I find that I undoubtedly seem to perceive, as clearly and certainly as I see any axiom in Arithmetic or Geometry, that it is ‘right’ and ‘reasonable’ for me to treat others as I should think that I myself ought to be treated under similar conditions, and to do what I believe to be ultimately conducive to universal Good or Happiness.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

Drink it up!" said the strange gentleman, in what Janetta thought a curiously unpleasant voice.
— from A True Friend: A Novel by Adeline Sergeant

While organized industry has been slowly making its help into self-respecting, well-paid men, and while public service is beginning to call for the highest types of educated and efficient thinkers, domestic service lags behind and insists upon seeking to evolve the best types of men from the worst conditions.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

There is the same symmetrical repetition in the Ecole des marts, in L'Etourdi, and above all in George Dandin, where the same effect in three tempi is again met with: first tempo, George Dandin discovers that his wife is unfaithful; second tempo, he summons his father—and mother-in-law to his assistance; third tempo, it is George Dandin himself, after all, who has to apologise.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

He is usually said to be armed with bow and arrows, but a lightning shaft and a thunderbolt are also occasionally assigned to him.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

That is why I disguise them in untruth, saying the contrary of what I mean.
— from The Gardener by Rabindranath Tagore

The very apologies and unintelligent proofs offered in its defence in a way confess its unreality, since they all strain to paint in more plausible colours what is felt to be in itself extravagant and incredible.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

As minute after minute passed by, leaving them in undisturbed security, the insinuating feeling of hope was gradually gaining possession of every bosom, though each one felt reluctant to give utterance to expectations that the next moment might so fearfully destroy.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

The thought is one's own, it is associated with an image moving in space, and is uncritically supposed to be a hidden part of that image, a metaphysical signification attached to its motion and actually existing behind the scenes in the form of an unheard soliloquy.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Its style, especially in the dialogue, is uncommonly sincere, the real vernacular, without exaggeration or codification.” + Bookm 45:208 Ap ‘17 400w + Boston Transcript p8
— from The Book Review Digest, Volume 13, 1917 Thirteenth Annual Cumulation Reviews of 1917 Books by Various

the pitch-pipe—none of your whipper-snapper German Æolians or waistcoat-pocket tuning-forks, but the veritable pitch-pipe which has been in use since the year 1740—sounds the note of preparation, and the order of the day begins in real earnest.
— from Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I by Various

There is a beautiful promise in the thirty-seventh Psalm, “Delight thyself in the Lord, and He will give thee the desires of thine heart,” which it is, perhaps, legitimate to translate, that not only does it mean the fulfilment of our desires, but even the inspiration of our desires, the inbreathing of His thoughts into us, so that our prayers shall be in accord with His will and so shall bring back to us the unfailing answer of His mighty providence.
— from Days of Heaven Upon Earth by A. B. (Albert B.) Simpson

The author is under special tribute to Professor H. R. Seager, and to Professor Tenney, who most cheerfully sacrificed part of a summer vacation to read and revise the manuscript and proof.
— from Catastrophe and Social Change Based Upon a Sociological Study of the Halifax Disaster by Samuel Henry Prince

Most gardeners would, I believe, have been alarmed for the safety of their plants at this temperature; but the Pine is a much hardier plant than it is usually supposed to be; and I exposed one young plant in December to a temperature of 32°, by which it did not appear to sustain [154] any injury.
— from The different modes of cultivating the pine-apple From its first introduction into Europe to the late improvements of T.A. Knight, esq. by J. C. (John Claudius) Loudon

Farmers and rich landowners insisted upon slaughtering their own pigs for their own use.
— from Germany, The Next Republic? by Carl W. (Carl William) Ackerman

Their object in both cases was the same—murder, [cheers,] civilian outrage, and wholesale destruction of property in undefended seaside towns, and on each occasion when they caught sight of the approach of a British force they showed a clean pair of heels, and they hurried back at the top of their speed to the safe seclusion of their mine fields and their closely guarded forts.
— from New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 April-September, 1915 by Various

The tongue of a saurian is not free, but the skin may be removed from its upper surface, the flesh replaced with clay, and the skin sewed down again.
— from Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting A Complete Handbook for the Amateur Taxidermist, Collector, Osteologist, Museum-Builder, Sportsman, and Traveller by W. J. (William Jacob) Holland