The stories had little or no meaning for me then; but the mere spelling of the strange words was sufficient to amuse a little child who could do almost nothing to amuse herself; and although I do not recall a single circumstance connected with the reading of the stories, yet I cannot help thinking that I made a great effort to remember the words, with the intention of having my teacher explain them when she returned.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

On either side the rowers showed great zeal in bringing up their vessels at the boatswains' orders, and the helmsmen great skill in manoeuvring, and great emulation one with another; while the ships once alongside, the soldiers on board did their best not to let the service on deck be outdone by the others; in short, every man strove to prove himself the first in his particular department.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

It means a garish embroidery on the big scheme of life; a clog on the forward march of a strong and courageous nation.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

And so, when I suddenly noticed a straw basket lying forgotten on the grass by the side of a line whose float was bobbing in the water, I made a great effort to keep my father and grandfather looking in another direction, away from this sign that she might, after all, be in residence.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Or did not the laws, ordained on this point, enjoin rightly, in requiring your father to instruct you in music and gymnastic exercises?"
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

Which at last I made a good end of, and so to bed.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

I stood a few moments, to let the hearers have a chance to spread my announcement to those who couldn’t hear, and so convey it to the furthest ranks, then I made a grand exhibition of extra posturing and gesturing, and shouted: “Lo, I command the fell spirit that possesses the holy fountain to now disgorge into the skies all the infernal fires that still remain in him, and straightway dissolve his spell and flee hence to the pit, there to lie bound a thousand years.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Gastu na kaáyu kun grandi ang kasal, It means a great expense if the wedding is on a grand scale.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

The thunder of the cannon was so loud and incessant, that I could not hear something I much desired to hear, until I made a great exertion and awoke.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Although it makes a good effect in the eyes of some people, in truth there is neither reason nor art in it, no proportion, no symmetry, no selection, and no grandeur.
— from Michelangelo by Romain Rolland

Whether we must enumerate among its misfortunes a Grand Ecclesiastical Council which assembled there in 1431, and sat for seventeen years, deposing one infallible Pope, and making another equally infallible, let theological disputants decide.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 17, March, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

Then Ingeborg, making a great effort at gay cordiality and determined that when words failed affectionate actions should fill up the gaps, bent over the figure on the sofa and took its arm.
— from The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth Von Arnim

I make a good everage o' time, and that's all I can do.
— from The Life of Nancy by Sarah Orne Jewett

Rather will I make a greater effort than before to succeed.
— from Over the Line by Harold M. (Harold Morrow) Sherman

Auber told me [137] that when it was first rehearsed, it made a great effect upon the orchestra; and that he could not have had a better compliment upon its freshness than the musical director paid him, in coming and clapping him on the shoulder with 'Bravo, jeune homme!
— from The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete by John Forster

We must include them, even if they be no more than the passive accompaniments of material change; still more must we include them if we speculatively accept (what I deem to be) the inevitable belief that they can, within limits, themselves initiate movement and guide energy.
— from Theism and Humanism Being the Gifford Lectures Delivered at the University of Glasgow, 1914 by Arthur James Balfour