Against the first tendency I set up my [Pg 376] psychology of philosophers : their strangest calculations and "intellectuality" are still but the last pallid impress of a physiological fact; spontaneity is absolutely lacking in them, everything is instinct, everything is intended to follow a certain direction from the first....
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I sank upon my knees; I clasped my hands, and lifted them up to her for mercy, but had no power to articulate a syllable.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

In these days of civilisation, their services are no longer required for these purposes, and they are employed in shampooing, umbrella making, and quarrying laterite stones for building purposes.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

Does he think that I can leave off that liberty of speech, which, upon the consciousness of my deserts, I shall use more loudly than before, and shall relate how many misfortunes I have been delivered from; how many labors I have undergone for him, whereby I procured him deliverance and respect; as a reward for which I have borne the hardships of bonds and a dark prison?
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

"No, for this pole is stuck up my back.
— from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

I remembered the words of Chapin, his precautions, his advice to beware, lest in some unsuspecting moment he might injure me.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

It seems, upon my first reaching the shore after our shipwreck, I was in such confusion, that before I came to the place where I went to sleep, my hat, which I had fastened with a string to my head while I was rowing, and had stuck on all the time I was swimming, fell off after I came to land; the string, as I conjecture, breaking by some accident, which I never observed, but thought my hat had been lost at sea.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

"Do you mean, Sir Percival, that I am to dismiss the indoor servants under my charge without the usual month's warning?"
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady, who was an innocent sufferer upon my account.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

I shut up my jewels and asked them to come in, and the father addressed me politely, saying,— “Sir, I have come to ask you to do me a favour which will cost you but little, while it will be of immense service to my daughter and myself.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Not the slightest sound of any kind reached his ears; while it had, in some unaccountable manner, suddenly become so pitchy dark that he could not distinguish a single object before him.
— from The Rangers; or, The Tory's Daughter A Tale Illustrative of the Revolutionary History of Vermont and the Northern Campaign of 1777 by Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) Thompson

The forests, with their prodigious stratas of decaying vegetation, emit, especially in summer, unwholesome malarial vapours, and the lagoons and marshes on the broads are sometimes hidden for days at a time by a dense and deadly but perfectly white fog.
— from Cuba Past and Present by Richard Davey

"I set up my little table and began to show them how easy it was to guess which shell the little pea was under.
— from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry

I sprang upon my legs and seized him by the hand.
— from A British Rifle Man The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, During the Peninsular War and the Campaign of Waterloo by George Simmons

Back I swept upon my trapeze, a sight to have induced any passing citizen to question his sanity.
— from The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer

You it has made a Jew in soul; upon me it weighs like a curse as often as I think of it.
— from The Emancipated by George Gissing

A woman should say to a man who sulks or goes into tantrums when she pays courteous attentions to relatives or acquaintances, "You are lowering my ideal of you—I cannot love a man who will indulge such unworthy moods.
— from A Woman of the World: Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Take this key, and keep it safe until myself or some other royal governor shall demand it of you."
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

A. Yes; about two years and a half or three years ago, and I couldn't employ them again just for the reason that my rules were, that any man that strikes can never work for me again, and I thought, of course, as there were so many idle puddlers at that time, that I would have no trouble in starting up my puddling forge.
— from Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877 Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878 by 1877 Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July

But now the necessity is sweet unto me, against which sweetness I fight, that I be not taken captive; and carry on a daily war by fastings; often bringing my body into subjection; and my pains are removed by pleasure.
— from The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo