But the outer wall of La Force formed a crenellated and unequal line; it mounted and descended, it dropped at the firemen’s barracks, it rose towards the bath-house, it was cut in twain by buildings, it was not even of the same height on the Hotel Lamoignon as on the Rue Pavée; everywhere occurred falls and right angles; and then, the sentinels must have espied the dark form of the fugitive; hence, the route taken by Thénardier still remains rather inexplicable.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs Incipient motions are diffused.
— from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus

y no me causaban asombro, sino cólera, las innumerables monstruosidades artísticas de que está 20 llena la catedral.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós

Xenarchus, whose lectures I myself attended, did not long remain at home, but taught philosophy at Alexandreia, Athens, and Rome.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

"You'd never let it make any difference—but then you're fond of criminals, Gerty!
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

You see, they must have instruction in God’s word, and also lessons in music and dancing; and not for love or money can these things be procured in the country.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

To listen to most of his biographers one would suppose that all Spain was in league not only against the man but against his memory, or at least that it was insensible to his merits, and left him to live in misery and die of want.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

But if I do stand, I do intend to give her L50 in money, and do them all the good
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

He told me that, if I liked, he would come to live in Moscow and devote his life and his work to our family.
— from Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916 by Olga Metchnikoff

The language is majestic and dignified, the ideas lofty, and the characters drawn with vigour and precision.
— from Allan Ramsay by William Henry Oliphant Smeaton

He was so curiously careless of his writings that he never troubled to print or even to keep copies of them, and a remark which he let fall during his last illness goes to show his artistic dissatisfaction:—"Just as I was beginning to know something of the first letters in my alphabet does God call me to Himself: His will be done!"
— from A History of Spanish Literature by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

As far as I can see, I am well satisfied with my place; but I took a general look around, and, as far as I can see, all the boys left in M—— are doing well, especially myself, and I think there is as much fun as in New York, for nuts and apples are all free.
— from Julius, the Street Boy; or, Out West by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

Other churches indulge in the same amusement, so that one may come here and live in melody all day or night, like the young woman in Moore's "Lalla Rookh.
— from Little Travels and Roadside Sketches by William Makepeace Thackeray

At last I made a desperate dash and got out, ‘Things are looking very green out of doors, Miss Almira.’
— from Legends of Florence: Collected from the People, First Series by Charles Godfrey Leland

We are familiar with the fact, and familiar with the doctrine formulated out of it, that there may be men of strong and noble lives and great leaders in many a department of human activity without any reference to the Unseen.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers by Alexander Maclaren

Before birth, a child cannot complain either by himself or another, in such way as to set the law in motion; after death he is in like manner powerless to make himself felt by society, except in so far as he can do so by acts done before the breath has left his body.
— from Life and Habit by Samuel Butler