She kept even Stepan Trofimovitch at a distance, allowing him to take lodgings in another house (a change for which he had long been worrying her under various pretexts).
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Thou shalt know everything," said the King's daughter; "when thou descendest the mountain on which the castle stands, a wild bull will stand below by a spring, and thou must fight with it, and if thou hast the luck to kill it, a fiery bird will spring out of it, which bears in its body a burning egg, and in the egg the crystal ball lies like a yolk.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

The theory has its attractions, but there is this difference between the primitive archaic Greek or early Italian and the modern primitive; the early men reverently clothed the abstract idea they started with in the most natural and beautiful form within their knowledge, ever seeking to discover new truths and graces from nature to enrich their work; while the modern artist, with the art treasures of all periods of the world before him, can never be in the position of these simple-minded men.
— from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed

Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty chain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under the figure-head of the John of Sunderland making a speech to the winds (as is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with a firm formality of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head; in and out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws going at timber, clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships, capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lightermen, in and out,—out at last upon the clearer river, where the ships' boys might take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled waters with them over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to the wind.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Like Uncle Tom's delusion that everybody who is known even slightly to the police is lurking in the garden, waiting for a chance to break into the house.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

And as there is a perfect relation between a song and a house which are made after a good model, because they are like this good model, though each after its kind; even so there is a perfect relation between things made after a bad model.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal

But we have known even such turn out intolerable tyrants, Syrian flute-girls and ballet-dancers, as Aristonica, and Œnanthe with her tambourine, and Agathoclea, who have lorded it over kings' diadems.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to task against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship.
— from How to Master the Spoken Word Designed as a Self-Instructor for all who would Excel in the Art of Public Speaking by Edwin Gordon Lawrence

"I know everybody," said the boastful young man, "you mustn't forget that I am a lawyer and have to meet very queer people."
— from The Angel of Terror by Edgar Wallace

“Well, madame, you know everything,” said the old woman, smiling.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

[Page 689] Edmund succeedeth Adelstane in the kingdome, the Danes of Northumberland rebell against him, a peace concluded betwene Aulafe their king and king Edmund vpon conditions, Aulafe dieth, another of that name succeedeth him; king Edmund subdueth the Danes, and compelleth them to receiue the christian faith, Reinold and Aulafe are baptised, they violate their fealtie vowed to king Edmund, they are put to perpetuall exile; why king Edmund wasted all Northumberland, caused the eies of king Dunmails sonnes to be put out, and assigned the said countrie to Malcolme king of Scots; the Scotish chroniclers error in peruerting the time & order of the English kings, king Edmunds lawes, by what misfortune he came to his end, how his death was foreshewed to Dunstane in a vision, a tale of the vertue of the crosse, Dunstane reproueth duke Elstane, his dreame, and how the interpretation thereof came to passe.
— from Holinshed Chronicles: England, Scotland, and Ireland. Volume 1, Complete by William Harrison

"Closing in fast, sir," said Tom to Strong, who had come up from below and now stood at the cadet's shoulder watching as Tom maneuvered the big ship through the Venusian atmosphere, his keen eyes sweeping the great panel of recording gauges and dials.
— from On the Trail of the Space Pirates by Carey Rockwell

We were all very much interested to hear that the Koran explicitly states that the earth is round and that together with other planets it revolves around the sun, that other solar systems are in existence in the universe, that life originally started in water.
— from Speaking of the Turks by Mufti-zada, K. Ziya, bey

Old Boss kept enough sheep to provide plenty of wool and some mighty good food.
— from Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Georgia Narratives, Part 4 by United States. Work Projects Administration

It had been known ever since the adoption of the Constitution that the instrument was faulty in not defining clearly the relative rights of the Federal Government and the separate states; but it had been found impossible to secure the assent of a sufficiently large body of citizens to any proposition that defined them clearly; and so the machine of Government had operated for nearly three-quarters of a century, with the disquieting knowledge in the minds of its operators that conditions might put it to a test that would break it down, and perhaps destroy it totally.
— from Invention: The Master-key to Progress by Bradley A. (Bradley Allen) Fiske

If you talk with them, guard well your hearts; let your conduct be irreproachable, and keep ever saying to yourselves: we who are Charmanas, residing in this world of corruption, must be like the flower of the water-lily, which, amid muddy water, contracts no stain.’
— from Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China During the years 1844-5-6. Volume 2 by Evariste Régis Huc