45 Languages are ciphers, wherein letters are not changed into letters, but words into words, so that an unknown language is decipherable.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal

As a rule girls have better memory than boys (it might also be said that their intelligence is generally greater, so long as no continuous intellectual work, and especially the creation of one’s own ideas, is required).
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

Murray Undeceived and Avenged IMG Tontine had what is called tact and common sense, and thinking these qualities were required in our economy she behaved with great delicacy, not going to bed before receiving my letters, and never coming into my room except in a proper dress, and all this pleased me.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Then she locked herself into the room alone with him, and would not let a nurse come in, or anybody at all.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

The Latins used formerly to call to bind ligare , and now call it alligare ; wherefore the staff-bearers are called lictors , and their staves are called bacula , [11] from the rods which they then carried.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

It seemed to lead up, up like a natural causeway, into the recesses of unexplored mountains and forests.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2 by Edgar Allan Poe

A rival poet whom he had offended hung up a rod in a coffee house where men of letters resorted, and threatened to whip Pope like a naughty child if he showed his face there.
— from The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems by Alexander Pope

When this is completed they are fixed for life: their legs are now converted into prehensile organs; they again obtain a well-constructed mouth; but they have no antennae, and their two eyes are now reconverted into a minute, single, simple eye-spot.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

Japanese are in every town across China like a network closing in on fishes.
— from Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey

he that will not sing While yon sun prospers in the blue, Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

[ 96 ] [ Contents ] CHAPTER VIII Dr. Hyder Ben Raaba Like a nebular comet in a far away constellation, so mysterious in its orbit and composition, was Dr. Hyder Ben Raaba, who suddenly made his appearance in the suburbs of the cosmopolitan city of B—— on Long Island.
— from An Anglo-American Alliance: A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future by Gregory Casparian

The white globe is leathery, and nothing can injure it; and the poor beast cannot rub, bite, or scratch it off, as it is anchored to his flesh by eight sets of hooks and a triangle of teeth.
— from The Naturalist in La Plata by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

Captain Basil Hall, who spent a Christmas fortnight at Abbotsford, recorded that 'even the youngest of his nephews and nieces can joke with him, and seem at all times perfectly at ease in his presence—his coming into the room only increases the laugh and never checks it—he either joins in what is going on, or passes.'
— from The Country of Sir Walter Scott by Charles S. (Charles Sumner) Olcott

Again, a lightship, although not costly in the first instance, is somewhat expensive to maintain.
— from Lightships and Lighthouses by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

So I sat behind a desk many hours in the day, ostensibly engaged in transcribing documents of various kinds; the scene of my labours was a strange old house, occupying one side of a long and narrow court, into which, however, the greater number of the windows looked not, but into an extensive garden, filled with fruit trees, in the rear of a large, handsome house, belonging to a highly respectable gentleman, who, moyennant un douceur considerable, had consented to instruct my father’s youngest son in the mysteries of glorious English law.
— from Lavengro: The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest by George Borrow

The Rājpūt warriors formerly wore their hair long and never cut it, but trained it in locks over their shoulders.
— from The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 4 by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell

[Pg 505] the first comb is finished, the continuation of the roof or walls of the building is brought down lower; a new comb is erected; and thus the work successively proceeds until the whole is finished.
— from An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. 1 or Elements of the Natural History of the Insects by William Kirby

but, like all negative criticism, it is somewhat unconvincing.
— from A History of Spanish Literature by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

Rage was utterly ungovernable in those days, and she actually was flying to attack Dennet with her nails when the alderman caught her by the wrists; and she would have been almost too much for him, had not Kit Smallbones come to his assistance, and carried her, kicking and screaming like a naughty child, into the house.
— from The Armourer's Prentices by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

[Pg 388] The Liquor act not coming in force under sixty days from its passage, a few individuals (having clandestinely prepared, before its passage) improved this favored moment to dispose of all they could with any hopes of safety.
— from A History of Oregon, 1792-1849 Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic Information by W. H. (William Henry) Gray