[on both sides], as to proceed further, and overcome nature; but it may justly deserve consideration, whether it be to be laid to the charge of the young men, that they gave such an occasion to their father's anger, and led him to do what he did, and by going on long in the same way put things past remedy, and brought him to use them so unmercifully; or whether it be to be laid to the father's charge, that he was so hard-hearted, and so very tender in the desire of government, and of other things that would tend to his glory, that tae would take no one into a partnership with him, that so whatsoever he would have done himself might continue immovable; or, indeed, whether fortune have not greater power than all prudent reasonings; whence we are persuaded that human actions are thereby determined beforehand by an inevitable necessity, and we call her Fate, because there is nothing which is not done by her; wherefore I suppose it will be sufficient to compare this notion with that other, which attribute somewhat to ourselves, and renders men not unaccountable for the different conducts of their lives, which notion is no other than the philosophical determination of our ancient law.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Commend me to the person who can say No with a will, when it is needed; who is not deterred from [Pg 166] it for fear of being called "disagreeable," or "being thought to be always in hot water."
— from Ginger-Snaps by Fanny Fern

While Brissot was returning to France (January, 1789), his brother-in-law, François Dupont, was sailing for the United States, to settle there among free men and, scarcely landed, was writing to a Swiss friend of his, Jeanneret, who lived in Berlin, of his delight at having left "a small continent like that of Europe, partitioned among a quantity of petty sovereigns bent upon capturing each other's possessions, causing their subjects to slaughter one another, in ceaseless mutual fear, busy tightening their peoples' chains and impoverishing them—and I am now on a continent which reaches from pole to pole, with every kind of climate and of productions, among an independent nation which is now devising for itself, in the midst of peace, the wisest of governments.
— from With Americans of Past and Present Days by J. J. (Jean Jules) Jusserand

If I were only Niobe I'd water these shores with tears—I'm sure I would; but you know I never weep; I never did; I don't know how; there is not a drop of brine in my whole composition.
— from The Spinners' Book of Fiction by Spinners' Club

In the last-named year, the Royal Academy was removed to Burlington House; and the whole of the building is now what its name denotes.
— from Collins' Illustrated Guide to London and Neighbourhood Being a Concise Description of the Chief Places of Interest in the Metropolis, and the Best Modes of Obtaining Access to Them: with Information Relating to Railways, Omnibuses, Steamers, &c. by Anonymous

Mine did me little good, as I soon found it was in my way and I never wore it; nor did Hillers wear his.
— from The Romance of the Colorado River The Story of its Discovery in 1840, with an Account of the Later Explorations, and with Special Reference to the Voyages of Powell through the Line of the Great Canyons by Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh

Everywhere there are tranquil countenances, and everywhere the Sunday crowd, gay, in no way impressed, nowise dejected, as the despatches to foreign journals assert....
— from Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 by William Walton

All that is besides salvation, and beyond perfection, count it superfluous and vain, if not worse, if not diabolical.
— from The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning by Hugh Binning