After some time spent in peeping, grinning, and chattering, he at last espied me; and reaching one of his paws in at the door, as a cat does when she plays with a mouse, although I often shifted place to avoid him, he at length seized the lappet of my coat (which being made of that country silk, was very thick and strong), and dragged me out.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

She could not persuade him to tell her about his little excursion, much as she wished to.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

but I call innocent music that which thinks only of itself and believes only in itself, and which on account of itself has forgotten the world at large—this spontaneous expression of the most profound solitude which speaks of itself and with itself, and has entirely forgotten that there are listeners, effects, misunderstandings and failures in the world outside.
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Raleigh's Milton; Trent's John Milton; Corson's Introduction to Milton; Brooke's Milton, in Student's Library; Macaulay's Milton; Lowell's Essays, in Among My Books, and in Latest Literary Essays; M. Arnold's Essay, in Essays in Criticism; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and Anglican.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

In private life every man, at least every family, was the judge and avenger of his own cause.
— 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

That this cultus was quite general in pre-Buddhistic Japan, as in many other ancient countries, is certain from the proofs of language, literature, external monuments and relics which are sufficiently numerous.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis

Now he wanders about, uttering violent cries and veritable howls; now he lies extended, motionless and lamenting, upon the ground.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

mẽcadã tare ne fece dire el re poy cheL re deſpagia voleua eſere ſuo amicho lui era contentiſſimo de eſſer ſuo et diſſe pigliaſſemo hacqua et legnia et merchadantaſemo a nr̃o piacere
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

O for all that, I am yet of you unseen this hour with irrepressible love, Walking New England, a friend, a traveler, Splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples on Paumanok's sands, Crossing the prairies, dwelling again in Chicago, dwelling in every town, Observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts, Listening to orators and oratresses in public halls, Of and through the States as during life, each man and woman my neighbor, The Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her, The Mississippian and Arkansian yet with me, and I yet with any of them, Yet upon the plains west of the spinal river, yet in my house of adobie, Yet returning eastward, yet in the Seaside State or in Maryland, Yet Kanadian cheerily braving the winter, the snow and ice welcome to me, Yet a true son either of Maine or of the Granite State, or the Narragansett Bay State, or the Empire State, Yet sailing to other shores to annex the same, yet welcoming every new brother, Hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour they unite with the old ones, Coming among the new ones myself to be their companion and equal, coming personally to you now, Enjoining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me.
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

XIII To return, however, to Plato: how grand he can be with all that gentle and noiseless flow of eloquence you will be reminded by this characteristic passage, which you have read in his Republic : “They, therefore, who have no knowledge of wisdom and virtue, whose lives are passed in feasting and similar joys, are borne downwards, as is but natural, and in this region they wander all their lives; but they never lifted up their eyes nor were borne upwards to the true world above, nor ever tasted of pleasure abiding and unalloyed; but like beasts they ever look downwards, and their heads are bent to the ground, or rather to the table; they feed full their bellies and their lusts, and longing ever more and more for such things they kick and gore one another 29 with horns and hoofs of iron, and slay one another in their insatiable desires.”
— from On the Sublime by active 1st century Longinus

The real misery only begins when you are so exhausted that a little exertion makes a feeling of faintness come on.
— from Charles Darwin: His Life Told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a Selected Series of His Published Letters by Charles Darwin

We recollect it well, not so many years ago, lit up for one of those great solemnities which novelists call “a rout,” but which people in real life, equally martially as well as metaphorically, designate “a drum.”
— from General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the Locusts by G. J. (George John) Whyte-Melville

With intense interest and no little excitement Max and Lulu watched and listened to all that followed,—the rapid movements of column, line, and battery, the flash of sabres, the belching of flame and smoke, accompanied by the thundering roar of the great guns, the stirring bugle blasts, the rearing of the horses when brought to a sudden halt.
— from Elsie Yachting with the Raymonds by Martha Finley

"I left England, Mr. Austin, within three days of getting my daughter's letter, and have ever since been in a state of distressing uncertainty.
— from For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

All that night the whole crew were on deck obeying the captain's orders, for it was as much as they could do to manage the ship, at war with all the elements; besides, as she rode forecastle in, she had shipped several seas, so that, deeply-laden as she was, she wallowed heavily about, and looked every moment as if she were ready to founder.
— from The Pobratim: A Slav Novel by P. Jones

It was a long eight miles, and his nag was by no means fresh after his tremendous exertions.
— from The Gold Kloof by H. A. (Henry Anderson) Bryden

Still I am not as happy & content as I thought I should be if I could only know my words reached you & were welcome to you,—but restless, anxious, impatient, looking so wistfully towards the letters each morning—above all, longing, longing so for you to come—to come & see if you feel happy beside me: no more this painful struggle to put myself into words, but to let what I am & all my life speak to you.
— from The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman by Walt Whitman