I wonder why it is so difficult and perplexing for a deaf child to learn to speak when it is so easy for other people; but I am sure I shall speak perfectly some time if I am only patient....
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

The greater part of the surplus produce of all those three countries seems to have been always exported by foreigners, who gave in exchange for it something else, for which they found a demand there, frequently gold and silver.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh;—a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun's hazy brush—this the light dust-cloth—which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

This profound and increasingly impressive stillness endured for some time—the best preparation for music, spectacle, or speech conceivable.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

My Parents are no more; My little fortune is in my own possession: It will be sufficient to support Antonia, and I shall exchange for her hand Medina's Dukedom without one sigh of regret.'
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

On these same principles, and bearing in mind that when organs are reduced in size, either from disuse or through natural selection, it will generally be at that period of life when the being has to provide for its own wants, and bearing in mind how strong is the force of inheritance—the occurrence of rudimentary organs might even have been anticipated.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

"There she is," said Ellen, flopping herself around, assuming an attitude apparently as stiff and immovable as a granite cliff.
— from Overshadowed: A Novel by Sutton E. (Sutton Elbert) Griggs

“Black Ravine drops down fifty feet, and if I should ever forget myself and fall over the edge it would be the last of me,” Washer continued, deliberately picking his teeth with a twig.
— from White Tail the Deer's Adventures by George Ethelbert Walsh

The final process is simple enough, for each of the furrows by which the water is let in upon the field is in turn dammed up at the further end, and each surrounding patch is thus in turn submerged.
— from Sinners and Saints A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the Mormons by Phil Robinson

Christ Church was some ten miles distant and the irregular shores northward outlined by ribbons of breaking waves lay upon the seaward margin of our vision, while the broken intermediate landscape, with interrupted agricultural domains and forests was in front of us and far above us rose the grander peaks of the New Zealand Alps, a constant charm through the changing atmosphere, now brought near to us through the optical refraction of the clear air, and again veiled and shadowed and removed into spectral evanescent forms.
— from The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars Being the Posthumous Papers of Bradford Torrey Dodd by L. P. (Louis Pope) Gratacap

In 1883, when it was very plentiful, I saw entire families sick from it and in 1888 there was a repetition with new victims.
— from Toadstools, mushrooms, fungi, edible and poisonous; one thousand American fungi How to select and cook the edible; how to distinguish and avoid the poisonous, with full botanic descriptions. Toadstool poisons and their treatment, instructions to students, recipes for cooking, etc., etc. by Charles McIlvaine

But there is something else, for nobody can even try for the prize unless he belongs to a certain company or society of poets and singers here in the town, and the knight, though he has a pretty good opinion of the song he could make if he should try, is quite a stranger here.
— from The Wagner Story Book: Firelight Tales of the Great Music Dramas by William Henry Frost

“I don’t think I shall ever forget this.”
— from The Little Moment of Happiness by Clarence Budington Kelland

"Nevertheless, I am determined to try it," said Ella, firmly, though sadly.
— from Ralph Wilton's weird by Mrs. Alexander