With us they do no more work than other members of the community, even their masters; their food, clothing and lodging were nearly the same as theirs, (except that they were not permitted to eat with those who were free-born); and there was scarce any other difference between them, than a superior degree of importance which the head of a family possesses in our state, and that authority which, as such, he exercises over every part of his household.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

I did so, for it would have been rude to refuse; besides I had had enough of my sulking fit.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Lobytko and Lieutenant Merzlyakov—a peaceable, silent fellow, who was considered in his own circle a highly educated officer, and was always, whenever it was possible, reading the “Vyestnik Evropi,” which he carried about with him everywhere— were quartered in the same hut with Ryabovitch.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

‘If she’s up to any of her nonsense with you, I’ll scratch her eyes out!’
— from My Antonia by Willa Cather

Why there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!"
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson by Lewis Carroll

"I never yet saw a squire," said he of the Grove, "who ventured to speak when his master was speaking; at least, there is mine, who is as big as his father, and it cannot be proved that he has ever opened his lips when I am speaking."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

For if I should kill another bug or beetle I should surely cry again, and crying rusts my jaw so that I cannot speak." i082 Thereafter he walked [Pg 72] very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to harm it.
— from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as right as this speech proclaimed; and its happy effect on his spirits was immediate.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

[204] "They say that if a snake or serpent fix his eyes on the lustre of those stones (emeralds), he immediately becomes blind."— Ahmed ben Abdalaziz , Treatise on Jewels.
— from The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Collected by Himself with Explanatory Notes by Thomas Moore

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea of "don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down," for sustaining the Dred Scott decision, for holding that the Declaration of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Independence means, and we have him saying that the people of America are equal to the people of England.
— from The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete by Abraham Lincoln

Supposing that not more than one cure in three hundred, which the tractors have performed, has been published, and the proportion is probably much greater, it will be seen that the number, to March last, will have exceeded one million five hundred thousand!" It is not surprising that with such "facts" behind them the tractors attracted deep and wide attention.
— from Psychotherapy Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

My granddam, whose clean body, half enwrought Of air, half fire, through swirls of desert sand Bore Sheik Abdallah headlong on his prey!"
— from In the Saddle: A Collection of Poems on Horseback-Riding by Various

And the reader will often hear of the intemperate use and had effects of the ava or yava.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13 by Robert Kerr

And one of the lions, referred to above, who was sitting next me, did not once take his eyes off me; he positively turned to me with the expression of an actor on the stage, who has waked up in an unfamiliar place, as though he would say, 'Is it really you!'
— from The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

However, it, was not long before I had experience of a courtier's revenge, for two days after this circumstance, that is to say, on the 13th of May, on entering my cabinet at the usual hour, I mechanically took up the 'Moniteur', which I found lying on my desk.
— from Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Volume 13 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

—A merry mind Looks forward, scorns what's left behind; Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may, And here enjoy our holiday.
— from A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick by Robert Herrick

It was a significant action to the initiated, and seemed to say, that his explanation of the probable cause of the slight noise in the bushes was not exactly in accordance with his inmost conviction.
— from Neæra: A Tale of Ancient Rome by Graham, John W. (John William), active 1886-1887