Their psychology was not merely a cathartic, but a gospel.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Which troubled me much, and Creed by and by comes, and after dinner he did, but in the most cunning ingenious manner, do his business with Creed by bringing it in by the by, that the most subtile man in the world could never have done it better, and I must say that he is a most witty, cunning man and one that I (am) most afeard of in my conversation, though in all serious matters of business the eeriest foole that ever I met with.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Or as some lazy ass that has had many a cudgel broken about his back, when he into a field begins eating the corn—boys beat him
— from The Iliad by Homer

I will go and work for money, and come back and have another fight with fate.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

But Kraka was more vexed by her own carelessness than weighed down by her son's ill-fortune: for in old time it made a craftsman bitterly ashamed to be outwitted by his own cleverness.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

This over, Sir Matthew Pupker went on to say what must be his feelings on that great occasion, and what must be that occasion in the eyes of the world, and what must be the intelligence of his fellow-countrymen before him, and what must be the wealth and respectability of his honourable friends behind him, and lastly, what must be the importance to the wealth, the happiness, the comfort, the liberty, the very existence of a free and great people, of such an Institution as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company!
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Nothing has been written on this topic which can be considered as decisive—and accordingly we find every where men of mechanical genius, of great general acuteness, and discriminative understanding, who make no scruple in pronouncing the Automaton a pure machine, unconnected with human agency in its movements, and consequently, beyond all comparison, the most astonishing of the inventions of mankind.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

A man of youngish middle age, city born and raised, had been to school, had travel'd in Europe and California.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

With expressions of grateful pleasure, the poor woman moved to get me a chair; but, as I saved her the trouble, she busied herself with stirring the fire, and adding a few more sticks to the decaying embers; and then, taking her well-used Bible from the shelf, dusted it carefully, and gave it me.
— from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

So I said it wouldn’t be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn’t go back on her promise.
— from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The psychology of imitation is difficult of analysis, but it is remarkable as well as suggestive that it should be confined in its manifestations to monkeys and certain birds among animals, and to the lower mental levels among men.
— from Animal Intelligence The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV. by George John Romanes

As the word gentleman on this side of the Atlantic conveys no idea of either high birth or high breeding, nor even of a clean shirt, or a whole coat, my friend demanded what kind of a gentleman,—as, like a sensible man as he was, he did not wish to be interrupted in the pleasant occupation of discussing his wine and listening to my agreeable conversation, by a gentleman who possibly might ask him if he wished to buy any eggs, as many [pg 33] species of the genus gentleman on this side of the herring pond might possibly deem a good and sufficient reason for intruding on his privacy.
— from Recollections of the War of 1812 by William Dunlop

Unite now all created spirits and persons to this externation of the typical cause, by a principle of which we shall speak in the next article; unite their nature to his nature, their intelligence to his intelligence, their will to his will, their life to his life, their bliss to his bliss; and we shall have one universal society, partaking of the nature, the intelligence, the will, the life, the bliss, of the Theanthropos; and thus not only united with each other, and meeting each other in one common medium and centre, but also presenting a divine society whose bond of union is the intelligence, will, life, bliss, of the Theanthropos communicated to them all; and through him and by him ushered into the eternal society of the Trinity.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 11, April, 1870 to September, 1870 by Various

The motion was made and carried by an overwhelming majority, and Miss Phillips asked Frances Wright to accompany her to the city the following Saturday to meet the girl when she should arrive.
— from The Girl Scouts' Good Turn by Edith Lavell

It will be remembered that the sociological theory of sex held by Ward, Mrs. Hartley and a host of others was founded on the supposition that evolution or development of a species is chiefly due to selection by the females of the better males, a conclusion based almost entirely on bird evidence.
— from Taboo and Genetics A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family by Phyllis Mary Blanchard

Night came and went and came, and brought no "weed," And men forgot their suppers, in the dread Of the dire desolation; and all tongues Were tingling with the taste of empty pipes; And they did live all wretched; old hay bands, And street-door mats, and clover brown and dry; Carpets, rope-yarn, and such things as men sell, Were burnt for 'bacca; haystacks were consumed, And men were gathered round each blazing mass, To have another makeshift sniff.
— from Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce by E. R. Billings

Prudent financiers in London ran stark mad in calculating the dividends they must unavoidably realize upon investments in a business to be carried on in a distant country, and managed and controlled by a debating society or board of directors in London.
— from Mexico and Its Religion With Incidents of Travel in That Country During Parts of the Years 1851-52-53-54, and Historical Notices of Events Connected With Places Visited by Robert Anderson Wilson

We may venture to say that could we, in the absence of every other record, be furnished with a complete account of the festivals, traditions, and anniversaries of any given nation now extinct, not only might a correct estimate be therefrom made of their progress in morals and civilization, but a conjectural history of their doings be hazarded, which should bear a closer resemblance to the facts than many an existing history constructed from more varied materials.
— from The Book of Christmas Descriptive of the Customs, Ceremonies, Traditions, Superstitions, Fun, Feeling, and Festivities of the Christmas Season by Thomas K. Hervey

If this vast mass of pulverized rock and earth were restored to the localities from which it was derived, it certainly would not obliterate valleys and gorges hollowed out by great geological causes, but it would reduce the length and diminish the depth of ravines of later formation, modify the inclination of their walls, reclothe with earth many bare mountain ridges, essentially change the line of junction between plain and mountain, and carry back a long reach of the Adriatic coast many miles to the west.
— from The Earth as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh