Men who live in ages of equality have a great deal of curiosity and very little leisure; their life is so practical, so confused, so excited, so active, that but little time remains to them for thought.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

The Clatsops proceeded on with their lodes—The Clatsops, Chin nooks Kil a mox &c. are verry loquacious and inquisitive; they possess good memories and have repeeted to us the names capasities of the Vessels &c of maney traders and others who have visited the mouth of this river; they are generally low in Statue, proportionably Small, reather lighter complected and much more illy formed than the Indians of the Missouri and those of our fronteers; they are generally Chearfull but never gay.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

Who does not see that I have taken a road, in which, incessantly and without labour, I shall proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world?
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

‘The labour is so pleasant,’ she returned, ‘that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name.’
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Why should we lose it?” said Pyotr Stepanovitch, lifting the lantern to his face.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Lady Glyde (being no longer in Sir Percival's service, I may, without impropriety, mention my former mistress by her name, instead of calling her my lady) was the first to come in from her own bedroom.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

"Yeah, a little, I suppose," Pop said.
— from The Night of the Long Knives by Fritz Leiber

We think that we alone are the life of the circle in which we move; in our absence, we fancy that life, existence, breath will come to a general pause, and, alas, the gap which we leave is scarcely perceptible, so quickly is it filled again; nay, it is often the place, if not of something better, at least for something more agreeable.
— from Book of Wise Sayings Selected Largely from Eastern Sources by W. A. (William Alexander) Clouston

—There was of course a wide difference between the lot of the ill-fed lazar who lodged in some poor spital dependent upon the chance alms of passers-by, and that of the occupant of a well-endowed institution.
— from The Mediæval Hospitals of England by Rotha Mary Clay

It was cruel, she said, to keep her so long in suspense: pray, she petitioned, put her out of her misery now that she was prepared.
— from The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History by Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume

The lady is so precious snowy and so precious stiff you would not believe ice would melt in her mouth.
— from Starvecrow Farm by Stanley John Weyman