I gave myself reasons: ‘They do not want you, keep in your own course, one has not the right to cling eternally.’
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

It is that thought which gives me resolution to bid you fly from me for ever, and avoid your own destruction.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

For your life adhere to me, (I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself really to you, but what of that? Must not Nature be persuaded many times?)
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

For from what part of the earth that men dwell, either above or beneath, it seemeth always to them that dwell that they go more right than any other folk.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

THE first fortnight that I passed here was so quiet, so serene, that it gave me reason to expect a settled calm during my stay; but if I may now judge of the time to come, by the present state of my mind, the calm will be succeeded by a storm, of which I dread the violence!
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

Writers on Grecian mythology relate that Ceres, the goddess of corn, gave her flesh to eat, and that Bacchus, the God of wine, gave blood to drink.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

For this opinion I have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to refute.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

I’ll have grounds More relative than this.
— from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire—a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Then he spoke calmly, but with elation: "General Clinton has been pleased to grant my request that the 42nd shall have the honour of leading the attack.
— from British Regiments at the Front, The Story of Their Battle Honours by Reginald Hodder

And when we turn to our public officials, how frequent it is—how frequent in spite of what the newspapers say—to find men eager for the public good, men ready to take labor on themselves if only the state may be saved from cost and damage!
— from The Nature of Goodness by George Herbert Palmer

However, I well remember some of the German soldiers declaring that they were heartily sick of the siege, and expressing a hope that the Parisians would speedily surrender, so that they, the Germans, might return to the Fatherland in ample time to get their Christmas trees ready.
— from My Days of Adventure The Fall of France, 1870-71 by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

[17] Even the most convinced Selectionist must hesitate before such facts as those related by A. G. Mayer regarding the distribution of Partula otaheitana , one of these Achatinellidae.
— from Problems of Genetics by William Bateson

At great length he persuaded and threatened the sick Bishop that if they persisted in protesting in public, the Church would be 'overwhelmed', or the Government might resign, thereby paving the way for the coming into power of the Arrow Cross Party.
— from The Grey Book A collection of protests against anti-semitism and the persecution of Jews issued by non-Roman Catholic churches and church leaders during Hitlers rule by Johan M. Snoek

"Something's turned our seraphic old ass a trifle sour," Mr. George Murray remarked to his junior, with a grin.
— from Rose of the World by Egerton Castle

They grow more rugged, they call him vagrant; He cries the shriller, trumpets out his want.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Complete by John Bunyan