The strange device brought great glory upon its inventor.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

All the editions printed in Spain from 1637 to 1771, when the famous printer Ibarra took it up, were mere trade editions, badly and carelessly printed on vile paper and got up in the style of chap-books intended only for popular use, with, in most instances, uncouth illustrations and clap-trap additions by the publisher.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

George unrolled it, and fastened one end over the nose of the boat.
— from Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome

Scarcely had he assisted the wounded heir of Mewar to alight when Jaimall galloped up in pursuit.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

I normally have a thing about Goat Hill Pizza -- as in, I can normally eat it like a goldfish eats his food, gobbling until it either runs out or I pop.
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

The instruction merely clever men can give us is like baked bread, savoury and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground.
— 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.

How happy is man in this his power that hath been granted unto IX.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

I got up in order to go and pay a few small debts, for one of the greatest pleasures that a spendthrift can enjoy is, in my opinion, to discharge certain liabilities.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

I remember our black gondola swayed softly in the same place while the water faintly gurgled under it.
— from The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Any race or period that insists on being left-handed must go under if it comes in contact with a right-handed one.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The internal secretions, whether by direct favorable influence, or whether through the obstacles they oppose to deleterious processes, seem to be of great utility in maintaining the organism in its normal state."
— from The Glands Regulating Personality A Study of the Glands of Internal Secretion in Relation to the Types of Human Nature by Louis Berman

Clothes and shoes, brushes, water, tumblers, breakfast-tray, newspapers, French novels, and cigarette-ends—none were ever where they should have been; and the stale fumes from the many cigarettes he smoked before getting up incommoded anyone whose duty it was to take him tea and shaving-water.
— from The Works of John Galsworthy An Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy by John Galsworthy

He answered only with the word Gone , uttered in a dazed fashion.
— from A Rough Shaking by George MacDonald

My idea of heaven was of something so real and near, that whenever I gazed up into the blue sky, I felt sure that were my beloved ones there, I might at any moment see a little window opening to let me through to join them!
— from From Memory's Shrine: The Reminscences of Carmen Sylva by Carmen Sylva

"It's a favorite trick with old Hyman to get up in a tree like that.
— from Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants; or, Handling Their First Real Commands by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock

'My dear Crawley,' the archdeacon said,—for of late there seems to have grown up in the world a habit of greater familiarity than that which I think did prevail when last I moved much among men;—'my dear Crawley, I have enough for both.'
— from The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

Nature abhors a vacuum, even in a man’s head, and when the man cares to put nothing in his noddle that will increase his understanding and resource, his ancestry will have planted something there which is sure to swell and grow until it may dominate his conduct and his fate.
— from Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate by Charles M. (Charles Montgomery) Skinner

As the duration of this peace cannot be counted on with certainty, and we look forward to the necessity of coercion by cruises on their coast, to be kept up during the whole of their cruising season, you will be pleased to inform yourself, as minutely as possible, of every circumstance which may influence or guide us in undertaking and conducting such an operation, making your communications by safe opportunities.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson