We ought daily to renew our vows, and to kindle our hearts to zeal, as if each day were the first day of our conversion, and to say, "Help me, O God, in my good resolutions, and in Thy holy service, and grant that this day I may make a good beginning, for hitherto I have done nothing!"
— from The Imitation of Christ by à Kempis Thomas

Still my maiden's girdle remains, as in the halls of my father, unstained, untouched.
— from The Argonautica by Rhodius Apollonius

The townsmen, profiting by the custom and the protection of the great, have grown rich and independent; they have bought privileges or have usurped them.
— from Medieval Europe by H. W. Carless (Henry William Carless) Davis

The sheep were lying in a group, ruminating, as is their habit, by night.
— from When Life Was Young At the Old Farm in Maine by C. A. (Charles Asbury) Stephens

The language, history, religion, commerce, law, art and literature are thoroughly presented in a manner of deep interest to the general reader and indispensable to historians, clergymen, anthropologists and sociologists.
— from A Man's Hearth by Eleanor M. (Eleanor Marie) Ingram

In Melanchthon’s Schmalkalden writing “On the Power and Primacy,” we read, that “the Popes defend godless rites and idolatry”; they had introduced horrible darkness into the Church.
— from Luther, vol. 3 of 6 by Hartmann Grisar

The Apache and Comanche raided on the outlying settlements; the mixed bloods, and the "tame" Indians on the great ranches and in the hamlets were in a state of peonage; in the little walled towns, the Spanish commanders lived in half civilized, half barbaric luxury, and shared with the priests absolute rule over the people roundabout.
— from The Winning of the West, Volume 4 Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 by Theodore Roosevelt

Then the blood came up into her cheeks with a great rush, as if the heart had sent up a herald with a red flag from the citadel to know what was going on at the outworks.
— from The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes: An Index of the Project Gutenberg Editions by Oliver Wendell Holmes

He looked like a great pouter pigeon, strutting about the room, and then he got red, and I thought he looked like an angry turkey cock.
— from Between You and Me by Lauder, Harry, Sir

The fact that the gospel remains and improves the human heart,—this is indeed to cast out the devil, and tread on serpents, and speak with tongues; for those visible miracles were merely signs for the ignorant, [pg 071] unbelieving crowd, and for those who were yet to be brought in; but for us, who know and believe, what need is there of them?
— from Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors by James Freeman Clarke