It is seldom that minds long exercised in business have formed the habits of conversing with themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the want of occupation.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

the forests of Luzon, especially in Batangas.
— from The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines by T. H. (Trinidad Hermenegildo) Pardo de Tavera

I have not yet said, if after long expectation, much expense, travel, earnest suit of ourselves and friends, we obtain a small benefice at last; our misery begins afresh, we are suddenly encountered with the flesh, world, and devil, with a new onset; we change a quiet life for an ocean of troubles, we come to a ruinous house, which before it be habitable, must be necessarily to our great damage repaired; we are compelled to sue for dilapidations, or else sued ourselves, and scarce yet settled, we are called upon for our predecessor's arrearages; first-fruits, tenths, subsidies, are instantly to be paid, benevolence, procurations, &c., and which is most to be feared, we light upon a cracked title, as it befell Clenard of Brabant, for his rectory, and charge of his Beginae ; he was no sooner inducted, but instantly sued, cepimusque [2087] (saith he) strenue litigare, et implacabili bello confligere : at length after ten years' suit, as long as Troy's siege, when he had tired himself, and spent his money, he was fain to leave all for quietness' sake, and give it up to his adversary.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

[page 157] In divers habits, yet are still one kinde, So doth, so is Religion; and this blind- nesse too much light breeds; but unmoved thou 70 Of force must one, and forc'd but one allow; And the right; aske thy father which is shee, Let him aske his; though truth and falshood bee Neare twins, yet truth a little elder is; Be busie to seeke her, beleeve mee this, 75 Hee's not of none, nor worst, that seekes the best.
— from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts by John Donne

The Lacedaemonians, entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine and no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could give them life and memory.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Law being purely the declaration of the general will, it is clear that, in the exercise of the legislative power, the people cannot be represented; but in that of the executive power, which is only the force that is applied to give the law effect, it both can and should be represented.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(This was the latest epithet invented by M'liss, who was a very dark brunette, to express Clytemnestra.)
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

I had likewise for a friend Madam de Crequi, who, having become devout, no longer received D’Alembert, Marmontel, nor a single man of letters, except, I believe the Abbe Trublet, half a hypocrite, of whom she was weary.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If, during his sojourn at Llanfeare, either immediately before the old squire's death or after it, but before the funeral, he had been enabled to lay his hand upon the will and destroy it, what hope would there be of evidence of such guilt?
— from Cousin Henry by Anthony Trollope

It was a religion to him that a landed estate in Britain should go from father to eldest son, and in default of a son to the first male heir.
— from Cousin Henry by Anthony Trollope

Facts against which he had before closed his eyes he allows and confronts, and he sees that his own little experience is but the reflection of a law.
— from Essays in Literature and History by James Anthony Froude

19 Bricklayers and labourers employed in building a store-house and huts at Rose-Hill.
— from An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island by John Hunter

Girondins or Girondists , a party of moderate republican opinions in the French Revolution; "men," says Carlyle, "of fervid constitutional principles, of quick talent, irrefragable logic, clear respectability, who would have the reign of liberty establish itself, but only by respectable methods."
— from The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by P. Austin Nuttall

Thus, in addition to the extra labor entailed in breaking into one of the hardest of rocks, quartz, the madre de oro ("mother of gold") of the Spaniards, there is the additional labour required to pulverise the rock so as to set free the tiniest particles of the noble metal it so jealously guards.
— from Getting Gold: A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners and Students by J. C. F. (Joseph Colin Francis) Johnson