Once, when his royal ‘sister,’ the grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with him against the wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people who would otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned, and reminded him that their august late father’s prisons had sometimes contained as high as sixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his admirable reign he had delivered seventy-two thousand thieves and robbers over to death by the executioner, {9} the boy was filled with generous indignation, and commanded her to go to her closet, and beseech God to take away the stone that was in her breast, and give her a human heart.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

The defendant’s argument was that the dagger was used to represent the Zamindar bridegroom as he did not attend in person, and that, by his non-attendance, there could have been no joining of hands, or other essential for constituting a valid marriage.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

She reassured herself by a remembrance that the path was public, and that the traveller was probably some villager returning home; regretting, at the same time, that the meeting should be about to occur in the darkest point of her route, even though only just outside her own door.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Sui juris —Of his own right.
— 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.

She becomes the judge of her own judges, she decides when she should obey and when she should refuse her obedience.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I see plainly that she is uneasy at my progress in the good opinion of her brother, and conclude that nothing will be wanting on her part to counteract me; but having once made him doubt the justice of her opinion of me, I think I may defy her.
— from Lady Susan by Jane Austen

My conscience smote me for this unguarded expression: I felt that the Lord was able to disappoint me in all things, and immediately considered my present situation as a judgment of Heaven on account of my presumption in swearing: I therefore, with contrition of heart, acknowledged my transgression to God, and poured out my soul before him with unfeigned repentance, and with earnest supplications I besought him not to abandon me in my distress, nor cast me from his mercy for ever.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

The usual disturbance ensued, the usual assistance was summoned, and Sophia at last, as it is usual, returned again to life, and was soon after, at her earnest desire, led to her own apartment; where, at my lord's request, Lady Bellaston acquainted her with the truth, attempted to carry it off as a jest of her own, and comforted her with repeated assurances, that neither his lordship nor Tom, though she had taught him the story, were in the true secret of the affair.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Thou art (without a figure) just one half of an ass, and Baldwin yonder, thy half-brother, is the rest.
— from The Way of the World by William Congreve

An aim that carries in it the least element of doubt as to its justice or honor or right should be abandoned at once.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

Who amongst us cannot remember the intense bliss of our nursery cupboard, the delicious joy of having one place all our own, where we could hoard unchecked those thousand and one trifles that no drawing-room could be expected to give house-room to—where even nurse did not interfere, because our rubbish (rubbish, indeed!) kept us so delightfully quiet?
— from From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for young householders by J. E. (Jane Ellen) Panton

[307] He chuckled, as at some occult joke of his own.
— from The Invader: A Novel by Margaret L. (Margaret Louisa) Woods

Sydney Smith is probably reporting the current judgment of his own circle when he says [469] that in metaphysics Stewart was a 'humbug' compared with Brown.
— from The English Utilitarians, Volume 2 (of 3) James Mill by Leslie Stephen

I accordingly called on Graham; he talked incessantly de omnibus rebus , but never alluded to Lord John or himself, or India, or to what I had before said to him.
— from The Greville Memoirs, Part 2 (of 3), Volume 3 (of 3) A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 by Charles Greville

If a hostile man is in his way and if the square beyond the hostile man is vacant, he must capture him by jumping over him on to the vacant square, and he must continue capturing from the square on which he lands as long as this is possible according to the above rule.
— from Chess and Checkers : the Way to Mastership by Edward Lasker

The whole garden was scented with their fragrance, and Violet thought them the prettiest flowers in the world, as well as the sweetest, and wished in her heart that she could, just once, have one of these whole bunches for her own.
— from Violet: A Fairy Story by C. S. (Caroline Snowden) Guild

When a savage goes to war we must not picture his wife on her knees at home praying for the absent; instead we must picture her dancing the whole night long; not for mere joy of heart or to pass the weary hours; she is dancing his war-dance to bring him victory.
— from Darwin and Modern Science by A. C. (Albert Charles) Seward

Not, however, that this is the only bond of fellowship upon which such confraternities were built; sometimes, indeed generally, the members were united, as we have already said, in the worship of some deity; they were cultores Jovis , or Herculis , or Apollinis et Diana ; sometimes they merely took the title of some deceased benefactor whose memory they desired to honor; e. g. cultores statuarum et clipeorum
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 01, April to September, 1865 A Monthly Eclectic Magazine by Various

His face was fresh-coloured and healthy, and, though he had not put on so much flesh as a man of sedentary ways who has reached the age of sixty-two might expect to carry, his main reason for retiring had been the long journeys on horseback over frightful roads, which a judge’s duties forced him to take.
— from Flemington by Violet Jacob