Genius has privileges of its own; it selects an orbit for itself; and be this never so eccentric, if it is indeed a celestial orbit, we mere star-gazers must at last compose ourselves, must cease to cavil at it, and begin to observe it and calculate its laws.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

But I would a thousand times rather have a homely girl, simply brought up, than a learned lady and a wit who would make a literary circle of my house and install herself as its president.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

If I could get twenty or thirty pounds to begin with, I could pay five per cent for it, and then I could gradually make a little capital of my own, and do without a loan."
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Two or three times a year I ask the students to write me a letter criticising or making complaints or suggestions about anything connected with the institution.
— from Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

45 It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

It was the well-earned harvest of many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a midnight lucubration.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

It might at least cross our minds that, for whatever other reason the errand-boy reads 'The Red Revenge,' it really is not because he is dripping with the gore of his own friends and relatives.
— from The Defendant by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

The bishop leaned toward me, smiling, and made a little cross on my forehead with his thumb, and then he put his hand, which was very white and adorned with a great ring of amethyst and diamond, before my lips.
— from A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

Give me a little circle of men who will listen to me and understand—and I am in good health.
— from The life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Daniel Halévy

"Don't you think you're well enough to go and make a little call on Mrs. Kirby?" she suggested brightly.
— from Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby by Kathleen Thompson Norris

We accordingly departed from Tambico about three o'clock, and halted for the night at Jeningalla near Bufra, or Kabatenda, where I formerly slept; my former landlord brought me a large calabash of milk.
— from The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of Africa, in the Year 1805 Together with Other Documents, Official and Private, Relating to the Same Mission, to Which Is Prefixed an Account of the Life of Mr. Park by Mungo Park

The Apennines are really not so beautiful as I had imagined; for the name always suggested to me richly wooded, picturesque hills, covered with vegetation, whereas they are merely a long chain of melancholy bleak hills; and the little verdure there is, not gratifying to the eye.
— from Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from Italy and Switzerland by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

She made a long call on Mrs. Watson in her section, and listened patiently to her bemoanings over the noise of the car which had kept her from sleeping; the "lady in gray over there" who had taken such a long time to dress in the morning that she—Mrs. Watson—could not get into the toilet-room at the precise moment that she wished; the newspaper boy who would not let her "just glance over" the Denver "Republican" unless she bought and paid for it ("and I only wanted to see the Washington news, my dear, and something about a tin wedding in East Dedham.
— from Clover by Susan Coolidge

The Mountain Supporter, which can be seen from nearly every part of the Middle and Lower cities of Montalluyah, is an object of inconceivable grandeur and beauty, its appearance varying according to the point
— from Another World: Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah by Benjamin Lumley