The knowledge of causes only concerns him who has the conduct of things; not us, who are merely to undergo them, and who have perfectly full and accomplished use of them, according to our need, without penetrating into the original and essence; wine is none the more pleasant to him who knows its first faculties.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Agamemnon led them on, and slew first Bienor, a leader of his people, and afterwards his comrade and charioteer Oileus, who sprang from his chariot and was coming full towards him; but Agamemnon struck him on the forehead with his spear; his bronze visor was of no avail against the weapon, which pierced both bronze and bone, so that his brains were battered in and he was killed in full fight.
— from The Iliad by Homer

Tables are overturned; golden benches ripped from their fastenings; the whole building quakes, and only its iron bands keep it from falling to pieces.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

We must, therefore, seek for some other circumstance, that may give rise to property after society is once established; and of this kind, I find four most considerable, viz.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

Exempted be from me the arrogance To choose from forth the royal blood of France, My low and humble name to propagate With any branch or image of thy state; But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

[A; b5] 1 put a piece of wood s.w. to inhibit motion, either by propping s.t. under it and keeping it from falling or by laying it in the way and stopping it from proceeding.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.
— from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

gúnit v 1 [A2S3S; b] hold on to s.t. to keep it from falling.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

I gently pushed her back on her low long easy chair, and kneeling in front, first thrust my head between her thighs, and taking a glance at her beautifully haired cunt, already all moist and juicy, showing that she was as ready as myself, I gamahuched her until she spent in my mouth, and sucked the delicious liquid most greedily.
— from The Romance of Lust: A classic Victorian erotic novel by Anonymous

‘Oh, no! Pray let me keep it for father till he comes back!
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Those who did not know it from first-hand facts believed it on the general notoriety of the man.
— from The Bondboy by George W. (George Washington) Ogden

There were more sere than green leaves in the rose labyrinth, but one side of the arbor was covered by a thrifty micra phylia that had been known to keep its foliage from Autumn to Spring when the winter was not severe, and which had put forth, within a week, a few large milk-white roses, warmed into delicious fragrance by the sunny day.
— from Jessamine: A Novel by Marion Harland

Keep it for fun, and stick to what you're at.
— from Dauber: A Poem by John Masefield

Again, a little attention to the facts here brought together will show that the proportion of illusory to real knowledge is far from being the same in each class of immediate or quasi-immediate cognition.
— from Illusions: A Psychological Study by James Sully

“I heard,” began uncle Godfrey, “some boys, who shall be nameless, grumbling this morning at being kept inside, for fear of catching cold on such a raw day, and my thoughts instantly turned to a day similar to this, and how I then prayed to be under the shelter of some friendly roof; and I also thought how thankful every one ought to be who is able to sit at a warm fire, when it freezes hard, or when the snow is covering the earth by inches every hour.
— from Happy Days for Boys and Girls by Various

His men carried fifteen parts of cans of Dupont powder up the margin of the lake from camp and blew it up, for three purposes: First, To keep it from falling into the hand of the exasperated Indian raiders when they returned and found their chief dead, and most of their women and children captives.
— from The Border and the Buffalo: An Untold Story of the Southwest Plains The Bloody Border of Missouri and Kansas. The Story of the Slaughter of the Buffalo. Westward among the Big Game and Wild Tribes. A Story of Mountain and Plain by John R. Cook

These two loves cannot be kept in fetters, for it is according to divine providence that everyone is allowed to act in freedom in accordance with reason, as may be seen above (nn. 71-97); and apart from permissions man cannot be led from evil by the Lord and consequently cannot be reformed and saved.
— from Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence by Emanuel Swedenborg

Godfrey paused, breathless, with one arm round a horizontal branch to rest himself a little and listen; but all was still, and, untying the rope from about his waist, he passed it round the tree, a comparatively easy task now, for, embracing the trunk, his hands touched, and directly after he was hauling upon the rope, had drawn it tight, so tight that it was pretty well horizontal, when, passing it round the trunk again, he knotted it firmly, forming a spider line ready for him to creep along to his sanctuary in the roof.
— from The New Forest Spy by George Manville Fenn

[Pg 12] Merely as a specimen of this line of service, let me lift the curtain and introduce you to the inner life of one of these heroes as I knew it for fifty years or more.
— from The Heroic Women of Early Indiana Methodism: An Address Delivered Before the Indiana Methodist Historical Society by T. A. (Thomas Aiken) Goodwin