The poet assures us that— "Stone walls do not a prison make," but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden of sweets.
— from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

The river was low, and the little steam canal-boats, four in number, grounded often, so that the passengers had to get into the water, to help them over the bare.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

{24} "SHOOTING NIAGARA."—I was at first roused to much anger and abuse by this essay from Mr. Carlyle, so insulting to the theory of America—but happening to think afterwards how I had more than once been in the like mood, during which his essay was evidently cast, and seen persons and things in the same light, (indeed some might say there are signs of the same feeling in these Vistas)—I have since read it again, not only as a study, expressing as it does certain judgments from the highest feudal point of view, but have read it with respect as coming from an earnest soul, and as contributing certain sharp-cutting metallic grains, which, if not gold or silver, may be good, hard, honest iron. {25} For fear of mistake, I may as well distinctly specify, as cheerfully included in the model and standard of these Vistas, a practical, stirring, worldly, money-making, even materialistic character.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

An Englishman, for instance, thinks it a deadly insult to be told that he is no gentleman, or, still worse, that he is a liar; a Frenchman has the same feeling if you call him a coward, and a German if you say he is stupid.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer

And how is the error to be corrected? We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as 11 seems, good; 335 and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

iskrábul n game of scrabble.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

undaundà v [B; c16] for a process to be broken by short intervals, not going on smoothly.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

We should rather say that he is a friend who is, as well as seems, good; and that he who seems only, and is not good, only seems to be and is not a friend; and of an enemy the same may be said.
— from The Republic by Plato

There is no Glass or Speculum how well soever polished, but, besides the Light which it refracts or reflects regularly, scatters every way irregularly a faint Light, by means of which the polish'd Surface, when illuminated in a dark room by a beam of the Sun's Light, may be easily seen in all positions of the Eye.
— from Opticks Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Isaac Newton

"Why should I not go on?" said Lady Caroline, glancing from one to another as if in utter ignorance.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

But, if there is no gold or silver to be superseded—if the notes are added to the currency, instead of being substituted for the metallic part of it—all holders of currency lose, by the depreciation of its value, the exact equivalent of what the issuer gains.
— from Principles of Political Economy Abridged with Critical, Bibliographical, and Explanatory Notes, and a Sketch of the History of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill

All of the scientific knowledge one may acquire is no guaranty of success as a teacher, but is rather in the nature of a hindrance, because it is likely to lead him into mechanical ways of doing things.
— from The Head Voice and Other Problems: Practical Talks on Singing by D. A. (David Alva) Clippinger

With all her tongues of life and death, With all her bloom and blood and breath, From all years dead and all things done, In the ear of man the mother saith, "There is no God, O son, If thou be none."
— from Pre-Raphaelite and other Poets by Lafcadio Hearn

4: A hypocrite does not give a spiritual thing for the sake of praise, he only makes a show of it, and under false pretenses stealthily purloins rather than buys human praise: so that seemingly the hypocrite is not guilty of simony. _______________________
— from Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint

I never got one single smile to cut across her map."
— from The Motor Girls on a Tour by Margaret Penrose

She is not guilty of Sir Patrise's death, for she never bore him ill will, nor any other at that dinner.
— from Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 14 (of 15), King Arthur (2) by Malory, Thomas, Sir

No doubt the latter is a much more elaborate and highly finished piece of work; but beauty of ideal construction is no guarantee of scientific truth—as we shall presently find exemplified in a striking manner with regard to Weismann’s theory of evolution.
— from An Examination of Weismannism by George John Romanes