Thackeray and Dickens followed Balzac in scratching and biting the unfortunate middle class with savage ill-temper, much as the middle class had scratched and bitten the Church and Court for a hundred years before.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

This being done I away to Holborne, about Whetstone’s Park, where I never was in my life before, where I understand by my wife’s discourse that Deb. is gone, which do trouble me mightily that the poor girle should be in a desperate condition forced to go thereabouts, and there not hearing of any such man as Allbon, with whom my wife said she now was, I to the Strand, and there by sending Drumbleby’s boy, my flageolet maker, to Eagle Court, where my wife also by discourse lately let fall that he did lately live, I find that this Dr. Allbon is a kind of poor broken fellow that dare not shew his head nor be known where he is gone, but to Lincoln’s Inn Fields I went to Mr. Povy’s, but missed him, and so hearing only that this Allbon is gone to Fleet Street, I did only call at Martin’s, my bookseller’s, and there bought “Cassandra,” and some other French books for my wife’s closet, and so home, having eat nothing but two pennyworths of oysters, opened for me by a woman in the Strand, while the boy went to and again to inform me about this man, and therefore home and to dinner, and so all the afternoon at the office, and there late busy, and so home to supper, and pretty pleasant with my wife to bed, rested pretty well.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Theirs is the virtue of the republics of the Middle Age, though more or less debased by the [Pg 322] Spaniards, [1] the Roman Church, [2] and two centuries of the cruel, treacherous governments, which, one after another, have spoiled the country.
— from On Love by Stendhal

This sight, you will imagine, shocked me not a little; to which I may add the mortification of seeing my bill delivered by him to his antagonist, and thirty guineas only given in exchange for it.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

What news could possibly be good to me at this moment except the information that bubonic plague had broken out among the scholars of Market Snodsbury Grammar School, and that they were all confined to their beds with spots?"
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

If ever man was mad with excess of happiness, it was myself at that moment.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Wenn mancher Mann wüsste, / Wer mancher Mann wär', / Thät' mancher Mann manchem Mann / Manchmal mehr Ehr' —If many a man knew who many a man was, many a man would do many a time more honour to many a man.
— 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 it is hoped that nothing will be done more, this meeting of Parliament, which the King did, by a message yesterday, declare again, should rise the 4th of May, and then only adjourne for three months: and this message being only adjournment, did please them mightily, for they are desirous of their power mightily.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The ancient Christians divided the night into four watches, called the evening, midnight, and two morning cock-crowings.
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 470, January 8, 1831 by Various

As you are aware, my acquaintance with him is of but recent date; but one thing speaks greatly in his favor: he has been for several months attached to Mr. Livermore's person, both as guide and as attendant while sick, and he has not attempted, as far as I have heard, either to assassinate or poison him.
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862 Devoted To Literature and National Policy by Various

Sir Tiglath Butt is most anxious to meet Mr. Sagittarius, who is a great astronomer.
— from The Prophet of Berkeley Square by Robert Hichens

"I have no master, I myself am the m—" "Silence, for God's sake!"
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Part 7. by Mark Twain

In a few minutes afterward, the moon arose, and lighted them the rest of the way home.
— from Jonas on a Farm in Winter by Jacob Abbott

April and May are the months when the catchpoles are out on the prowl.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

To retain a beautiful head of hair, it ought to be brushed twenty minutes in the morning, and ten minutes when dressed in the middle of the day, and a like period at night.
— from Home Arts for Old and Young by Caroline L. Smith

If you stand watching, how can my Sweetheart break his mind, and tell me how he admires me?
— from The Belle's Stratagem by Hannah Cowley

He was merrily wagging his tail on a boy’s pillow when he made this modest appeal to me.
— from The Uncommercial Traveller by Charles Dickens

The Regent went over with me all the measures to be taken, and I returned to Meudon, resolved not to budge from it until they were executed, there being nothing more to arrange.
— from Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 15 by Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de