He admits that natural selection has effected much, but he insists that the families of plants differ chiefly from each other in morphological characters, which appear to be quite unimportant for the welfare of the species.
— 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

Encouraged by these declarations, I ventured to express an inclination to be introduced to their fathers, who were able to do my business at once.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Blake lived his shy, mystic, spiritual life in the crowded city, and his message is to the few who can understand.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise, Is this the fashions in the court of England?
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

[Pg 418] is probable that, in such perfect and well-constituted men, the most sensual functions are finally transfigured by a symbolic elatedness of the highest intellectuality; in themselves they feel a kind of deification of the body and are most remote from the ascetic philosophy of the principle "God is a Spirit": from this principle it is clear that the ascetic is the "botched man" who declares only that to be good and "God" which is absolute, and which judges and condemns.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Now if the primary electors adopt this view of their position, one of the principal uses of giving them a vote at all is defeated; the political function to which they are called fails of developing public spirit and political intelligence, of making public affairs an object of interest to their feelings and of exercise to their faculties.
— from Considerations on Representative Government by John Stuart Mill

Priests are the actors of something which is supernatural, either in the way of ideals, gods, or saviours, and they have to make people believe in them; in this they find their calling, this is the purpose of their instincts; in order to make it as credible as possible, they have to exert themselves to the utmost extent in the art of posing; their actor's sagacity must, above all, aim at giving them a clean conscience, by means of which, alone, it is possible to persuade effectively.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

My sole motive for thus dwelling on this transaction, or inserting these papers, is the opinion which gentlemen of sense and education, who are acquainted with Africa, entertain of the probability of converting the inhabitants of it to the faith of Jesus Christ, if the attempt were countenanced by the legislature.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

In East Anglia , to SNAFFLE is to talk foolishly.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

If then the following narrative does not appear sufficiently interesting to engage general attention, let my motive be some excuse for its publication.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

But the same laws, by dividing inheritances, tho their first effect iz to create equality, ultimately tend to impoverish a great number of citizens, and thus giv a few men, who commanded money, an advantage in procuring lands at less than their real valu.
— from A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings On Moral, Historical, Political, and Literary Subjects by Noah Webster

But the first gleam of dawn came in through the fringe at the bottom of her curtain without his having come into her room, and then she awoke to the fact, with much amazement, that he was not coming.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

He looked up from Sergeant Archelaus' knees to Sergeant Archelaus' face, and past it to the face of Sergeant Treacher, now a little more distinct.
— from Major Vigoureux by Arthur Quiller-Couch

But it is certain the Saxons had a proper termination for the genitive or possessive, which is preserved in the two first declensions of the German.
— from Dissertations on the English Language, with Notes, Historical and Critical; to Which is Added, by Way of Appendix, an Essay on a Reformed Mode of Spelling, With Dr. Franklin's Arguments on that Subject by Noah Webster

Our argument is based most of all on the fact that, after the capture of Jerusalem, we saw so many Christian nations moving, so many people of great dignity, so many battalions of noble knights, such a great number of foot-soldiers setting out after those who had preceded them and opened the way, that we understood that in wealth and in number we might judge that this second movement was scarcely inferior to the first.
— from The Deeds of God Through the Franks by Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy Guibert

Kate gave a low cry, as if from corporeal pain, and then, shaking her head mournfully, she said, "I have had the feelings of a child towards a father, Earl of Ashby; and for the sake of your false cousin, I tore those feelings from my heart in spite of all the agony--for his sake, I brought disgrace upon that father's house--for his sake, I strewed ashes upon a parent's head--for his sake, I poured coals of fire upon my own; and how has he repaid me!
— from Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

Is it that some faculty becomes a little impaired, some taste a little dulled; or is it that the friends and companions of our life are beginning to drop away from us?
— from The Christian Life: Its Course, Its Hindrances, and Its Helps by Thomas Arnold

In tragedy, they felt that [Pg 359] some passions must be very evil and some ruinous; hence they devoted themselves to a study of malice and madness.
— from Tragedy by Ashley Horace Thorndike

I charge my wife to send you this, and I trust that, for my sake, you will help her.
— from With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

If then the first form of association of human beings was in small groups, which led a migratory life and subsisted mainly by hunting and the consumption of fruits and roots, as the Australian natives still do, the sentiment of kinship must first have arisen, as stated by Mr. M’Lennan, in that small body which lived and hunted together, and was due simply to the fact that they were so associated, that they obtained food for each other, and on occasion protected and preserved each other’s lives.
— from The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 1 by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell