But what of those who wrote about these things? What of those who gave them reality, and made them live for ever? Are they not greater than the men and women they sing of? ‘Hector that sweet knight is dead,’ and Lucian tells us how in the dim under-world Menippus saw the bleaching skull of Helen, and marvelled that it was for so grim a favour that all those horned ships were launched, those beautiful mailed men laid low, those towered cities brought to dust.
— from Intentions by Oscar Wilde

It constantly brings back the members of the community to a common level, from which they as constantly escape: and the inequality of fortunes augments in proportion as knowledge is diffused and liberty increased.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

To thy thinking she is a most loathsome creature; and as when a country fellow discommended once that exquisite picture of Helen, made by Zeuxis, [5406] for he saw no such beauty in it; Nichomachus a lovesick spectator replied, Sume tibi meos oculos et deam existimabis , take mine eyes, and thou wilt think she is a goddess, dote on her forthwith, count all her vices virtues; her imperfections infirmities, absolute and perfect: if she be flat-nosed, she is lovely; if hook-nosed, kingly; if dwarfish and little, pretty; if tall, proper and man-like, our brave British Boadicea; if crooked, wise; if monstrous, comely; her defects are no defects at all, she hath no deformities.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Ormsby kept it dark as long as he could, but Herresford forced his hand.
— from The Scarlet Feather by Houghton Townley

One notes a touch of subtlety, an understanding of one's thoughts, a keen intelligence——" Don Arturo laughed and Mrs. Austin waved her fan.
— from Kit Musgrave's Luck by Harold Bindloss

Mr. Max Phillips brought a tape recorder into my home and as you know I do a lot of talking.
— from Warren Commission (01 of 26): Hearings Vol. I (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

[210] “Margaret told me that horse-radish would grow if you kept it damp and let it sprout, so I’ve got several pieces started for our gardens.”
— from Ethel Morton at Sweetbrier Lodge by Mabell S. C. (Mabell Shippie Clarke) Smith

An’ kin I do a little sleuthin’ on my own?”
— from Raspberry Jam by Carolyn Wells

"Halt!" said the officer, whom John judged to be a Saxon—he had seen his kind in Dresden and Leipsic.
— from The Hosts of the Air by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler

I recalled my morning's visit to Whittier at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, a little more than a year ago, when he led me to one of his favorites, an aspiring evergreen which shot up like a flame.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes

And when I knocked it doon at last it was for twenty-five hundred dollars —five hundred poonds!
— from Between You and Me by Lauder, Harry, Sir

But, strangely enough, when I saw the big tower of Holloway, that looked quite different from anything else, and which brought back the inevitable picture of the women that go in, are kept in durance, and let out again to a life more horribly unnatural, I felt my legs begin to shake, and by the time I was shown in to the Governor, who kindly saw me, it was all I could do to walk upstairs.
— from Prisons & Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences by Lytton, Constance, Lady

"You know I draw a little.
— from Pencil Sketches; or, Outlines of Character and Manners by Eliza Leslie