And now I am persuaded that every one of you here comes satisfied before I speak that these overthrowers of our liberties deserve to be destroyed, and that nobody can so much as devise a punishment that they have not deserved by what they have done, and that you are all provoked against them by those their wicked actions, whence you have suffered so greatly.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus

These houses of yours are infernal dungeons in which mothers and daughters are persecuted, children are tortured....
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Thus, the young ladies there are as much ashamed of being cowards and fools as the men, and despise all personal ornaments beyond decency and cleanliness: neither did I perceive any difference in their education, made by their difference of sex, only that the exercises of the women were not altogether so robust, and that some rules were given them relating to domestic life, and a smaller compass of learning was enjoined them: for their maxim is that, among people of quality, a wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

I back to the Hall, and at Mrs. Michell’s shop staid talking a great while with her and my Chaplain, Mr. Mumford, and drank a pot or two of ale on a wager that Mr. Prin is not of the Council.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable at pleasure!
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

But, that our practical Utilitarian reasonings must necessarily be rough, is no reason for not making them as accurate as the case admits; and we shall be more likely to succeed in this if we keep before our mind as distinctly as possible the strict type of the calculation that we should have to make, if all the relevant considerations could be estimated with mathematical precision.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

‘Keep it, my Pericles; it hath been a shield ’Twixt me and death;’ — and pointed to this brace;— ‘For that it saved me, keep it; in like necessity — The which the gods protect thee from! — may defend thee.’
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Greci Barbari diro collisa duello: “Of wanton Paris the illicit love Did Greece and Troy to ten years’ warfare move:” all Asia was ruined and destroyed for the lust of Paris; the envy of one single man, a despite, a pleasure, a domestic jealousy, causes that ought not to set two oyster-wenches by the ears, is the mover of all this mighty bustle.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Jupiter’s countenance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in nature of things, for any negro’s visage to assume.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Up, and in my chamber all day long (but a little at dinner) settling all my Brampton accounts to this day in very good order, I having obliged myself by oathe to do that and some other things within this month, and did also perfectly prepare a state of my estate and annexed it to my last will and testament, which now is perfect, and, lastly, I did make up my monthly accounts, and find that I have gained above L50 this month clear, and so am worth L858 clear, which is the greatest sum I ever yet was master of, and also read over my usual vowes, as I do every Lord’s day, but with greater seriousness than ordinary, and I do hope that every day I shall see more and more the pleasure of looking after my business and laying up of money, and blessed be God for what I have already been enabled by his grace to do.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The One is God; 702 the Two, matter; the Three, combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire Cosmos.
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky

“I will prepare madam,” he admonished me, after drawing a ponderous curtain two inches or less aside from one of the windows.
— from The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange by Anna Katharine Green

They moult about January or February, and in May, when they are in full plumage, the males assemble early in the morning to exhibit themselves in the singular manner already described at p. 252.
— from The Malay Archipelago, Volume 2 The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise; A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature by Alfred Russel Wallace

Everything will seem so little and inconsequential after seeing armies marching to mud and death, and people will soon get tired of hearing about that.
— from Carry On: Letters in War-Time by Coningsby Dawson

I know that some make a difference atween parents and children, but other some doesn't.
— from The Chainbearer; Or, The Littlepage Manuscripts by James Fenimore Cooper

Of course the manufacturers are delighted, and put pressure on us to Buy!
— from Down with the Cities! by Tadashi Nakashima

[Pg 55] many a day and plainly intimated that he’d retire altogether if Grafton didn’t stop boring him.
— from The Case and Exceptions: Stories of Counsel and Clients by Frederick Trevor Hill

“I’m not making any direct accusations,” Penny replied evenly.
— from The Clock Strikes Thirteen by Mildred A. (Mildred Augustine) Wirt