‘It’s very true,’ said Quilp, ‘that your grandfather urged repeated forgiveness, ingratitude, riot, and extravagance, and all that; but as I told him “these are common faults.”
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Owing to the peculiar form of the shore on the Kentucky side, the land bending far out into the water, the ice had been lodged and detained in great quantities, and the narrow channel which swept round the bend was full of ice, piled one cake over another, thus forming a temporary barrier to the descending ice, which lodged, and formed a great, undulating raft, filling up the whole river, and extending almost to the Kentucky shore.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

It was an hour before the enemy got artillery up to play upon them; and it was nine o'clock before Lee got up reinforcements from his right to join in expelling our troops.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

Now the general utilitarian reasons for leaving each rational adult free to seek happiness in his own way are obvious and striking: for, generally speaking, each is best qualified to provide for his own interests, since even when he does not know best what they are and how to attain them, he is at any rate most keenly concerned for them: and again, the [445] consciousness of freedom and concomitant responsibility increases the average effective activity of men: and besides, the discomfort of constraint is directly an evil and pro tanto to be avoided.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

Trofimovitch got up resolutely from the sofa—“but I feel ill and upset.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

She got up reluctantly, for she considered it unpardonable of Mr. Briggs to force her to move about like this, to force her out of any place she wished to sit in; and she emerged from the daphne bushes feeling like some gaunt, stern figure of just resentment and wishing that she looked as gaunt and stern as she felt; so would she have struck repugnance into the soul of Mr. Briggs, and been free of him.
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

Rizal was made the honorary president of the association, his portrait hung in all the meeting-halls, and the magic of his name used to attract the easily deluded masses, who were in a state of agitated ignorance and growing unrest, ripe for any movement that looked anti-governmental, and especially anti-Spanish.
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

I like your way of giving useful reasons for everything in order to make friends of the world.
— from The Republic by Plato

It is as if semi-idiocy came to give us rest from the memory and the dread which refuse to leave us in our sleep.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

Various other ceremonies were performed; and then the great usurper, rising from his seat, led back the precession towards the door of the hall; but scarcely had he traversed one half of its extent, when a woman, who had been whispering to one of the soldiers that lined the way, pushed suddenly past, and cast herself at Cromwell's feet.
— from The Desultory Man Collection of Ancient and Modern British Novels and Romances. Vol. CXLVII. by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

No doubt, even if this synthesis of methods be completely accepted, there will remain some discrepancy in details between our particular moral sentiments and unreasoned judgments on the one hand, and the apparent results of special utilitarian calculations on the other; and we may often have some practical difficulty in balancing the latter against the more general utilitarian reasons for obeying the former: but there seems to be no longer any theoretical perplexity as to the principles for determining social duty.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

Surely ourselves ate much hospitable cheer of other men, ere we twain came hither, even if in time to come Zeus haply give us rest from affliction.
— from The Odyssey of Homer, Done into English Prose by Homer

Voltaire during his life enjoyed to the full not only the admiration that belongs to the poet, but something of the veneration that is paid to the thinker, and even something of the glory usually reserved for captains and conquerors of renown.
— from Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3), Essay 3: Condorcet by John Morley

"A scape is a stem that grows up right from the or root-stock and carries only a flower—not any leaves," defined Helen.
— from Ethel Morton's Enterprise by Mabell S. C. (Mabell Shippie Clarke) Smith

Is it not strange, while Italy and Germany seek, in Italian and German unity, relief from the ruin and oppression of so many independent states and governments, and are each making advances to that great consummation, that we are asked to adopt the reactionary policy, and separate glorious Union into distinct confederacies, soon to be followed by grinding taxation, by immense standing armies, and perpetual wars?
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various

Already we have incidentally referred to the circumstance, that it has of late become common for landowners, merchants, and others locally interested, to get up railways for their own accommodation, which they do not expect to pay satisfactory dividends; and in which they are yet content to invest considerable sums, under the belief that the indirect profits accruing to them from increased facilities of traffic, will outbalance the direct loss.
— from Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative; Vol. 3 of 3 Library Edition (1891), Containing Seven Essays not before Republished, and Various other Additions. by Herbert Spencer

He easily destroys fowls, and hunts them so successfully that in Spain, in certain isolated farms, it has been necessary to give up rearing fowls in consequence of these numerous depredations.
— from The Industries of Animals by Frédéric Houssay

(2) Fasting: —In every sense—even as a means of maintaining the capacity for taking pleasure in all good things (for instance, to give up reading for a while, to hear no music for a while, to cease from being amiable for a while: one ought also to have fast days for one's virtues).
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche