Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...
— from The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories by Mark Twain

[193] More recently, a German missionary, Carl Strehlow, who has also passed long years in these same Central Australian societies, [194] has commenced to publish his own observations on two of these tribes, the Aranda and the Loritja (the Arunta and Luritcha of [
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

C H A P. LIII Y
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Again, in speaking of God, comparing the God conception to an impossible dream, he continues, "Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could have made good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell; mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!"
— from Futuria Fantasia, Fall 1939 by Ray Bradbury

That wood,” and Claverhouse was looking at the hill intently, “is simply full of men and horses, and within an hour, and perhaps less, you will see a pretty attack.
— from Graham of Claverhouse by Ian Maclaren

How alive with different sorts of fowls running hither and thither—black, and gray, and speckled; old motherly hens, and pert, lively young ones; while the cocks strutted about and crowed one against another.
— from Woodside or, Look, Listen, and Learn. by Caroline Hadley

It presents the addresses delivered at the Conference on classical studies in liberal education held at Princeton last year, together with an introduction by Andrew F. West, dean of the graduate school of Princeton university, and a series of brief statements upon the subject from lawyers, clergymen, physicians, editors, educators, and men in other walks of life.
— from The Book Review Digest, Volume 13, 1917 Thirteenth Annual Cumulation Reviews of 1917 Books by Various

I know that he is very strongly impressed with the necessity of having a person like yourself for some time in the Upper Province, that a scrutinizing eye may correct the errors and neglect that have crept in, and put all in order again; and, in confidence between ourselves , I do not think he would be more ready to part with you from that station, in consequence of the arrival of Colonel Murray, who is not at all to his taste, and has managed, by a most indiscreet and indecent conversation at his table, to blot himself out of his good opinion.
— from The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock, K.B. Interspersed with notices of the celebrated Indian chief, Tecumseh, and comprising brief memoirs of Daniel De Lisle Brock, Esq., Lieutenant E.W. Tupper, R.N., and Colonel W. De Vic Tupper by Brock, Isaac, Sir

Just keep your head and let your ears pick up as much as they can.... If things go as I hope they will, she’ll try to make you feel perfectly at home in her apartment ... probably let you sleep there now and then ... she seems to think it’s an honor to get fellows drunk and have them put to bed in her home: which is, of course, suspicious, because when a man’s drunk he’s liable to say anything and after he’s asleep he can’t know who goes through his clothes or reads his pocket notebooks....
— from A Maid and a Million Men the candid confessions of Leona Canwick, censored indiscreetly by James G. Dunton by James G. (James Gerald) Dunton

You see me here, a prisoner like yourself, but I can talk of the world .
— from Handy Andy, Volume 2 — a Tale of Irish Life by Samuel Lover

Every day the starving poor Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door, For he had a plentiful last year's store; And all the neighborhood could tell His granaries were furnished well.
— from Rollo on the Rhine by Jacob Abbott

Happy is he who has a past like yours to look back upon.
— from John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings by William Sloane Kennedy