The majestic stream of his song, blessing and fertilizing, flows like the Nile, through many lands and nations; and, like the sources of the Nile, its fountains will ever remain concealed."
— from The Iliad by Homer

He therefore makes a condition, that having weak eyes he shall be allowed to read the large letters first and then go on to the smaller, that is, he must look for justice in the State first, and will then proceed to the individual.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

And the means we choose to make use of in so great a hazard should be as much as possible at our own command: wherefore I should advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort, and such of which we are able to give the best account.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

In about three years, or something more, my father had got advanced almost into the middle of his work.—Like all other writers, he met with disappointments.—He imagined he should be able to bring whatever he had to say, into so small a compass, that when it was finished and bound, it might be rolled up in my mother's hussive.—Matter grows under our hands.—Let
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Before leaving he acknowledged to the King that he had no great confidence in his own powers, and suggested that he should be allowed to take with him Chou-pien and Tzŭ-hua as commissioners of justice and finance.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

"An thou make a jest of me," quoth he to Will Stutely, "thou wilt have sore bones and little pay, and that in short season.
— from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

[Isa. 35:3,4] His labourers also have, by the direction of His Majesty's surveyors, been for above these sixteen hundred years employed about this patch of ground, if perhaps it might have been mended: yea, and to my knowledge, said he, here have been swallowed up at least twenty thousand cart-loads, yea, millions of wholesome instructions, that have at all seasons been brought from all places of the King's dominions, and they that can tell, say they are the best materials to make good ground of the place; if so be, it might have been mended, but it is the Slough of Despond still, and so will be when they have done what they can. {35} True, there are, by the direction of the Law-giver, certain good and substantial steps, placed even through the very midst of this slough; but at such time as this place doth much spew out its filth, as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen; or, if they be, men, through the dizziness of their heads, step beside, and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there; but the ground is good when they are once got in at the gate.
— from The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come Delivered under the similitude of a dream, by John Bunyan by John Bunyan

And almost before I knew how beautiful it was the rosiness faded off the island, lingered a moment longer on the masts of the fisher-boats, gathered at last only in the pools among the rushes, died away altogether; the sky paled to green, a few stars looked out faintly, a light twinkled in the solitary house on Vilm, and the waiter came down and asked if he should bring a lamp.
— from The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen by Elizabeth Von Arnim

At a moment when his faculties were visibly impaired, he called for pen and ink to write, or, more properly, to dictate, a divine book, the sum and accomplishment of all his revelations: a dispute arose in the chamber, whether he should be allowed to supersede the authority of the Koran; and the prophet was forced to reprove the indecent vehemence of his disciples.
— from History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5 by Edward Gibbon

He was only twenty——the ferryman told us——a tall, good-looking fellow, who had stood by and given a hand to get our tarantass on board but three or four minutes before he met with his sad fate.
— from From Pekin to Calais by Land by Harry De Windt

In the case of the Chinese, the burden of proof is on the immigrant to show that he should be admitted.
— from Races and Immigrants in America by John R. (John Rogers) Commons

Upon the straw beside the two, her slim, bare arms outstretched and her head pillowed upon them, so that her rippling hair completely concealed her face, lay Kâramaneh….
— from The Hand of Fu-Manchu Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor by Sax Rohmer

And then beware: Knave is at worst of knave When he smiles best, and the most seems to save.
— from Beaumont and Fletcher's Works, Vol. 07 of 10 by John Fletcher

She had smiled back at her reflection in her mirror, showing tw
— from Vagabondia 1884 by Frances Hodgson Burnett