When this distance diminishes, the comparison is less to our advantage; and consequently gives us less pleasure, and is even disagreeable.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

But the late discoveries of medical science have given us large power of alleviation.'
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

But when I came to consider the length of time which this journey would occupy, and the premature heat of the season, which even at Washington had been often very trying; and weighed moreover, in my own mind, the pain of living in the constant contemplation of slavery, against the more than doubtful chances of my ever seeing it, in the time I had to spare, stripped of the disguises in which it would certainly be dressed, and so adding any item to the host of facts already heaped together on the subject; I began to listen to old whisperings which had often been present to me at home in England, when I little thought of ever being here; and to dream again of cities growing up, like palaces in fairy tales, among the wilds and forests of the west.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

To these we helped ourselves with the chop sticks, though they insisted on giving us little plates on which they spooned out some of each.
— from Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey

The first thing I did was to give up Little Poland.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

A hold filled entirely with grain upon leaving port will be found not more than three fourths full upon reaching its destination—this, too, although the freight, when measured bushel by bushel by the consignee, will overrun by a vast deal (on account of the swelling of the grain) the quantity consigned.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

If the Lord gives us liberty, perhaps he’ll give you back your daughter; at any rate, I’ll be like a daughter to you.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Should he have to gaze upward, like poor Dives, and see, in the far serene above him, these two walking in glory and splendour, who were no longer his?
— from At His Gates: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3) by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

When one's extremities did get frost-bitten it was no joke—frost-bitten finger tips gave us little peace at night with their sharp burning pain.
— from South with Scott by Mountevans, Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans, baron

He took to the hated arithmetic, and held on so steadily that his uncle was charmed, though he could not understand the whim, until Demi said— “I am going to be a bookkeeper when I grow up, like papa, and I must know about figures and things, else I can’t have nice, neat ledgers like his.”
— from Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott

The ‘voyageur’ and ‘courier de bois’ still exist, though, generally, under less picturesque names.
— from Pierre and His People: Tales of the Far North. Complete by Gilbert Parker

Political parties and leaders: Grenada United Labor Party or
— from The 2003 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

Negro slaves under a negro driver, with no white man on the premises, have produced this result in Hancock County, Georgia, upon lands previously considered worthless, with a system of cultivation singular and exceptional in that region, but common in all well-cultivated sections, namely, a simple rotation of crops and a moderate amount of manure.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

It was a custom in the Spanish days to get up large parties every spring and camp there, gather strawberries, wander on the beach and over the hills, and picnic generally.
— from A Daughter of the Vine by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

Nature, in giving us lively passions and a susceptible imagination, has made us capable of suffering the instant we transgress her bounds.
— from Letters to Eugenia; Or, A Preservative Against Religious Prejudices by Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'

Huic igitur meritas grates, ubicumque licebit, Pro tam mansueto pectore semper agam.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius