And there be but two things which make men wonder at any event: The one is, if it be strange, that is to say, such, as the like of it hath never, or very rarely been produced: The other is, if when it is produced, we cannot imagine it to have been done by naturall means, but onely by the immediate hand of God.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

The world is just what it is because the will, whose manifestation it is, is what it is, because it so wills.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

[529] And that not only of men, but primarily and principally of angels it is true, as it is written, "It is good to draw near to God."
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

They like a form, not because it is what it is, but because of what it expresses.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The Bible is the written word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather.
— from The Pursuit of God by A. W. (Aiden Wilson) Tozer

If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured? INSURANCE AGENT:
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

It will be impossible, however, to gain even an approximate knowledge of the extent to which this disorder prevailed, as in many instances it was inextricably interwoven with other nutritional diseases.
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess

Am I indiscreet when I inquire if its owner is your owner?
— from The King in Yellow by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

Here, on my view, the real object of preference is not the consciousness of knowing truth, considered merely as consciousness,—the element of pleasure or satisfaction in this being more than outweighed by the concomitant pain,—but the relation between the mind and something else, which, as the very notion of ‘truth’ implies, is whatever it is independently of our cognition of it, and which I therefore call objective.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

For it has been already shown 323 that the bladder by the liver draws bile into itself, while it is also quite obvious that it eliminates this daily into the stomach.
— from Galen: On the Natural Faculties by Galen

Which is it? which is it?” cried he, aloud, as he stood and gazed on the rippling rivulet beside him.
— from Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I. by Charles James Lever

One cannot take in infinite wretchedness: it is our nature to make dates and periods to our sorrows in our imagination.
— from Richard Vandermarck: A Novel by Miriam Coles Harris

The only explanation given of "Housel" in the usual Dictionaries and Glossaries, "the Eucharist," could not possibly apply to either of the instances in which it is used in these accounts.
— from The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII from November MDXXIX, to December MDXXXII by Nicolas, Nicholas Harris, Sir

Learning hath its infancy, when it is almost 15 childish; then its youth, when luxurious and juvenile; then its strength of years, when solid; and lastly its old age, when dry and exhaust.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

1 b´ , a ), rudimentary; in one specimen it was about 1/50th of an inch in width; it is either as wide, or only half as wide, as the subjacent scale on the peduncle.
— from A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) The Lepadidae; Or, Pedunculated Cirripedes by Charles Darwin

It is said that the Monmouth of Coningsby and the Steyne of Vanity Fair are painted from one and the same original; and you have but to compare the savage realism of Thackeray’s study to the scornful amenity of the other’s—as you have but to contrast the elaborate and extravagant cruelty of Thackeray’s Alcide de Mirobolant with the polite and half-respectful irony of Disraeli’s treatment of the cooks in Tancred —to perceive that in certain ways the advantage is not with ‘the greatest novelist of his time,’ and that the Monmouth produces an impression which is more moral because more kindly and humane than the impression left by the Steyne, while in its way it is every whit as vivid and as convincing.
— from Views and Reviews: Essays in appreciation: Literature by William Ernest Henley

"Indeed I will, if I only can."
— from The White Shield by Myrtle Reed

In its way it is as complete as you are yourself in all your creations.
— from Letters of Felix Mendelssohn to Ignaz and Charlotte Moscheles by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

How do you suppose the earth is going to keep any warmth in it when it is all running out at volcanoes?”
— from The Flying Machine Boys in the Wilds; Or, The Mystery of the Andes by Frank Walton