To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

If not, I would not desire it.—They both said, Robin was ordered to carry me to my father's; and Mr. Colbrand was to leave me within ten miles, and then strike off for the other house, and wait till my master arrived there.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

The Persians for their part say that things happened thus; and they conclude that the beginning of their quarrel with the Hellenes was on account of the taking of Ilion: but as regards Io the Phenicians do not agree with the Persians in telling the tale thus; for they deny that they carried her off to Egypt by violent means, and they say on the other hand that when they were in Argos she was intimate with the master of their ship, and perceiving that she was with child, she was ashamed to confess it to her parents, and therefore sailed away with the Phenicians of her own will, for fear of being found out.
— from The History of Herodotus — Volume 1 by Herodotus

The marriage of M. de Chenonceaux rendered his mother’s house still more agreeable to me, by the wit and merit of the new bride, a very amiable young person, who seemed to distinguish me amongst the scribes of M. Dupin.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

About a month after this, one morning, all the servants of the Shelby estate were convened together in the great hall that ran through the house, to hear a few words from their young master.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable; we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.
— from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill

The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Giton, who was standing by during all this, was as downcast as myself, and the suffering of the lad only served to increase my own vexation, but the thing which bothered me most of all, was the painstaking search which was being made for us; I told Ascyltos of this, but he only laughed it off, as he had so happily extricated himself from the scrape.
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

NANO AND CASTRONE [SING.]: Fools, they are the only nation Worth men's envy, or admiration: Free from care or sorrow-taking, Selves and others merry making: All they speak or do is sterling.
— from Volpone; Or, The Fox by Ben Jonson

2. The mirrors of the nothingness of Man and the sublimity of the nothingness of Space.
— from The Roycroft Dictionary, Concocted by Ali Baba and the Bunch on Rainy Days. by Elbert Hubbard

THE KING'S OVERSEER Work is slow, Majesty, at this season of the year because the green stuff is scarce and the slaves grow idle.
— from Five Plays by Lord Dunsany

The praises and blessings heaped upon me by the two ladies, the mother and the sweetheart of Jan Verhoeff, were dearer to me even than the commendation of Prince Maurice.
— from A Gentleman-at-Arms: Being Passages in the Life of Sir Christopher Rudd, Knight by Herbert Strang

He was also believed to be a familiar guest with the priests of Delphi, where an iron chair, on which he sat to conduct his hymns, was shown as one of the curiosities of the temple; whilst at Athens a statue was erected to him, and the Rhodians engraved one of his odes in golden letters on their temple to Minerva, and the site of his house beside the fountain of Dirce was respected for centuries afterwards.
— from The World's Earliest Music Traced to Its Beginnings in Ancient Lands by Collected Evidence of Relics, Records, History, and Musical Instruments from Greece, Etruria, Egypt, China, Through Asyria and Babylonia, to the Primitive Home, the Land of Akkad and Sumer by Hermann Smith

Large training areas were hired, and so that officers and men might form some impression of the German position, which they could not see, a large model was made, about the size of four tennis courts, in which hills, valleys, streams, houses, roads, woods, trenches, &c., were all accurately represented by models.
— from The History of the 51st (Highland) Division 1914-1918 by F. W. (Frederick William) Bewsher

And she fled to her own office, fuming against the folly of men and the silliness of women, and thoroughly miserable over the whole situation; for, at bottom she believed that such a woman as Amy must have feminine instinct enough fairly to jump at such a man as Alois, if there was a chance to attach him permanently; and, the prospect of Alois marrying a woman who could do him no good, who was all take and no give, put her into such a frame of mind that she wished she had the mean streak necessary to intriguing him and her apart.
— from Light-Fingered Gentry by David Graham Phillips

Near the end of his life Cicero, opposing the usurpations of M. Antonius, delivered his masterpieces of oratory, the "Philippics," modelled after the similar orations of the Greek Demosthenes against Philip of Macedonia.
— from Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 by H. P. (Howard Phillips) Lovecraft

Mo and do are here changed, by Metathesis and the substitution of one broad vowel for another, into am and ad.
— from Elements of Gaelic Grammar by Alexander Stewart

I am a nervous man, and the shrewdness of your observations has tickled me.
— from The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales Including Stories by Feodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky, Jörgen Wilhelm Bergsöe and Bernhard Severin Ingemann by Various

he said, turning, as he made a still longer inspection, ‘why, here are p. 19 flowers—positively flowers—and flowers cost a deal of money at this season of the year!’
— from Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3] by J. Ewing (James Ewing) Ritchie