The mind that is receptive to the authority of a certain person may prove inflexible to another; moods and environments that produce hypnosis readily in one instance may be entirely inoperative in another; and some minds can scarcely ever be thus moved.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

I began therefore to deliberate about the most probable means of acquiring the conquest, and was so much engrossed by this idea, that I scarce took any notice of the rest of the people in the coach, but revolved my project in silence; while the conversation was maintained as before by the object of my hopes, the son of Mars, and the barrister, who by this time recollected himself, and talked in terms as much as ever.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I thought a mean and easy vengeance would not for a moment counterbalance his love of glory, and putting myself in his place, his taking advantage of circumstances to overwhelm with the weight of his generosity a man who had dared to think ill of him, did not appear to me impossible.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rutter in a little exhibition of documents illustrative of the South Sea Bubble in the Albert Museum at Exeter:— Rec'd 8th feby 1792 of the Honble South Sea Company by the hands of their Secretary Twelve pounds 1s.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

As from the appointed day the postal and telegraph service in Ireland shall be transferred to the Irish Government, and may be regulated by Irish Act, except as in this Act mentioned and except as regards matters relating— ( a ) to such conditions of the transmission or delivery of postal packets and telegrams as are incidental to the duties on postage; or ( b ) foreign mails or submarine telegraphs or through lines in connection therewith; or (c) to any other postal or telegraph business in connection with places out of the United Kingdom. (2) The administration of or incidental to the said excepted matters shall, save as may be otherwise arranged with the Irish Post Office, remain with the Postmaster-General.
— from A Leap in the Dark A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the Bill of 1893 by Albert Venn Dicey

There is sometimes in the American metaphors, an energy which is very remarkable.
— from Diary in America, Series One by Frederick Marryat

The assembling of the representatives of the people upon the eventful day two hundred and eighty-six years ago—of which this is the anniversary —marked an epoch which, in far-reaching consequences, scarcely finds a parallel in history.
— from Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective by Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing) Stevenson

It is rare, indeed, that any mother, and especially an American mother, ever falls so low as completely to become unsexed in feelings and character, and rarer still that she forgets to impart many of the decencies of woman to her daughter.
— from The Chainbearer; Or, The Littlepage Manuscripts by James Fenimore Cooper

Pg 412 with the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that all men are entitled to the right of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”!
— from The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 1, 1917-1918 by Various

The rule differs with feeding moths only in that after mating and egg placing they take food and live several months, often until quite heavy frosts have fallen.
— from Moths of the Limberlost: A Book About Limberlost Cabin by Gene Stratton-Porter

The Puritans and Precisians discountenanced them, it is true, as much as ever, and would have put them down, if they could, as savouring of papistry and idolatry, and some rigid divines thundered against them from the pulpit; but with the king and the authorities in their favour, the people little heeded these denunciations against them, and abstained not from any "honest recreation" whenever a holiday occurred.
— from The Lancashire Witches: A Romance of Pendle Forest by William Harrison Ainsworth