He, fiercest of the giant race, Presuming still on Brahmá's grace; Proud tamer of the Immortals' pride, Whose power and might with Indra's vied, For blood and vengeful carnage burned, And on the foe his fury turned.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

When the geese perceived the old woman, they flapped their wings, stretched out their necks, ran to meet her, cackling all the while.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

" "An thou knowest aught of him, good fellow," said young Partington, "thou wilt do great service to him and great pleasure to our royal Queen by aiding me to find him.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

It is more easy to supply the loss of good poetry, than of authentic history.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

And yet most persons say, that the excellence of music is to give pleasure to our souls.
— from Laws by Plato

But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both.”
— from A Room with a View by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

Let us, then, give pledges to one another by our gods, who are the fittest witnesses and guardians of all covenants; let it be agreed between us that if Jove vouchsafes me the longer stay and I take your life, I am not to treat your dead body in any unseemly fashion, but when I have stripped you of your armour, I am to give up your body to the Achaeans.
— from The Iliad by Homer

Or to conceive, that the very aspect of happiness, joy, prosperity, gives pleasure; that of pain, suffering, sorrow, communicates uneasiness?
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

His heart is tender and sensitive, but he cares nothing for the weight of popular opinion, though he loves to give pleasure to others; so he will care little to be thought a person of importance.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It may seem funny and silly, but it’s nevertheless true, that after his death I began to fill out and get rounder, as if my body had had some great pressure taken off it.
— from Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The Hon. George P. Tayloe, of this County, a gentleman of wealth and exalted social station, was the administrator of the estate which held possession of the property at the time the purchase was made for educational purposes.
— from Charles Lewis Cocke, Founder of Hollins College by William Robert Lee Smith

One is growing particularly tired of that countryman, so familiar to Londoners, who loses his money because two total strangers ask if he has faith enough to trust one or the other with a ten-pound-note, and it is difficult to help feeling that a sound flogging judiciously administered to one of these yokels who take up so much of a magistrate's time, would impress the rural mind throughout England much more effectually than any number of remarks from his Worship or leaders in the daily papers.
— from Mortomley's Estate: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3) by Riddell, J. H., Mrs.

So races of animals, as of men, reach their highest state of development, retrograde, and give place to other races, which, living in the same regions, obey the same laws of progress.
— from The Life of a Fossil Hunter by Charles H. (Charles Hazelius) Sternberg

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious.
— from Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism by F. V. N. (Franklin Verzelius Newton) Painter

"Fact is I was getting pretty tired of you.
— from The Tides of Barnegat by Francis Hopkinson Smith

It was several years, however, before the articles of agreement were signed by all the civilized nations of the world, and, strange to relate, the United States was the last of the great powers to officially recognize the rights to special protection secured to the bearers of the Red Cross symbol.
— from Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom by Trumbull White

“The Salvages having drawne from George Cassen whether Captaine Smith was gone, prosecuting that opportunity they followed him with 300 bowmen, conducted by the King of Pamaunkee, who in divisions searching the turnings of the river, found Robinson and Entry by the fireside, those they shot full of arrowes and slew.
— from Captain John Smith by Charles Dudley Warner

217-351), "reveals a profound alteration in ideas and in life;" a term that suggested infamy gave place to one that suggested approval, and even honor, for the courts of the Renaissance period represented the finest culture of the time.
— from Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 Sex in Relation to Society by Havelock Ellis

The people press into it in one continuous stream, toll a bell to draw the attention of the god, make their obeisance, pour on the object of their worship a little of the Ganges water from the small brazen vessel they have in their hand, throw on it some flowers, give a present to the attendant priests, go round the building with their right hand towards it, and pass away to give place to others.
— from Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 by James Kennedy