Nay, it even seems to deserve the highest respect, if those who are engaged in it, satiated, or rather, I should say, satisfied with the fortunes they have made, make their way from the port to a country estate, as they have often made it from the sea into port.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

But this defect was not due to any fault of the regimental commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not been issued by the Austrian commissariat, and the regiment had marched some seven hundred miles.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Many infants have been seen since that time, who in spite of receiving cod liver oil developed scurvy, and others in whom large doses of this oil failed to mitigate the scurvy, although it prevented rickets.
— from Scurvy, Past and Present by Alfred F. Hess

It is at any rate difficult in some old representations to draw any noticeable distinctions between the methods of depicting barry nebuly and vair.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

Then the intermediate state of rest will be pleasure and will also be pain?
— from The Republic by Plato

Some of the small boys of Number 4 communicated the new state of things to their chums, and in several other rooms the poor little fellows tried it on—in one instance or so, where the praepostor heard of it and interfered very decidedly, with partial success; but in the rest, after a short struggle, the confessors were bullied or laughed down, and the old state of things went on for some time longer.
— from Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes

In spite of references to peace, love, and brotherly friendship, it is very doubtful if the era of good will was in any wise hastened by the so-called treaty, as the Tennesseeans, who had just burned another Indian town in reprisal for the killing of a white man, announced, without mincing words, that they had been given by North Carolina—against which state, by the way, they were then in organized rebellion—the whole country north of the Tennessee river as far west as the Cumberland mountain, and that they intended to take it “by the sword, which is the best right to all countries.”
— from Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology by James Mooney

You’ll allow, that nothing receives infection sooner, or retains it longer, than blankets, feather-beds, and matrasses—‘Sdeath!
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

CHAPTER XIV It was not because of Olney, but in spite of Ruth, and his love for Ruth, that he finally decided not to take up Latin.
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

Not knowing the man from Adam she spoke no untruth, but in spite of reiterated calls to come down to tea she remained in her bedroom until the loud-voiced guest had taken his departure.
— from Leonie of the Jungle by Joan Conquest

A row round the island, or a supper-party in the loggia above the sea at sunset-time, is no less charming now, in spite of Roman or Spanish memories, than when the world was young.
— from Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete Series I, II, and III by John Addington Symonds

Sharp white frosts in autumn and winter precede damp weather, and we will stake our reputation as a prophet that three successive white frosts are an infallible sign of rain.
— from Barkham Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 by Barkham Burroughs

The inside strips or ribs are placed about their own width apart, and of course are placed at right angles to the longitudinal slats.
— from Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1889-1890, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1894, pages 159-350 by Lucien M. (Lucien McShan) Turner

He lives, it is said, on roots, and never wanders far from his burrow.
— from The Desert World by Arthur Mangin

Thus, in a hasty way, but I think correctly, I have thrown the chief burden of backwardness in school, or retardation, upon physical defects.
— from On the Firing Line in Education by Adoniram Judson Ladd

He began an informal series of religious conversations with Miss O'Brien, the young person of Irish extraction already referred to as Bridget, maid of all work.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 35, September, 1860 A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics by Various

I speak of romances, the drama, and poetry."
— from The Jew by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

One should, therefore, train up this boy to be sparing and an husband of his knowledge when he has acquired it; and to forbear taking exceptions at or reproving every idle saying or ridiculous story that is said or told in his presence; for it is a very unbecoming rudeness to carp at everything that is not agreeable to our own palate.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne