Any record of the prose literature of the Victorian era, which includes the historical essays of Macaulay and the art criticism of Ruskin, should contain also some notice of its spiritual leaders.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

30 On his approach they raised the siege, but with a design only of marching away to a conquest of greater importance, the siege of Philippopolis, a city of Thrace, founded by the father of Alexander, near the foot of Mount Haemus.
— 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

What Juvenal says—it is difficult to rise if your poverty is greater than your talent— Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi — is more applicable to a career of art and literature than to a political and social ambition.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: the Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer

If difficulties arise in the execution of the plan, we must avoid them and carry out the remainder.
— from Laws by Plato

But me: let no man ask This ancient city of my sires to give Harbour in life to me.
— from Oedipus King of Thebes Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes by Sophocles

The preceding tale is given almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting at the ancient city of Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most illustrious burghers.
— from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Instead of fillets, a modern age might assign them a coterie of flattering dames, and instead of banishment, starvation; but the result would be the same in the end.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

[Pg 567] Noailles, in whose presence Saint-Foix, without waiting to be questioned, said: "Monseigneur, I had not the slightest intention of offending this gallant officer who, I doubt not, is an honorable man; but your excellency can never prevent my asserting that a cup of coffee, with milk and a roll, is a confoundedly poor dinner."
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

After a moment or two she appeared in cap and peignoir, and the three of us in dressing-gowns, I with lather crinkling over one-half of my face, held first an indignation meeting, and then a council of war.
— from Jaffery by William John Locke

Our men were so moved at the affectionate carriage of this poor woman to her infant, that they told me it brought tears from their eyes.
— from A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before by Daniel Defoe

"I tell you plainly, once for all, that, if you refuse your consent, I shall go straight to Herminie, tell her exactly, what I intend to do for her, and prove to her that though, as a nameless and penniless girl, her dignity demanded the advances she asked from you, lest it might be said that she had forced herself upon the Senneterre family from ambitious or mercenary motives, as the adopted child of M. de Maillefort, who brings an illustrious name and a fortune of two hundred thousand francs a year to her husband, she need feel no such scruples.
— from Pride: One of the Seven Cardinal Sins by Eugène Sue

Next, I turned my attention to a consideration of the state and progress of affairs when Jack, in a frenzy of fear, rushed from the house in which the murder was committed.
— from The Betrayal of John Fordham by B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon

He was received with a loud shout of discordant and unnatural laughter, which, to his stunned ears, seemed more alarming than a combination of the most dismal and melancholy sounds that could be imagined.
— from The Antiquary — Complete by Walter Scott

The next morning word was brought to the farm that a goose and three goslings were missing, and that a couple of lambs were found almost devoured in the home-field.
— from Evenings at Home; Or, The Juvenile Budget Opened by John Aikin