And they that make little, or no enquiry into the naturall causes of things, yet from the feare that proceeds from the ignorance it selfe, of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm, are enclined to suppose, and feign unto themselves, severall kinds of Powers Invisible; and to stand in awe of their own imaginations; and in time of distresse to invoke them; as also in the time of an expected good successe, to give them thanks; making the creatures of their own fancy, their Gods.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him; but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man’s hand would have any effect on him.
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

He also endowed fourteen hospitals, and built three chapels.
— from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

As the king had an infinite number of soldiers at his command, the guards at the doors were relieved every hour; so that once every hour at each door there were thirty-two men present, consisting of the relieving party and of the relieved.
— from Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day

It means traversing with new clamorous questions, and at the same time with new eyes, the immense, distant, and completely unexplored land of morality—of a morality which has actually existed and been actually lived!
— from The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Now Mathusela, the son of Enoch, who was born to him when he was one hundred and sixty-five years old, had Lamech for his son when he was one hundred and eighty-seven years of age; to whom he delivered the government, when he had retained it nine hundred and sixty-nine years.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

The priests had the first places about the tabernacle; then the Levites, who, because their whole multitude was reckoned from thirty days old, were twenty-three thousand eight hundred and eighty males; and during the time that the cloud stood over the tabernacle, they thought proper to stay in the same place, as supposing that God there inhabited among them; but when that removed, they journeyed also.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

The first thing he did in Australia was to get into the lockup, and the next thing he did was to proclaim himself an earl in the police court in the morning and fail to prove it.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

It had an established legislation for the relations of the two sexes in love, as severe and as exactly followed as the laws of Honour could be to-day.
— from On Love by Stendhal

Further, from the cross-bar hangs a small log which serves the useful purpose of knocking on the head any evil spirit who might attempt to pass through the gateway.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

Realizing this, she had almost enough sorrow for tears.
— from Much Ado About Something by C. E. (Charles Edward) Lawrence

18 On receipt of this information, Southerland, leaving Lieutenant-Colonel Scott and two hundred and eighty men in the churchyard of Belturbet to check the pursuit, withdrew in the night, and, by a skilful movement, brought his command in safety to Sligo.
— from The battle-fields of Ireland, from 1688 to 1691 including Limerick and Athlone, Aughrim and the Boyne. Being an outline history of the Jacobite war in Ireland, and the causes which led to it by Boyle, John, active 1867

Their measures, however, were not indebted for their variety to the introduction of new metres, such as have been attempted of late in the Alonzo and Imogen, and others borrowed from the German, having in their very mechanism a specific overpowering tune, to which the generous reader humours his voice and emphasis, with more indulgence to the author than attention to the meaning or quantity of the words; but which, to an ear familiar with the numerous sounds of the Greek and Roman poets, has an effect not unlike that of galloping over a paved road in a German stage-waggon without springs.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

He had an extensive amount of machinery connected with it and employed a number of workmen.
— from History of Linn County Iowa From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time [1911] by Luther Albertus Brewer

When he came home he called on me and told me you had some folly in your head about this chap Hill, and----" Eva rose indignantly, "Lord Saltars," she said calmly and distinctly, "I don't allow any one to talk to me in this way.
— from The Wooden Hand: A Detective Story by Fergus Hume

"You forget, off and on," said Mr Pennycuick, as he wrapped up his treasure with shaking hands and excessive care—"perhaps for years at a time, while you are at work and full of affairs; but it comes back—especially when you are old and lonely, and you think how different your life might have been.
— from Sisters by Ada Cambridge

The princess royal had not yet left her rooms; she still waited for the prince, whose custom it was to give her his arm every morning and lead her to the saloon.
— from Frederick the Great and His Court by L. (Luise) Mühlbach

"I thought your sister had already engaged your good offices on my behalf."
— from The Gay Adventure: A Romance by Richard Bird

He again examined his uncle's old mining claim on the top of the slope, but was satisfied that it had been a hopeless enterprise and wisely abandoned.
— from Openings in the Old Trail by Bret Harte

A Chinaman came up from the bazaar, begging us not to go to them for shelter, for they had been warned by the kunsi not to harbour any English people, and they dared not take us in.
— from Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak by Henriette McDougall