He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

ꝓ il ſuo ma ꝓ lo trinſicho amore li portaua li veſteſſemo la veſte gli poneſſemo iL bonnet in capo et li deſſemo le altre coſe et poy baſandoli vetri et ponendoli ſoura lo capo le li preſentai et facendo lui eL ſimilli li accepto poi iL re ne fece mãgiare de q e lli
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

Outside in the Place, there, were many groups conversing in low tones, as when some great plan is being framed, and here and there a knave crouching down engaged in sharpening a villanous iron blade on a paving-stone.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

It's not really a garden, but a regular institution, which is of the greatest public importance because it marks, so to say, a new era in Russian agriculture and Russian industry.
— from The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Rising to great place is by a winding stair.
— 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.

Compare the similar saying of Tacitus regarding the chastity of the Germans: "Plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bonæ leges" ( Germ. xix.).
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

At a Brāhman wedding the bridegroom takes a blade of the sacred dharba grass, passes it between the eyebrows of the bride and throws it away saying, “With this grass I remove the influence of any bad mark thou mayest possess, which is likely to cause widowhood.”
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston

They take as much genuine pleasure in building a barricade as they do in cutting a throat or shoving a friend into the Seine.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Great enough is the honour due to him as a writer for having traced, in the midst of such calamitous times, the first page of our mediæval history, a gloomy picture indeed, but one of rugged grandeur, in which his own venerable personality stands clearly forth, a glory to Galicia and an honour to the city of the Limicos.”
— from Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain by Annette M. B. Meakin

So vast was the confidence of the community in some or any kind of a doctor, and in self-doctoring, that as late as the year 1721 there was but one regularly graduated physician in Boston—Dr. Samuel Douglas; and it may be noted that he was one of the most decided opponents of inoculation for small-pox.
— from Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Alice Morse Earle

But wasn't it terrible when that gull pulled its bloody old beak out of the dead man's back, and then flew over the brig and dropped the piece of human flesh at poor hungry Parker's feet?
— from A Strange Discovery by Charles Romyn Dake

In the midst of the shadows there suddenly appeared a saucer of milk; the saucer began to grow paws, it began moving and displayed a tendency to run; the kitten made a bound, and with a thrill of blood-thirsty sensuality thrust his claws into it.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

All the good people in books are poor, but for myself I think it’s bad for the temper.
— from Pixie O'Shaughnessy by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.

The mischief is, that it admits of no safe middle path: it must arrest attention for its novelty, its graphic power, its bold originality; or it must offend by its newfangled phrase, its jerking movement, and its metaphor and allusion reduced into a slang.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843 by Various

"We are greatly privileged in being allowed to kiss the hand whose tasteful care we have already admired in the charming, arrangement of this table."
— from Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul. by Wilhelmine von Hillern

A hasty glance passes it by lightly, but a more careful observer discovers a small wooden bridge, supported on piles, which appears to connect this circle of mountain summits with one of the steep walls adjoining.
— from The Golden Age in Transylvania by Mór Jókai

The greater part is buried underground; indeed, I have never examined the tenth part of it.
— from The Bible in Spain, Vol. 1 [of 2] Or, the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula by George Borrow

—Your business is your greatest prejudice, it binds you to your locality, your society and your tastes.
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche