All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

The two strangers were all this time looking on, and did not know what to say for wonder.
— from Grimms' Fairy Tales by Wilhelm Grimm

If I have got to drag my trap, I will take care that it be a light one and do not nip me in a vital part.
— from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the carriage.
— from Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker

En Europa los efectos de la operación a descubierto no recaen sobre el comerciante vendedor.
— from Heath's Modern Language Series: The Spanish American Reader by Ernesto Nelson

She, last of all.’ ‘Dear Nicholas!’ ‘Last of all; never, though never is a long day.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

i' the forenoon when the rain was fallin'; there's no likelihoods of a drop now; an' the moon lies like a boat there, dost see?
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

There was a M. Thomines Desmazures who went as far as the door of the Great Hall of the Mairie, halted, looked inside, looked outside, and did not enter.
— from The History of a Crime The Testimony of an Eye-Witness by Victor Hugo

The language of Anderson does not, however, admit of a shadow of a doubt.
— from The Principles of Masonic Law A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages and Landmarks of Freemasonry by Albert Gallatin Mackey

“There was her statement, Watson, and to me, as you can imagine, it was like a light on a dark night.
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The mine yields a lean ore, and did not pay when worked by white labor costing $2 to $2.50 per day.
— from Round the World by Andrew Carnegie

As he knelt behind the fallen tree, to make his aim sure, he descried a queer object going through the limbs of a large oak, and did not identify it, until it lodged fast, as his friend Billy Wiggins.
— from The Jungle Fugitives: A Tale of Life and Adventure in India Including also Many Stories of American Adventure, Enterprise and Daring by Edward Sylvester Ellis

But a more notable Covenanter than any of these local leaders was Lord Macnaghten, one of the most illustrious of English Judges, whose great position as Lord of Appeal did not deter him from wholly identifying himself with his native Ulster, by accepting the full responsibility of the signatories of the Covenant.
— from Ulster's Stand For Union by Ronald McNeill

It is also said that they nagged and threw stones at each other all through the day, and for very rage would eat nothing but thistles, uncooked and with the prickles left on, and drink nothing but cold vinegar for the rest of their wretched lives.
— from Bill the Minder by W. Heath (William Heath) Robinson

When the good people of Chateau, there below, saw those lights on a dark night moving to and fro on the long marsh, gleaming fitfully, like fireflies, they crossed themselves, the simpletons, and muttered, 'will-o'-the-wisps,' 'devil's fire,' 'sorcerers!'
— from Jean Baptiste: A Story of French Canada by James Edward Le Rossignol

The imperial power had a later origin, and did not exist until near the time of Livy himself.
— from Notes on the New Testament, Explanatory and Practical: Revelation by Albert Barnes

The Democratic candidate in his letter of acceptance did not seek to resolve the mystery of the platform, but left the question just as he found it in the resolutions of the convention.
— from Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860 by James Gillespie Blaine

Only, the Little Russian lives on and does not feel melancholy.
— from Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade by Maksim Gorky