How different from this childish dream is our own conception of nature, with its unlimited space, its innumerable suns, and the earth but a mote in the beam; how different the strange new awe, or superstition, with which it fills our minds!
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity!
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

‘Very well, ma’am,’ said Ralph, turning to the door, for these encomiums on poverty irritated him; ‘I have done my duty, and perhaps more than I ought: of course nobody will thank me for saying what I have.’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Dante's comes in early youth: Beatrice is a child, with the wistful, ambiguous vision of a child, with a character still unaccentuated by the influence of outward circumstances, almost expressionless.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

Nothing is more difficult than to divert our thoughts and judgment from the information of our corporeal sight, and the view of objects which our eyes are accustomed to; and it is this difficulty which has had such an influence on the unlearned, and on philosophers 124 also who resembled the unlearned multitude, that they have been unable to form any idea of the immortal Gods except under the clothing of the human figure; the weakness of which opinion Cotta has so well confuted that I need not add my thoughts upon it.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them in the words of their authors.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

We trust to the laws of cerebral nature to present us spontaneously with the appropriate idea: "Our only command over it is by the effort we make to keep the painful unfilled gap in consciousness.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

so nah —We never love the child of another so much as our own; for this reason error, which is our own child, is so near to our heart.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

‘It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, don’t it, Thquire?’ said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked down into the depths of his brandy and water: ‘one, that there ith a love in the world, not all Thelf-interetht after all, but thomething very different; t’other, that it bath a way of ith own of calculating or not calculating, whith thomehow or another ith at leatht ath hard to give a name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith!’
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens

They are got up by men who are at the foot of the ladder and in desperate circumstances, just as a new political party is started by such men in our own country.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

"Surely," she said laboriously, "there is only one course for you, for us all."
— from The Three Black Pennys: A Novel by Joseph Hergesheimer

To the good pastor and his wife, the next day, even Sophie was a less interesting object of contemplation than Meeta, who stood at her side.
— from Evenings at Donaldson Manor; Or, The Christmas Guest by Maria J. (Maria Jane) McIntosh

When King Mark heard of the death of these lovers, he crossed the sea and came into Brittany; and he had two coffins hewn, for Tristan and Iseult, one of chalcedony for Iseult, and one of beryl for Tristan.
— from The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bédier

If, as is often our custom, we chance to listen to a suit, what authority must there be in his tongue who has to speak the King's words in the King's own presence?
— from The Letters of Cassiodorus Being a Condensed Translation of the Variae Epistolae of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator by Senator Cassiodorus

"This little woman is worth ten such girls as Sally, if one only could get her heart.
— from The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine by Harriet Beecher Stowe

"The first of these is the curvature of lines and surfaces, wherein it at first appears futile to insist upon any resemblance or suggestion of infinity, since there is certainly, in our ordinary contemplation of it, no sensation of the kind.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851 by Various

The trade with the French West Indies, "open or clandestine, was considerable, and wholly in American vessels.
— from Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Volume 1 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

I proposed sending the document to certain chosen spirits in our own country, who were pleased to be facetious concerning our devotion to Scotland.
— from Penelope's Progress Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

It is out of character as a sailor's tale, showing that the author either did not understand the value of or was too indolent to acquire the ship knowledge that would give to his work the natural smell of salt water and the bilge.
— from The Delicious Vice by Young Ewing Allison

It is certainly our duty to diminish as far as we can the burdens of taxation and to regard all the restrictions which are imposed on the trade and navigation of our citizens as evils which we shall mitigate when ever we are not prevented by the adverse legislation and policy of foreign nations or those primary duties which the defense and independence of our country enjoin upon us.
— from State of the Union Addresses (1790-2006) by United States. Presidents