I asked Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much about it as he did: “Do you see who it is?”
— from Dracula by Bram Stoker

Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

My hopes in heaven do dwell.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

But as those countries which I have described do not appear to have any desire of being conquered and enslaved, murdered or driven out by colonies, nor abound either in gold, silver, sugar, or tobacco, I did humbly conceive, they were by no means proper objects of our zeal, our valour, or our interest.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

Know that Don Quixote of La Mancha, knight-errant, is posted here to maintain by arms that the beauty and courtesy enshrined in the nymphs that dwell in these meadows and groves surpass all upon earth, putting aside the lady of my heart, Dulcinea del Toboso.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

" When men accepted that worship, the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for its own sake.
— from Anthem by Ayn Rand

He threw her down, dragged her thither by her hair, cut her head off on the block, and hewed her in pieces so that her blood ran on the ground.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

What if he does drink and act roughly at times?
— from Uncle Vanya: Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

In this sorrowful yet still glorious fulfilment of hopeless duty, De Ruyter, who never before in his [166] long career had been struck by an enemy's shot, received a mortal wound.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Some of the sparks do not go out: we see them flaming in the sky when the flame of the fire has died down.
— from The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner — Volume 3 by Charles Dudley Warner

However, by Thursday morning no order to mobilise had been received and hope died down [23] again, and by Friday, after the manner of the fox in the fable, we were all consoling one another for the unattainable by such remarks as: “After all, it will be much better fun to go on leave next Tuesday than to fight any beastly Germans.”
— from From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles: A Midshipman's Log by Wolston B. C. W. (Wolston Beaumont Charles Weld) Forester

"As his Princely Highness had very little ready money he sent me to Herr Fugger to borrow four thousand thalers; but he decidedly declined doing this, excusing himself quite politely; however the following day he sent his steward to me to be introduced to my lord, through whom he presented to his Princely Highness two hundred crowns, a beautiful goblet worth eighty dollars, and besides that a splendid horse with black velvet housings."
— from Pictures of German Life in the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. I. by Gustav Freytag

He does de best act wid dem dummies I ever seed.
— from Letters of the Motor Girl by Ethellyn Gardner

For King: open your mouth, let the first gentleman that falls into it (a mass of Hanover stolidity, stupidity, foreign to you, heedless of you) be King: Supreme Majesty he, with hypothetical decorations, dignities, solemn appliances, high as the stars (the whole, except the money, a mendacity, and sin against Heaven): him you declare Sent-of-God, supreme Captain of your England; and having done so,—tie him up (according to Pitt) with Constitutional straps, so that he cannot stir hand or foot, for fear of accidents: in which state he is fully cooked; throw me at his Majesty's feet, and let me bless Heaven for such a Pillar of Cloud by day.
— from History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21 by Thomas Carlyle

They had a trick of veiling themselves, of becoming dull and focusless, as though the spirit, whose windows they were, had drawn down the blinds and lay drugged with sleep and satiety.
— from The Raft by Coningsby Dawson

Being on the Bench, I shall at least have a support”; all of which he carried out to the letter, and he died devoted to the people of the State of California.
— from Society as I Have Found It by Ward McAllister