I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

Its significance is lost if it is not heard sung and seen acted.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore

Having said this much, I need hardly say that I had fallen in love with her.
— from Erewhon; Or, Over the Range by Samuel Butler

[474] In the Bruighion Chaorthainn or ‘Fort of the Rowan Tree’, a Fenian tale, a poet put Finn under taboo to understand these verses:— I saw a house in the country Out of which no hostages are given to a king, Fire burns it not, harrying spoils it not.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

The Hudson River does not make much noise on its way to the sea—it is not half so loud as the little creek up in Bronx Park that a bullfrog could leap across.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

In short it was made manifest to every one in the town that it was not Yulia Mihailovna who had up till now neglected Varvara Petrovna in not calling upon her, but on the contrary that Varvara Petrovna had “kept Yulia Mihailovna within bounds at a distance, while the latter would have hastened to pay her a visit, going on foot perhaps if necessary, had she been fully assured that Varvara Petrovna would not turn her away.”
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I never heard such a sermon before, and I'll never go to church anywhere else."
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

I need hardly state that my cousin was not a severe critic; in point of fact the opinions he expressed would have done splendidly as advertisements.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore

'I have come to make you understand clearly, young lady, that it is not his secret alone, but mine.
— from Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day by Walter Besant

Authority yet is not hereby so subjected to Reason, as that a Proposition which we see not the Truth of, may not nevertheless be Rationally assented to by us.
— from Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life by Masham, Damaris, Lady

Burr, working under Great Plains conditions in Nebraska, has shown that the spring and summer rains penetrate the soil to the depth of 6 feet, the average depth of the borings, and that it undoubtedly affects the soil-moisture to the depth of 10 feet.
— from Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall by John Andreas Widtsoe

10 Repatyrrit weil, and by the chymnay bekyt, At evin be tyme dovne a bed I me strekyt, Warpit my hed, kest on clathis thrynfald, Fortil expell the peralus persand cald: I crosyt me, syne bownyt forto sleip: 15 Quhar, lemand throu the glas, I dyd tak kepe Latonya, the lang irksum nyght, Hir subtell blenkis sched and watry lycht, Full hie vp quhirlyt in hir regioun, Till Phebus ryght in oppositioun, 20 Into the Crab hir proper mansioun draw, Haldand the hight all thocht the son went law.
— from The Æneid of Virgil Translated Into Scottish Verse. Volumes 1 & 2 by Virgil

"What I meant was that I never had said anything that would—" "You wouldn't need to, dear boy."
— from Flood Tide by Sara Ware Bassett

They shall not say I did not leave it neat,” he said.
— from The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner

I think that the mongoose is not half so sly or sharp as a good cat, and a mongoose, moreover, has to be taught how to kill a Rat (just the same as a dog).
— from Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher After 25 Years' Experience by Ike Matthews