Nevertheless, though I could have escaped three days sooner, I thought my punishment too severe, all the more as I had put off my escape from motives of prudence, which seemed to me worthy of reward, for if I had only consulted my own impatience to be gone I should have risked everything.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Up early, and by appointment to St. Clement Danes to church, and there to meet Captain Cocke, who had often commended Mr. Alsopp, their minister, to me, who is indeed an able man, but as all things else did not come up to my expectations.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And, even then, she never thought or spoke about him, but with something of her old, clear, merry laugh.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

As it is clear that the House of Commons may expel and expel again and again, why not allow of the power to incapacitate for that parliament, rather than have a perpetual contest kept up between parliament and the people.' Lord Newhaven took the opposite side; but respectfully said, 'I speak with great deference to you, Dr. Johnson; I speak to be instructed.'
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

The horror of cruelty more inclines me to clemency, than any example of clemency could possibly do.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

At the same time all criticism had to be deprecated, for reflection would at once have pointed out that the divine life in question was either a personification of natural processes and thus really in flux and full of oblivion and imperfection, or else a hypostasis of certain mental functions and ideals, which could not really be conceived apart from the natural human life which they informed and from which they had been violently abstracted.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

From 1865 to 1872, hundreds of colored men and women were mercilessly murdered and the almost invariable reason assigned was that they met their death by being alleged participants in an insurrection or riot.
— from The Red Record Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States by Ida B. Wells-Barnett

My dear Mother,—I return you Reginald's letter, and rejoice with all my heart that my father is made easy by it: tell him so, with my congratulations; but, between ourselves, I must own it has only convinced ME of my brother's having no PRESENT intention of marrying Lady Susan, not that he is in no danger of doing so three months hence.
— from Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Why were her own children marked below the others?
— from The Rainbow by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

Once more in Philadelphia at the beginning of September, he was welcomed by his hosts of Cape May, with whom he remained until his return to Boston at the beginning of November.
— from Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 05 (of 20) by Charles Sumner

904 Among the important discoveries made by accident, the following in the history of Cochineal may be instanced: “The well-known Cornelius Drebbel, who was born at Alcmaar, and died at London in 1634, having placed in his window an extract of Cochineal, made with boiling water, for the purpose of filling a thermometer, some aqua-regia dropped into it from a phial, broken by accident, which stood above it, and converted the purple dye into a most beautiful dark red.
— from Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions. A Complete Collection of the Legends, Superstitions, Beliefs, and Ominous Signs Connected with Insects; Together with Their Uses in Medicine, Art, and as Food; and a Summary of Their Remarkable Injuries and Appearances. by Frank Cowan

He is speedily undeceived as to the usefulness of the movement and the worthiness of those who control it, and conceiving an unreasonable disgust of his own class, marries the daughter of a washerwoman.
— from The Intelligence of Woman by Walter Lionel George

The Englishwoman, of whose powers she had heard in her own country, might do what she liked with her, but no man should come near her.
— from The Quiver, 11/1899 by Anonymous

I laughed as I saw his Machine growing vaster and vaster for the day of his doom, growing beyond his own comprehension, making him more and more the slave of itself, the fly on its gigantic wheel.
— from Leaves in the Wind by A. G. (Alfred George) Gardiner

[Footnote: Speech in House of Commons, March 22, 1775.]
— from Practical Argumentation by George K. (George Kynett) Pattee

It is unlucky to carry anything forth from the house on Christmas morning until something has been brought in.
— from The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

He then secured himself from the odium of saying that he wished to leave the service of his majesty by recurring to the order of Sir Archibald, that whoever wished to leave Ava should be given up, and that I had expressed a wish to go, so that he of course must follow.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

The House of Commons men would, of course, be all right.
— from The Freelands by John Galsworthy