniors made common cause with Philip and Granvelle, instead of setting their breasts against the inquisition, the cause of truth and liberty would have been still more desperate.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) by John Lothrop Motley

He opposed the cruel laws against insolvents, [844] by which, in the time of George III., our statute-book was still defaced; and he vainly attempted to soften the penal code, [845] the increasing severity of which was one of the worst features of that bad reign.
— from History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3 by Henry Thomas Buckle