The mistake is due to the understanding, which assumes that the cause of the feebler light of the moon and of all stars at the horizon is that they are further off, thus treating them as earthly objects, according to the laws of atmospheric perspective, and therefore it takes the moon to be much larger at the horizon than at the zenith, and also regards the vault of heaven as more extended or flattened out at the horizon.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that ‘The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms 13 ;’ and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms ‘For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;’ E —let us have no more lies of that sort.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

A letter without name, without address, without date, without signature, pressing and disinterested, an enigma composed of truths, a message of love made to be brought by an angel and read by a virgin, an appointment made beyond the bounds of earth, the love-letter of a phantom to a shade.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

[A; b] in carpentry, mark a line on a piece of wood by stretching a string soaked in dye or soot and letting it snap onto the wood.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

This work, too, is done by the crew, and every sailor who has been long voyages is a little of a painter, in addition to his other accomplishments.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

The ancient historians all employed one and the same method to describe and seize the apparently elusive—the life of a people.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The mind, having got the idea of the length of any part of expansion, let it be a span, or a pace, or what length you will, CAN, as has been said, repeat that idea, and so, adding it to the former, enlarge its idea of length, and make it equal to two spans, or two paces; and so, as often as it will, till it equals the distance of any parts of the earth one from another, and increase thus till it amounts to the distance of the sun or remotest star.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

His head grew to be full of these wonderful things, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and offensive straw, tired, hungry, and smarting from a thrashing, he unleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in delicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince in a regal palace.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President; and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President; and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

It will translate into the language of a private passion the smiles and frowns which that passion meets with in the world.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

It was a red-hot limb of a pine, tossed out of the gorge by the stiff wind.
— from Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West by William MacLeod Raine

Here a rude village was built on the brow of a pleasant ridge of hills, and gardens were laid out and planted.
— from The American Revolution by John Fiske

I think Dr. Copplestone, in his lectures on ancient poetry, states this, and yet one should judge otherwise, from seeing the sites of many of the Roman buildings in this country.
— from The Country House (with Designs) by Eastlake, Charles Lock, Sir

Their attire consisted of what appeared to be leather tights covering the legs, of a pale yellow tint with crimson metallic embroidery.
— from The Goddess of Atvatabar Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar by William Richard Bradshaw

No one was ever less of a prig.”
— from The Book Review Digest, Volume 13, 1917 Thirteenth Annual Cumulation Reviews of 1917 Books by Various

It lies in the middle of a field, bare, and treeless, which, although flat, is covered with masses of limestone of a peculiar form, between which the scanty soil is with difficulty cultivated.
— from Tour in England, Ireland, and France, in the years 1826, 1827, 1828 and 1829. with remarks on the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and anecdotes of distiguished public characters. In a series of letters by a German Prince. by Pückler-Muskau, Hermann, Fürst von

Thus, still and ever, he fretted about his dog, particularly if a day or two passed without the receipt of a letter or a [Pg 476] telegram respecting its condition.
— from Émile Zola, Novelist and Reformer: An Account of His Life & Work by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

Now we have in a dungeon about twenty feet distant, and to which you descend by another stair, an old abbé, formerly leader of a party in Italy, who has been here since 1811, and in 1813 he went mad, and the change is astonishing.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

8 I see the European headsman, He stands mask'd, clothed in red, with huge legs and strong naked arms, And leans on a ponderous axe.
— from The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman by Walt Whitman

It was always in the light of a Preacher that he looked upon himself; but while one of these pictured similitudes, that of the Poet-Preacher, whose parish lay in Author-Land, won Page 225
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852. by Various