that if I had used the precaution of shutting the windows, while I indulged myself in those liberties with my neighbour's wife, I should have been guilty of no immorality; and that because my action, being perfectly concealed, would have had no tendency to produce any false conclusion.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

I Liked to sade so Divel preaches to Divels Rebouking sin keep it up up up sayeth the hipacrits mockers of god habits an Costom is the ods ods maks the diffrence I sees god in all plases the god of Nater in all things wee Live and move in god he is the god of Nateer all Nater is god take one Ellement from us one of the fore take the fier or the water or or Eare or Earth wee are gone so wee Live in god
— from A Pickle for the Knowing Ones by Timothy Dexter

You are very clever, cultivated, serious, you have immense talent, and perhaps a brilliant future awaits you, while I am an uninteresting girl of no importance, and you know very well that I should be only a hindrance in your life.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

They do not per ceive that the society of God or Nature is an ideal society, nor that these phantoms, looming in their imagination, are but significant figments whose existent basis is a minute and indefinite series of ordinary perceptions.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

The brow of the hill, where they remained, was a cheerful spot: Louisa returned; and Mary, finding a comfortable seat for herself on the step of a stile, was very well satisfied so long as the others all stood about her; but when Louisa drew Captain Wentworth away, to try for a gleaning of nuts in an adjoining hedge-row, and they were gone by degrees quite out of sight and sound, Mary was happy no longer; she quarrelled with her own seat, was sure Louisa had got a much better somewhere, and nothing could prevent her from going to look for a better also.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

It needs frost, they say, and perhaps it does; if this be so, it will have a good opportunity to go on needing it, as it will not be likely to get it.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

ATHENIAN: And shall we say that those who guard our noblest interests, and are the best of guardians, are inferior in virtue to dogs, and to men even of moderate excellence, who would never betray justice for the sake of gifts which unjust men impiously offer them? CLEINIAS: Certainly not; nor is such a notion to be endured, and he who holds this opinion may be fairly singled out and characterized as of all impious men the wickedest and most impious.
— from Laws by Plato

Yes, the staff-captain too; in simple hearts the feeling for the beauty and grandeur of nature is a hundred-fold stronger and more vivid than in us, ecstatic composers of narratives in words and on paper.
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov

No doubt, as has been said above, the averment that the defendant has been guilty of negligence is a complex one: first, that he has done or omitted certain things; second, that his alleged conduct does not come up to the legal standard.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

In addition to this, 4,500 chests were sold to the Government of the Straits Settlements, 2,200 to the Government of Netherland Indies, and 410 to the Government of Hongkong.
— from The Opium Monopoly by Ellen N. (Ellen Newbold) La Motte

This tale of the second siege of the ancient Aragon city by the generals of Napoleon is a work of art, one that stirs the blood with admiration of the indomitable valor of the Spaniards; yet is it not also a document of special pleading for the world's peace?
— from Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor by Benito Pérez Galdós

His rival was no other than the great Seigneur de Champagny, brother of Cardinal Granvelle, eminent as soldier, diplomatist, and financier, but now growing old, not in affluent circumstances, and much troubled with the gout.
— from PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete by John Lothrop Motley

With the help of a veteran of the hunt, who had been riding well up, a cast forward set us agoing again, and brought us, still running hard, away from the Wolds to low ground of new inclosures, all grass, fenced in by ditch and new double undeniable rails.
— from A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses With the Substance of the Lectures at the Round House, and Additional Chapters on Horsemanship and Hunting, for the Young and Timid by J. S. (John Solomon) Rarey

When I go out nights I always go armed, and for that reason I have gained the unenviable reputation of being a bold, bad man.
— from Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New by Bill Nye

He had received a Bible from a little girl one night in a house that he was robbing, but was too full of professional engagements at the time to follow her [414] advice and read it.
— from Japanese Girls and Women Revised and Enlarged Edition by Alice Mabel Bacon

"You meant well, Dora, I'm sure of that," was Dick's quick reply, "but whether the money will do this fellow Royce any good or not, is a question.
— from The Rover Boys in Business; Or, The Search for the Missing Bonds by Edward Stratemeyer

St. Gregory of Nyssus, in a letter which bears for title, “De Euntibus Hierosolymam,” speaks with still greater vehemence against pilgrimages: he thinks that women, in particular, would meet on their route with frequent opportunities for sinning; that Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost were not in one place more than another; he censures bitterly the morals of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who committed the greatest crimes, although they had constantly before their eyes Calvary and all the places visited by pilgrims.
— from The History of the Crusades (vol. 3 of 3) by J. Fr. (Joseph Fr.) Michaud