C'est le 3è millénaire qui doit durer mille ans, pas un autre 3è plus hypothétique, mais plus effrayant (dans ce domaine, ce n'est pas vraiment ce que le 20è a inventé de mieux)…
— from Entretiens / Interviews / Entrevistas by Marie Lebert

For the collective force is not entirely outside of us; it does not act upon us wholly from without; but rather, since society cannot exist except in and through individual consciousnesses, [682] this force must also penetrate us and organize itself within us; it thus becomes an integral part of our being and by that very fact this is elevated and magnified.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

Here very merry, and played us and our wives at bowls.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And indeed, did the success of their designs depend upon their success in correcting the selfishness and ingratitude of men, they would never make any progress, unless aided by omnipotence, which is alone able to new-mould the human mind, and change its character in such fundamental articles.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

It made and preserves us a nation.
— 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.

[He swings round with a sudden rapid movement and picks up a loy.] CROWD — [half frightened, half amused.] —
— from The Playboy of the Western World: A Comedy in Three Acts by J. M. (John Millington) Synge

Two peasant women helped me off with my coat in the entry, and a peasant in a red shirt hung it on a hook, and when Ivan Ivanitch and I went into his little study, two barefooted little girls were sitting on the floor looking at a picture-book; when they saw us they jumped up and ran away, and a tall, thin old woman in spectacles came in at once, bowed gravely to me, and picking up a pillow from the sofa and a picture-book from the floor, went away.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The second, from the fear that I have of being still longer harassed by my enemy, Absence, much longer, who has hitherto given me all possible uneasiness, and as far as I can judge is determined to spite
— from The Love Letters of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn; With Notes by King of England Henry VIII

When beaten, they were taken from this pole by two more, and placed upon a platform of boards; and ten or a dozen men, with their trowsers rolled up, were constantly going, back and forth, from the platform to the boat, which was kept off where she would just float, with the hides upon their heads.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

Gotô Shôjirô, the leading Tosa minister, also paid us a visit, but we told him to go away till we could get the ship inside the bay.
— from A Diplomat in Japan The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period by Ernest Mason Satow

It signifies that in bad years the landlord gets nothing; in good years, what the tenant pleases to give him, after buying manure and paying up arrears of debt all round.
— from Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. by Bernard Henry Becker

She did not watch him, but donned the long cloak over her jersey, kissed Marylyn and paced up and down the shack.
— from The Plow-Woman by Eleanor Gates

You observe, there has been one other act of my administration personally unkind, and suppose it will readily suggest itself to me.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson

Ten thousand pounds was a very large sum; but would it be large enough to compensate me for what I should [Pg 51] have to undergo, should my attempt prove unsuccessful, and I find myself in captivity?
— from The Kidnapped President by Guy Boothby

he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolute badness is absolute death.
— from The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James

They had been brought down the Ebro from Mequinenza, whenever the water was high enough to allow of navigation—not without much difficulty, and occasional petty disasters when the Catalan miqueletes made a pounce upon an exposed convoy [292] .
— from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 4, Dec. 1810-Dec. 1811 Massena's Retreat, Fuentes de Oñoro, Albuera, Tarragona by Charles Oman

I am no better pleased with the complexion of the times than you are, but feel much more sympathy with the Mob than with their Galvanizers, who mean to give just the portion of excitement they choose, in order to deplace, dis place I mean, one set of Ministers, and put up another set in which they take deeper interest.
— from The Intimate Letters of Hester Piozzi and Penelope Pennington, 1788-1821 by Penelope Pennington

Reviews and magazines are placed under an equally rigorous surveillance , and Count Tolstoi’s Index Purgatorius puts a ban on the printing or sale of every book calculated to stimulate thought or arouse ambition.
— from Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, June 1885 by Various

While a man seeks good ends, nature helps him; when he seeks other ends, his being shrinks, "he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolute badness is absolute death.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works by Oliver Wendell Holmes

In the Temple, he brushed aside the altar that Solomon had made and put up a new one, copied from one which he had seen at Damascus.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture Second Kings Chapters VIII to End and Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Esther, Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes by Alexander Maclaren