It is evident, that the idea, or rather impression of ourselves is always intimately present with us, and that our consciousness gives us so lively a conception of our own person, that it is not possible to imagine, that any thing can in this particular go beyond it.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

The month of October in those latitudes gave us some lovely autumnal days.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne

For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural rocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to childhood, idleness, and apprenticeship.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

On two or three occasions Andrey Yefimitch was visited by his colleague Hobotov, who also advised him to give up spirituous liquors, and for no apparent reason recommended him to take bromide.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

We come now to the characters of his persons; and here we shall find no author has ever drawn so many, with so visible and surprising a variety, or given us such lively and affecting impressions of them.
— from The Iliad by Homer

She scratched, wiggled, and twisted at the garments until she looked as bad as she felt, and would usually finish a session by tearing off the offending clothes and sulking.
— from The Lani People by Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone

Sir, as to that, I have promised unto Sir Beaumains never more to use such customs, for all the shameful customs that I used I did at the request of a lady that I loved; and therefore I must go unto Sir Launcelot, and unto Sir Gawaine, and ask them forgiveness of the evil will I had unto them; for all that I put to death was all only for the love of Sir Launcelot and of Sir Gawaine.
— from Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1 by Malory, Thomas, Sir

If I sat on one end of the balcony, the crows would gather on the railing at the other end and talk about me; and edge closer, little by little, till I could almost reach them; and they would sit there, in the most unabashed way, and talk about my clothes, and my hair, and my complexion, and probable character and vocation and politics, and how I came to be in India, and what I had been doing, and how many days I had got for it, and how I had happened to go unhanged so long, and when would it probably come off, and might there be more of my sort where I came from, and when would they be hanged,—and so on, and so on, until I could not longer endure the embarrassment of it; then I would shoo them away, and they would circle around in the air a little while, laughing and deriding and mocking, and presently settle on the rail and do it all over again.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

And gathering up Stéphanie like a bunch of snowdrops, the yellow, galvanized iron old lady swept out of the room.
— from The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol by William John Locke

Dick hadn’t the heart to ask Harold to give up seeing Logan and Rutter’s Point play in the afternoon.
— from The Lucky Seventh by Ralph Henry Barbour

A bright fire built by her father to guide us shone like a beacon before us, reddening the palm-trees near the house.
— from The Spanish Galleon Being an account of a search for sunken treasure in the Caribbean Sea. by Charles Sumner Seeley

And as a means of facilitating the formation of public and private stereographic collections, there must be arranged a comprehensive system of exchanges, so that there may grow up something like a universal currency of these bank-notes, or promises to pay in solid substance, which the sun has engraved for the great Bank of Nature.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 20, June, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

He opened his eyes, grinned and got up slowly, looking a little sheepish as he did so.
— from Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories by M. T. W.

“No, no, I’ve given up smoking, long ago,” the doctor smiled, thinly.
— from Cursed by George Allan England

This is discouraging, but the educated turkey hunter never gives up so long as a gobbler will argue with him. Get up at once and make a rapid detour, taking in two hundred yards; get ahead of him again and on his line of march.
— from The Wild Turkey and Its Hunting by Charles L. Jordan

Must he abide in the Valley of the Black Pig until the Boar without Bristles came lumbering out of the red west, and went grunting, eating ravenously, eating prey of souls, until he lay down in obscene sleep, and the stars one by one guttered like candles, and the sun shot into a vast explosion, and the moon was a handful of peat ashes, and the whole great universe snapped like a gunshot and the débris of all created things fell downward like a shattered wall, faster, faster, faster, to where, where, where?
— from The Wind Bloweth by Donn Byrne

And now though this very great discouragement might incline us to hold our peace at this time, Yet the tendernesse and uprightnesse of our affection and Love to your Majesties happinesse (which many waters cannot quench) together with the Conscience of our duty which Our Lord and Master has laid upon us, in this our place and station, constraineth us, yea, and your Majesties owne goodnesse and gracious disposition, whereof the late Commissioners have given us so Large a testimony, Doth much encourage us, to renew our addresses to your Majestie in this humble faithfull representation, both of the great and growing dangers to your Royall person and Throne, and of these duties, which the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, call for from you, as you would look to finde favour in his eyes, and to be delivered out of your deepe distresses.
— from The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland by Church of Scotland. General Assembly