The cities in Sicily are peopled by motley rabbles, and easily change their institutions and adopt new ones in their stead; and consequently the inhabitants, being without any feeling of patriotism, are not provided with arms for their persons, and have not regularly established themselves on the land; every man thinks that either by fair words or by party strife he can obtain something at the public expense, and then in the event of a catastrophe settle in some other country, and makes his preparations accordingly.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

I spoke of Crassus a moment ago; Marcus Antonius, when a youth, had the same success.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

The points of difference between a redwing and a throstle, the rather smaller size, the red on the side, the slight variations in shades of colour and markings, may easily be passed over.
— from In a Cheshire Garden: Natural History Notes by Geoffrey Egerton-Warburton

The northern Amerinds are so much in advance of the Australians in social organisation, culture and mentality, that if their Totemism has descended to them from a time when they lived at the Australian level, its history must go back not merely for many generations but for thousands of years.
— from The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions by Carveth Read

And our venerable associate, William Farel—that indefatigable soldier of Christ, and my guide and counsellor—has not been reluctant to join me as a companion, in order to unite with us in bearing truly and faithfully what testimony
— from Letters of John Calvin, Volume II Compiled from the Original Manuscripts and Edited with Historical Notes by Jean Calvin

Some acres of ground were covered with pumps, wind-mills, sluice-gates, carts, in sections or complete, and machines and parts of machines of which I could not guess the use or purpose.
— from The MS. in a Red Box by John A. (John Arthur) Hamilton

I stepped out, climbed a miry glacis of five or six feet, reached hard wet sand, and strode away with the sluggish ripple of the Balje on my left hand.
— from The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers

He was in truth a writer, a word-artist; his only fear was, whether, in the hard-worked unmitigated years of specified toil, he had not perhaps lost the requisite mental agility, whether he had not failed to acquire the elastic use of words, the almost instinctive sense of colour and motion in language, which can only be won through constant and even unsuccessful use.
— from Beside Still Waters by Arthur Christopher Benson

And it will now be seen that the limitations of poetry, in such outward characteristics, are more definite and more comprehensive than those of sculpture; for whereas the material of marble may sometimes coincide literally with that of substances in nature, the form of poetry never can entirely coincide with that of ordinary language.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No. 398, December 1848 by Various

Should it appear that, in my anxiety to avoid disagreeable discussions, I have left any subject imperfectly handled, as regards the high character of Mr. Abernethy, I should of course avail myself of the documents now in my possession.
— from Memoirs of John Abernethy With a View of His Lectures, His Writings, and Character; with Additional Extracts from Original Documents, Now First Published by George Macilwain

Sometimes coincidence merely clinches a mistake, as it so often clinches a misprint.
— from What I Saw in America by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

“While I am in Mrs Rowland’s house, I shall, of course, attend Mrs Rowland’s family,” replied Mr Walcot.
— from Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau