This, with the attention given to the classics, developed and quickened faculties which gave Rizal a remarkable power of assimilating knowledge of all kinds for future use.
— from Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot by Austin Craig

If he can keep free from Party-Strokes, his Work may be of Use; but this I much doubt, having been informed by one of his Friends and Confidents, that he has spoken some things of Nimrod with too great Freedom.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

When they passed a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its bars, and spoke in whispers.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

thus [pg 324] belongs to knowledge free from will.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

King Frost frowned and looked very angry at first, and his fairies trembled for fear and cowered still lower in their hiding-places; but just then two little children came dancing through the wood, and though they did not see King Frost or the fairies, they saw the beautiful colour of the leaves, and laughed with delight, and began picking great bunches to take to their mother.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

I should like to know that John was firmly established in some good business, which gave him an income large enough to keep free from debt and make Meg comfortable.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

V So pure and innocent, as that same lambe, She was in life and every vertuous lore, And by descent from Royall lynage came 40 Of ancient Kings and Queenes, that had of yore Their scepters stretcht from East to Westerne shore, And all the world in their subjection held; Till that infernall feend with foule uprore Forwasted all their land, and them expeld: 45 Whom to avenge, she had this Knight from far compeld.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

ROXANE: Ah! CYRANO (growing whiter and whiter): Saturday The nineteenth: having eaten to excess Of pear-conserve, the King felt feverish; The lancet quelled this treasonable revolt, And the august pulse beats at normal pace.
— from Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand

But the real cause, it would seem, rests upon nature, and the case is not parallel to that of creditors; because in this there is no affection to the persons, but merely a wish for their preservation with a view to the return: whereas, in point of fact, they who have done kindnesses feel friendship and love for those to whom they have done them, even though they neither are, nor can by possibility hereafter be, in a position to serve their benefactors.
— from The Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle

His kindly feeling, however, continued, and when Toeltschig was ill he brought a freshly killed fowl from which to make nourishing broth, and on another occasion, after a severe attack of sea-sickness, they all derived much benefit from some strong beer which he urged upon them.
— from The Moravians in Georgia, 1735-1740 by Adelaide L. (Adelaide Lisetta) Fries

Typhoid, rheumatic fever, and blood-poisoning are no slight matters: but they are almost worth the suffering and pain for the pleasure of receiving such kindnesses from friends, letters of sympathy, flowers, fruit, wine, jellies, all have been left at my door, and I blessed the kind donors then as I bless them in remembrance now.
— from Thirteen Years of a Busy Woman's Life by Mrs. (Ethel) Alec-Tweedie

"If I can keep Fletcher from dabbling in stocks, I shall make a good thing of this.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

He squawked, and fluttered his wings to keep from falling, but the blow came so suddenly that he had not time to save himself, and he fell flat on the ground.
— from Our Bird Comrades by Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

Some declare it was because his blood, which annually descended into the lower part of his body, was kept from flowing.
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 5, Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During The Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form By Herbert Baldwin Foster by Cassius Dio Cocceianus

The women had been there to see if they could barter their head bands with which they club their hair behind into a form not unlike a Grecian knot, for food.
— from Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 by Margaret Fuller

An enormous mouth gaped at him, and two protuberant eyes that shone like jewels gleamed in the sunlight, a brown, flat body covered with warts and excrescences of various kinds flopped feebly on the surface.
— from A Year in a Yawl A True Tale of the Adventures of Four Boys in a Thirty-foot Yawl by Russell Doubleday