In some cases the bungled and the botched do not look for the reason of their unfortunate condition in their own guilt (as the Christian does), but in society: when, however, the Socialist, the Anarchist, and the Nihilist are conscious that their existence is something for which some one must be guilty, they are very closely related to the Christian, who also believes that he can more easily endure his ill ease and his wretched constitution when he has found some one whom he can hold responsible for it.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

On the 22d day of September I received a telegraphic dispatch from General Grant, then at Vicksburg, commanding the Department of the Tennessee, requiring me to detach one of my divisions to march to Vicksburg, there to embark for Memphis, where it was to form a part of an army to be sent to Chattanooga, to reenforce General Rosecrans.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Seeing the men rushing out armed, the guard without the gate drew up across the road to prevent their passage; but the Frenchman’s thirty gave them a volley, charged them with the bayonet, and brought down several, and the rest flying, the thirty rushed on.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

humbly sheweth, That your Lordships' memorialist was, by the Honourable the Commissioners of his Majesty's Navy, on the 4th of December last, appointed to the above employment by warrant from that board; That he accordingly proceeded to the execution of his duty on board of the Vernon, being one of the ships appointed to proceed to Africa with the above poor; That your memorialist, to his great grief and astonishment, received a letter of dismission from the Honourable Commissioners of the Navy, by your Lordships' orders; That, conscious of having acted with the most perfect fidelity and the greatest assiduity in discharging the trust reposed in him, he is altogether at a loss to conceive the reasons of your Lordships' having altered the favourable opinion you were pleased to conceive of him, sensible that your Lordships would not proceed to so severe a measure without some apparent good cause; he therefore has every reason to believe that his conduct has been grossly misrepresented to your Lordships; and he is the more confirmed in his opinion, because, by opposing measures of others concerned in the same expedition, which tended to defeat your Lordships' humane intentions, and to put the government to a very considerable additional expense, he created a number of enemies, whose misrepresentations, he has too much reason to believe, laid the foundation of his dismission.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

“I know it sir, and you give them away very cheaply.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

— N. trophy; medal, prize, palm, award; laurel, laurels; bays, crown, chaplet, wreath, civic crown; insignia &c. 550; feather in one's cap &c. (honor) 873; decoration &c. 877; garland, triumphal arch, Victoria Cross, Iron Cross. triumph &c. (celebration) 883; flying colors &c. (show) 882.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

This happened every year; and the young Fir Tree, that had now grown to a very comely size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent great trees fell to the earth with noise and cracking, the branches were lopped off, and the trees looked long and bare; they were hardly to be recognised; and then they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged them out of the wood.
— from Andersen's Fairy Tales by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

In our excursions into the forest or by purchase from natives we gradually gathered together a varied collection of pets to solace our loneliness.
— from Life in an Indian Outpost by Gordon Casserly

“Give them another volley,” cried Charley; and having again reloaded, we fired into the retreating masses.
— from The Two Supercargoes; Or, Adventures in Savage Africa by William Henry Giles Kingston

Generally speaking, quiescent pupæ when disturbed show that they have life, by giving their abdomen violent contortions.
— from An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. 2 or Elements of the Natural History of the Insects by William Kirby

Sorea, a small island of the same group, forming but a single volcanic mountain, had an eruption in 1693, the cone crumbling gradually till a vast crater was formed, filled with liquid lava and occupying nearly half the island.
— from The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire by Charles Morris

He is a great talker and very clever, for in his half-wits is more cunning than in the brains of most; and he shall so bepraise Gudruda’s beauty that Ospakar will come hither to ask her in marriage; and in this fashion, if things go well, thou shalt be rid of thy rival, and I of one who looks scornfully upon me.
— from Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

[4] he would go systematically over every part of the engine, from the batteries and magneto to the gasolene tank and vibrator coil.
— from Tom Fairfield in Camp; or, The Secret of the Old Mill by Allen Chapman

As to the characters of Leonardo da Vinci and Peter the Great, they are very carefully worked out, and the events in the lives of the Italian master and the Russian Tsar are narrated with magnificent psychological analysis, which forces the reader to sympathize with the heroes even more than he would naturally.
— from Contemporary Russian Novelists by Serge Persky

"You can't get it for less, unless you go to a very common sort of a place," said her landlady.
— from What Can She Do? by Edward Payson Roe

The history of the Northmen in France began in 911 A.D., when the Carolingian king granted to a Viking chieftain, Rollo, dominion over the region about the lower Seine.
— from Early European History by Hutton Webster