Upon this head I repeat what I have often had occasion to observe, that as we have no idea, that is not derived from an impression, we must find some impression, that gives rise to this idea of necessity, if we assert we have really such an idea.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

The analogy between primitive men and neurotics is therefore much more fundamentally established if we assume that with the former, too, the psychic reality, concerning whose structure there is no doubt, originally coincided with the actual reality, and that primitive men really did what according to all testimony they intended to do.
— from Totem and Taboo Resemblances Between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics by Sigmund Freud

But there is no deceiving the bird-fancier.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

O Adam, One Almighty is, from whom All things proceed, and up to him return, If not deprav'd from good, created all Such to perfection, one first matter all, Endued with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and, in things that live, of life; But more refin'd, more spiritous and pure, As nearer to him plac'd, or nearer tending, Each in their several active spheres assigu'd, Till body up to spirit work, in bounds Proportion'd to each kind.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I never did observe so much of myself in my life.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

My own views at that time were like those officially expressed by Mr. Seward at a later day, that "the war would be over in ninety days."
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

The monopoly of the colony trade, as it necessarily drew towards that trade a greater proportion of the capital of Great Britain than what would have gone to it of its own accord, so, by the expulsion of all foreign capitals, it necessarily reduced the whole quantity of capital employed in that trade below what it naturally would have been in the case of a free trade.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

de Saint-Loup, and a different kind of pleasure that I now derive from taking walks only in the evenings, from visiting by moonlight the roads on which I used to play, as a child, in the sunshine; while the bedroom, in which I shall presently fall asleep instead of dressing for dinner, from afar off I can see it, as we return from our walk, with its lamp shining through the window, a solitary beacon in the night.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

These latter movements, however, can be prevented, if the danger does not appear to the imagination imminent; but our reason telling us that there is no danger does not suffice.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

"I never did care for family photograph albums," said Julia, "and now I see how easy it would be to have a scientific substitute."
— from Brenda's Bargain: A Story for Girls by Helen Leah Reed

I now discovered that my room gave on the pump court, and to my surprise, I saw that through the blue silk blinds of the Aigle which were all closely drawn, a light was streaming.
— from The Motor Maid by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

First you shall learn yourselves: for neither light Understandeth itself, nor darkness light.
— from Emblems Of Love by Lascelles Abercrombie

The land is now dimly visible only through rents in a prodigious wilderness of white clouds; and within these rents everything looks almost black....
— from Exotics and Retrospectives by Lafcadio Hearn

“I’ve touched it a good few times,” said Stephen, laughing, “and it never did aught worse to me than rub itself against me and mew.
— from One Snowy Night Long ago at Oxford by Emily Sarah Holt

If a man who delights in annoying and vexing peaceable people at last receives a right good beating, this is no doubt a bad thing; but everyone approves it and regards it as a good thing, even though nothing else resulted from it; nay, even the man who receives it must in his reason acknowledge that he has met justice, because he sees the proportion between good conduct and good fortune, which reason inevitably places before him, here put into practice.
— from The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant

ith no desire to deprive Mr. Bok of his bread, I wish to call attention to Pythagoras, who lived a little more than five hundred years before Christ.
— from Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 10 Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers by Elbert Hubbard

When you came back last November, I nearly died when I saw you.
— from Capricious Caroline by Effie Adelaide Rowlands