I respect old age, but I don’t much like it boiled or roasted.”
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Ill-governed communities may be more intelligent than well-governed ones, when people feel the motive and partial advantage underlying the abuses they tolerate (as happens where slavery or nepotism is prevalent), but when on the other hand no reason is perceived for the good laws which are established (as when law is based on revelation).
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Of all the partialities we Irish have, after lush and the ladies, I believe our ruling passion is to build a big house, spend every shilling we have, or that we have not, as the case may be, in getting it half finished, and then live in a corner of it, “just for grandeur,” as a body may say.
— from Jack Hinton: The Guardsman by Charles James Lever

In her bewilderment she took the bold step of calling at the Hotel de Ville, gave her name and nationality, and asked the advice of the municipal employé who saw her as to what course she and her mother had better pursue: leave Tervueren and seek a lodging in Brussels; or retreat as far as Ghent or Bruges or even Holland?
— from Mrs. Warren's Daughter: A Story of the Woman's Movement by Harry Johnston

The minister looked interested, but only remarked: "I fear no personal harm, the only fear I have is that I may not be able to do them as much good as others of more experience could.
— from To and Through Nebraska by Frances I. Sims Fulton

A mellow sandy loam is best; or rather that soil is best which will grow them the quickest.
— from Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming by Henry Ward Beecher

The whole of the history of Philosophy becomes a battlefield covered with the bones of the dead; it is a kingdom not merely formed of dead and lifeless individuals, but of refuted and spiritually dead systems, since each has killed and buried the other.
— from Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 1 (of 3) by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The legs and arms of nearly all were bare from the knees and elbows downward, though a few had swathed their limbs in bands of rough woollen cloth, while others used straw for this purpose.
— from Erling the Bold by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

Mrs. Vivian had been a little taken aback by the new Lorraine who returned from Italy; and not a little afraid before the calm, inscrutable eyes; so that she had secretly rejoiced at the arrangement which gave her a separate establishment of her own; but none the less, in bursts of righteous indignation supposed to emanate from her outraged feelings as a mother, she usually chose to make it her pet grievance.
— from Winding Paths by Gertrude Page

Let it be our rule to combine gaiety with gravity and we will acquire a saving sense of proportion.
— from Principles of Freedom by Terence J. (Terence Joseph) MacSwiney