I pretend not to understand (I don't know, however, why I pretend, just for effect, perhaps).
— from Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever; / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

As they stand in the vestibule, John Jenkins fumbles earnestly in his vest-pocket.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

Whence comes justice, faith, equity?
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

There was at Faverolles, not far from the Valjean thatched cottage, on the other side of the lane, a farmer’s wife named Marie-Claude; the Valjean children, habitually famished, sometimes went to borrow from Marie-Claude a pint of milk, in their mother’s name, which they drank behind a hedge or in some alley corner, snatching the jug from each other so hastily that the little girls spilled it on their aprons and down their necks.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

And so the government of the Hebrews was changed into a regal government; for in the days of Moses, and his disciple Joshua, who was their general, they continued under an aristocracy; but after the death of Joshua, for eighteen years in all, the multitude had no settled form of government, but were in an anarchy; after which they returned to their former government, they then permitting themselves to be judged by him who appeared to be the best warrior and most courageous, whence it was that they called this interval of their government the Judges. 5.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

[Christiane Jadelot FR EN / Gérard Jean-François FR / Jean-Paul FR EN* / Anne-Bénédicte Joly FR]
— from Entretiens / Interviews / Entrevistas by Marie Lebert

Vulg. — Manzanitas , Sp.-Fil.; Jujube Fruit , Eng. Uses.
— from The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines by T. H. (Trinidad Hermenegildo) Pardo de Tavera

They observed, that many distillers had already quitted that branch of trade and disposed of their materials; that all of them would probably take the same resolutions should the bill pass into a law, as no man could foresee when the prohibition would cease, should it be continued at a time when all sorts of grain abounded in such plenty, that the very waste of materials by disuse, over and above the lying out of the money, would be of great prejudice to the proprietor: thus the business of distilling, by which so many families were supported, would be banished from the kingdom entirely; especially, as the expense of establishing a large distillery was so great, that no man would choose to employ his money for this purpose, judging from experience that some future accidental scarcity of corn might induce the legislature to interpose a ruinous delay in this branch of business.
— from The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of George II. by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Stowe John Esten Cooke Louisa M Alcott Henry D Thoreau Francis Parkman Bret Harte George W. Cable Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman William Dean Howells Mark Twain Joel Chandler Harris Edmund Clarence Stedman Thomas Bailey Aldrich Joaquin Miller John Fiske Edward Everett Hale OUTLINES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE CHAPTER
— from Outlines of English and American Literature An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived by William J. (William Joseph) Long

He has just finished editing Johnston, for which he is to have 100 guineas, and we have both encouragement to think that our books just coming out, "Sea-side Studies" and "Scenes of Clerical Life," will be well received.
— from George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 1 (of 3) by George Eliot

"I remember a line of poetry—'a thing of beauty is a joy for ever.'
— from The Honour of the Flag by William Clark Russell

If Jorullo, for example, in 1759, had risen from a shallow sea to the height of 1600 feet, instead of attaining that elevation above the Mexican plateau, the massive current of basaltic lava which poured out from its crater would have enabled it to withstand, for a long period, the action of a turbulent sea.
— from Principles of Geology or, The Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants Considered as Illustrative of Geology by Lyell, Charles, Sir

He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and what he had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do.
— from Going into Society by Charles Dickens

The handmaids of God must rise to such a station that they will, by themselves and unaided, comprehend these inner meanings, and be able to expound at full length every single word; a station where, out of the truth of their inmost hearts, a spring of wisdom will well up, and jet forth even as a fountain that leapeth from its own original source.
— from Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá by `Abdu'l-Bahá

Here Jesus found everywhere sheep and oxen brought there for sale; cages full of doves, which were sold to the poorer people for offerings upon the altar; counters where sat men changing the money of people from other lands into the coins of Judea.
— from Hurlbut's Life of Christ For Young and Old A Complete Life of Christ Written in Simple Language, Based on the Gospel Narrative by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut