All next day he did not come back, and the Hellenes were troubled with anxieties, but on the third day he arrived with the news that he had obtained from the king the boon he asked; he was permitted to save the Hellenes, though there were many gainsayers who argued that it was not seemly for the king to let those who had marched against him depart in peace.
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

Being wearied with looking upon a company of ugly women, Creed and I went away, and took coach and through Cheapside, and there saw the pageants, which were very silly, and thence to the Temple, where meeting Greatorex, he and we to Hercules Pillars, there to show me the manner of his going about of draining of fenns, which I desired much to know, but it did not appear very satisfactory to me, as he discoursed it, and I doubt he will faile in it.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

At the edge of the rocks the Leopard-man, realising that he was making for the projecting cape upon which he had stalked me on the night of my arrival, had doubled in the undergrowth; but Montgomery had seen the manoeuvre, and turned him again.
— from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

In the hope of pleasing everyone, she took everyone's advice, and like the old man and his donkey in the fable suited nobody.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

In the hope of pleasing every one, she took every one's advice; and, like the old man and his donkey in the fable, suited nobody.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Like the recollection of a dream, the quarrel he had had with Don Quixote came back to Cardenio's memory, and he described it to the others; but he was unable to say what the dispute was about.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

It will not be a satisfactory answer to say, that a person, who does not assent to a proposition you advance; after having conceived the object in the same manner with you; immediately conceives it in a different manner, and has different ideas of it.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

It made megalomania almost his duty: it has made everything temporary and limited subordinate to eternal rights!
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Every day toward evening I walked toward the town to meet Masha, and how delightful it was to walk along the soft, drying road with bare feet!
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

How do I know that I perceive the desk before me; and how do I know that, sitting here, I imagine, and do not see, the front door of the house?
— from An Introduction to Philosophy by George Stuart Fullerton

Satan seemed to have entered into me as he did into Judas.
— from St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, No. 07, May 1878 Scribner's Illustrated by Various

Branchiæ situated within the cavity of the mantle, and hanging down in the form of a comb; shell for the most part spirally contorted; sexes separate— Pectinibranchiata .
— from Elements of Physiophilosophy by Lorenz Oken

“Hah!” ejaculated Mercer, and he drew in steadily till his own rod was within reach, and I lay down, leaned out as far as I could, and strained to reach it.
— from Burr Junior by George Manville Fenn

It was given to him to point out the road to the promised land; but, 54 like Moses, after having descried it from afar, it was denied him to enter the land to which he had led the way.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

On her tenderness to me at that hour, on the impression it made upon my mind, and on the keen and enduring sorrow which I felt for months after her death, it would be useless to dwell.
— from Falkland, Book 1. by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

As she had no one to refer to for a character in this country except himself, he doubtless calculated securely on her being speedily driven back, as soon as the slender fund she had in her possession was expended, to throw herself unconditionally upon his tender mercies; and his disappointment in this expectation appears to have exasperated his feelings of resentment towards the poor woman, to a degree which few persons alive to the claims of common justice, not to speak of christianity or common humanity, could easily have anticipated.
— from The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave by Mary Prince

“I have been loitering along this trail this very morning, and have defiled it repeatedly.
— from Zuñi Folk Tales by Frank Hamilton Cushing

The indissoluble knot was tied: they sat down to the wedding feast, and mirth and hilarity danced in cheerful circles.
— from Alonzo and Melissa; Or, The Unfeeling Father: An American Tale by I. (Isaac) Mitchell