“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, 'I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!'
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

By such patriotic severity Partap rendered ‘the garden of Rajasthan’ of no value to the conqueror, and the commerce already established between the Mogul court and Europe, conveyed through Mewar from Surat and other ports, was intercepted and plundered.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

An English wanderer, seated on a crag among the Alps, near the point where three great countries meet, looks down on the boundless prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, recalls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of government, of religion, of national character, which he has observed, and comes to the conclusion just or unjust, that our happiness depends little on political institutions, and much on the temper and regulation of our own minds.
— from Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 3 by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

I will not even guess what cruel sisterly sarcasms and suggestions of what people might say, had supplemented the sisterly coaxing which were, no doubt, ineffectual; but there Alice was—there she stood by the side of Clara’s dazzling toilette and rosy tints, pale and clouded, in her brown silk dress—her old brown silk dress, made in a fashion which “went out” at least three years ago; without a single ornament about her anywhere—her hair braided as plainly as though she had just come down-stairs to make the tea, and superintend the breakfast table—not even the pretty bouquet of delicate flowers at her breast, {207} which made so pretty a substitute for jewels on little Kate’s white dress—not a bracelet nor a ring—nothing to diversify the entire plainness of her appearance, nor a single sparkle or gleam of reflection on neck, finger, or arm.
— from Heart and Cross by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

The discourse then, by an easy transition, turns upon the spirit which glows within the bosom of Felix, upon which point Felix himself becomes eloquent, and relates a thrilling anecdote of the time when he used to sit up till two o’clock in the morning reading French, and how his mother used to say, ‘Felix, you will make yourself ill, I know you will;’ and how he used to say, ‘Mother, I don’t care—I will do it;’ and how at last his mother privately procured a doctor to come and see him, who declared, the moment he felt his pulse, that if he had gone on reading one night more—only one night more—he must have put a blister on each temple, and another between his shoulders; and who, as it was, sat down upon the instant, and writing a prescription for a blue pill, said it must be taken immediately, or he wouldn’t answer for the consequences.
— from Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People by Charles Dickens

Grab o r o náre, to haunt tipling-houses.
— from Queen Anna's New World of Words; or, Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues by John Florio

[Pg 45] SONNET TO NEMESIS, GODDESS OF REMORSE O Nemesis, thou goddess born of Night, Thou younger sister of stern Death and Sleep, Close-couched art thou with those grim Three who keep The spun and measured threads of life aright; O Nemesis, that shuns each form of light, By night o'er all the world thy glance doth sweep To seek out crime, its penalty to reap When rosy dawn has put the stars to flight.
— from Songs from the Smoke by Madeleine S. (Madeleine Sweeny) Miller

Nor did David regard any as happy but those who enjoyed it—pronouncing “blessed,” not the great, or rich, or noble, or famous, but “the man,” whatever his condition, “whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
— from The Angels' Song by Thomas Guthrie

Thus, I once heard a young officer describing a night destroyer action in which he had played a notable part as having been "like a hot game of rugger, only not quite so dirty," and another assert that his most vivid recollection of a day in which he had performed a deed of personal daring that had carried his name to the end of the civilised world was of how "jolly good" his dinner tasted that night.
— from Stories of the Ships by Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome) Freeman

The vice of the whole school is cynicism, contempt for man, whom they degrade to the level of the brute; it is the worship of strength, disregard of the soul, a want of generosity, of reverence, of nobility, which shows itself in spite of all protestations to the contrary; in a word, it is inhumanity .
— from Amiel's Journal: The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel by Henri Frédéric Amiel

But I know this, that whether you are bad or good, or religious or not religious, God is with you all the time trying to help you.
— from Letters from France by C. E. W. (Charles Edwin Woodrow) Bean