I was heartily sorry to find a worthy man so destitute of friends, when he had such need of them, and looked upon my own situation as less miserable than his, because I was better acquainted with the selfishness and roguery of mankind, consequently less liable to disappointment and imposition.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent, or our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm's marquee, ag'in this hour to-morrow.”
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

Let us make our selves as happy as we can; I will endeavour to 198 forget you; don't Write to me, if you love me well enough to forbear it:
— from Olinda's Adventures: or the Amours of a Young Lady by Catharine Trotter

And he went from the House of Debate, but Maev with Ailill bent low in plot: All around us our foes," said the king, "shall close, if Finnabar stays here not; Many kings of Erin, who seek that maid, shall hear of her borne away, And in wrath they will rush on our land; 'twere best that Fraech we devise to slay; Ere that ruin he bring, let us make our spring, and the ill yet unwrought arrest."
— from Heroic Romances of Ireland, Translated into English Prose and Verse — Volume 2 by Arthur Herbert Leahy

he replied; "you thought such a change possible in me?" "Because," I said, smiling, "women are the most constant creatures in the world, and not fickle like unto men, or so careful of a good complexion in others, or a fine set of features.
— from Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century by Georgiana Fullerton

Let us mingle our sighs, since we have so fatal a destiny; we cannot exhaust sighs; but yours, Princes, are uttered in behalf of an ungrateful being.
— from Psyche by Molière

Men say in Florence, while I watched her face, That I bewitched her, so her very eyes Grew in expression like unto my own, So that her hands took on my restless ways, So that her mouth hath altered in its smile
— from Florence on a Certain Night, and Other Poems by Coningsby Dawson

But let not this Observation either lessen his Merit or lift up my own; since our different Tempers were not in our Choice, but equally natural to both of us.
— from An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Volume 1 (of 2) Written by Himself. A New Edition with Notes and Supplement by Colley Cibber

But, when such symbols are dealt with as real existences, I think the highest duty which is laid upon men of science is to show that these dogmatic idols have no greater value than the fabrications of men's hands, the stocks and the stones, which they have replaced.
— from Essays Upon Some Controverted Questions by Thomas Henry Huxley