From that point downward all is chosen iron, Save that the right foot is of kiln-baked clay, And more he stands on that than on the other.
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri

There was a good strong partition-wall between me and the gathering storm, as well as a facile means of flight through the glass-door to the court, in case it swept this way; so I am afraid I derived more amusement than alarm from these thickening symptoms.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

She sat huddled in an arm-chair near the stove, and when I came in she turned her head quickly toward me, without the least corresponding movement of her body.
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Thus Cyrus would not look at Panthea, but when Araspes told him that her beauty was well worth inspection, he replied, "For that very reason must I the more abstain from seeing her, for if at your persuasion I were to pay her a visit, perhaps she would persuade me to visit her again when I could ill spare the time, so that I might neglect important business to sit with her and gaze on her charms."
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

This imagination, so far as it involves conscious inference, seems to be chiefly determined by our own experience of past pleasures, which are usually recalled generically, or in large aggregates, though sometimes particular instances of important single pleasures occur to us as definitely remembered:
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

The whole thing is not understood and this is not strange considering that there is no education, this is not strange because having that certainly does show the difference in cutting, it shows that when there is turning there is no distress.
— from Tender Buttons Objects—Food—Rooms by Gertrude Stein

[498] The most [Pg 598] extended usage consists, as we know, in dividing intellectual phenomena into classes, in separating those which differ, in grouping together those of the same nature and in giving to these a common name and in attributing them to the same cause; it is thus that we have come to distinguish those diverse aspects of intelligence which are called judgment, reasoning, abstraction, perception, etc.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

Finally, Theism can just as little establish dogmatically the possibility of natural purposes as a key to Teleology; although it certainly is superior to all other grounds of explanation in that, through the Understanding which it ascribes to the original Being, it rescues in the best way the purposiveness of nature from Idealism, and introduces a causality acting with design for its production.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

It passed rapidly, as may be supposed, to one entranced as I was; and yet it gave me so many occasions for knowing Steerforth better, and admiring him more in a thousand respects, that at its close I seemed to have been with him for a much longer time.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

But if we yet desire to give a proof of them, it can only consist in showing that what is to be proved is contained in some truth about which there is no doubt, either as a part of it or as a presupposition.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

This Manifesto declared for the autonomy of Lithuania and Livonia; “but that is clearly impossible,” said Terestchenko, “for Russia must have free ports on the Baltic all the year round….
— from Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed

The Cray-fish, incommoded by the load of earth, instantly sets to work anew, and at last reaches the entrance of its burrow; but the moment it comes in sight the Ibis seizes it with his bill.
— from Audubon and His Journals, Volume 2 (of 2) by John James Audubon

Those who, under the ancient system, paid ten shillings and six-pence to go to the pit, must now, to obtain the same amount of comfort, give a guinea for a stall, while "most improper company is sometimes to be seen even in the principal tiers; and tickets bearing the names of ladies of the highest class have been presented by those of the lowest, such as used to be admitted only to the hindmost rows of the gallery."
— from History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe by H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland) Edwards

What are you going to do with tens of thousands of ignorant, childish, irresponsible souls thrown suddenly upon your hands; souls that will not long stay childish, and that have in them also all the capacities for evil that you yourselves have—you with your safeguards of generations of conscious responsibility and self-government, and yet—so many lapses!
— from Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches by Constance Fenimore Woolson

Its character is such that you are not likely ever to hear anything of more importance.
— from The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler

A synod brought the Irish Church into subjection to the see of Canterbury.
— from Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading by George Park Fisher

It is not only hard, but its cleavage is such that it was of the greatest use to primitive man.
— from The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races by Emory Adams Allen

If Achilles Tatius is correct in stating that "the horse of the Nile" was the native Egyptian name of the animal, it is probable that the resemblance to the horse indicated in the description of Herodotus, was supplied by the imagination of some informant.
— from Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

" Sad as may appear the fate of this man, one of the rank and file of the expedition, his indomitable courage in struggling to the last moment of his life will always stand as an instance of the high endeavor and heroic persistency of the British race.
— from True Tales of Arctic Heroism in the New World by A. W. (Adolphus Washington) Greely