For in a race the victory belongs to him who gets in first, but in company, if anyone has given a satisfactory answer, it is sufficient by assenting and agreeing to his view to get the reputation of being a pleasant fellow; and if no satisfactory answer is given, then to enlighten ignorance and supply the necessary information is well-timed and does not excite envy.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

I shall be awfully grateful.”
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And for the third case, of washing, it is obvious that the same sort of rhetoric about corporeal daintiness which is proper to an ornamental class cannot, merely as it stands, be applicable to a dustman.
— from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

Forgive me, and try to forget everything about me, except that I shall be, as long as I live, your affectionate friend, “ARTHUR DONNITHORNE.”
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

Therefore so long as the Object of intellectual or sensitive Perception is such as it should be and also the Faculty which discerns or realises the Object, there will be Pleasure in the Working: because when that which has the capacity of being acted on and that which is apt to act are alike and similarly related, the same result follows naturally.
— from The Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle

The whole period of three score years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity? Say rather ‘nothing,’ he replied.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

dormir i sleep, be asleep; r go to sleep; —do asleep, sleeping.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós

Oh, I wish I were he; then I should be a happy man." As he uttered this wish, the goloshes which he had put on took effect, and the watchman at once became the lieutenant.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Why, I should be a blackguard!
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Then I stopped, blushing and embarrassed.
— from The Champagne Standard by Lane, John, Mrs.

It should be a clear yellowish green with much scum.
— from Vegetable Dyes: Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer by Ethel Mairet

My conscience—” “Why, Frances,” said the president, “I shall be awfully hurt if you don’t tell us now.
— from The Teacup Club by Elisa Armstrong Bengough

[Pg 257] If the enemy's rifle fire were heavy and accurate it might be necessary, but it should be avoided if possible, on account of the expenditure of ammunition.
— from Manual of Military Training Second, Revised Edition by James A. (James Alfred) Moss

I looked on haughty Endicott; with weapon half- way drawn, Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and scorn; Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in silence back, And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track.
— from The Vaudois Teacher, and other poems Part 1 From Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier

Get some girls for me—you know about the ones I want—and see that their gowns are right; and then I shall be at peace, knowing that people are nibbling their biscuits'—or crackers" (this in a tone unconsciously expository)—"'dawdling with their spoons, as they ought to.'
— from With the Procession by Henry Blake Fuller

I shall be anxious to hear of your son after his arrival at Dublin, for I did not think the account of his leg at all comfortable.
— from Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third From the Original Family Documents, Volume 2 by Buckingham and Chandos, Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, Duke of

The scouts, who had been stationed on the lookout at the edge of the forest, brought word that the Spaniards, nigh 1500 strong, had divided in six bodies; and were marching so as to enter the forest from six different, and nearly equidistant, points.
— from Under Drake's Flag: A Tale of the Spanish Main by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

"The American genius, I say: but after all, and this is the real point of my remarks, what America is, Europe is becoming.
— from A Modern Symposium by G. Lowes (Goldsworthy Lowes) Dickinson