religious men; add to these all rich men, chiefly those that have estates in land, who are called noblemen and gentlemen, together with their families, made up of idle persons, that are kept more for show than use; add to these all those strong and lusty beggars that go about pretending some disease in excuse for their begging; and upon the whole account you will find that the number of those by whose labours mankind is supplied is much less than you perhaps imagined: then consider how few of those that work are employed in labours that are of real service, for we, who measure all things by money, give rise to many trades that are both vain and superfluous, and serve only to support riot and luxury: for if those who work were employed only in such things as the conveniences of life require, there would be such an abundance of them that the prices of them would so sink that tradesmen could not be maintained by their gains; if all those who labour about useless things were set to more profitable employments, and if all they that languish out their lives in sloth and idleness (every one of whom consumes as much as any two of the men that are at work) were forced to labour, you may easily imagine that a small proportion of time would serve for doing all that is either necessary, profitable, or pleasant to mankind, especially while pleasure is kept within its due bounds: this appears very plainly in Utopia; for there, in a great city, and in all the territory that lies round it, you can scarce find five hundred, either men or women, by their age and strength capable of labour, that are not engaged in it.
— from Utopia by More, Thomas, Saint

We may add to this a remark; that in matters of religion men take a pleasure in being terrifyed, and that no preachers are so popular, as those who excite the most dismal and gloomy passions.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

This story, which was first told me by Ungku Said Kĕchil of Jĕlĕbu, was taken down by me at the time, and ran as follows:— “A Malay named Laboh went out one day to his rice-field and found that elephants had been destroying his rice.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

On which the Lamb replied, “It would be better for me to be sacrificed in the Temple than to be eaten by you.” H2 anchor The Rich Man and the Tanner A RICH MAN lived near a Tanner, and not being able to bear the unpleasant smell of the tan-yard, he pressed his neighbor to go away.
— from Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend by Aesop

A soul clear from prejudice has a marvellous advance towards tranquillity and repose.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

But not so the wise; and not so himself, when he looks through his experience, and sighs to miss that fitness, the one invaluable touch which makes all things true and real.
— from Mosses from an Old Manse, and Other Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

These they distinguish by so many several marks, and throw them at random and without order upon a white garment.
— from Tacitus on Germany by Cornelius Tacitus

It is under this form that the idea of the supernatural is born at the very outset of history, and from this moment, according to this author, religious thought finds itself provided with its proper subject.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

THE RICH MAN AND THE TANNER A Rich Man took up his residence next door to a Tanner, and found the smell of the tan-yard so extremely unpleasant that he told him he must go.
— from Aesop's Fables; a new translation by Aesop

Hence I went to Captain Stone, who told me how Squib had been with him, and that he could do nothing with him, so I returned to Mr. Carter and with him to Will's, where I spent upon him and Monsieur L'Impertinent, alias Mr. Butler, who I took thither with me, and thence to a Rhenish wine house, and in our way met with Mr. Hoole, where I paid for my cozen Roger Pepys his wine, and after drinking we parted.
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1660 N.S. by Samuel Pepys

We are all children of one mother—and it pleased me that the poor little beastie should quiet down so confidingly and nestle up to me, as though to a relative.
— from A Reckless Character, and Other Stories by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

We mutually agree that the above regulations shall be observed in the affair of honor depending between General Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickinson, Esq.”
— from The Hermitage, Home of General Andrew Jackson by Mary C. (Mary C. Currey) Dorris

These Praefects soon overshadowed all the regular magistrates, and through them Augustus reigned supreme.
— from Ancient Rome : from the earliest times down to 476 A. D. by Robert F. Pennell

The forms that life will farther assume are not to be imposed by moral authority, but are determined by the genius of the race, the opportunities of the moment, and the tastes and resources of individual minds.
— from The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory by George Santayana

Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law— he was merely witnessing a series of predictable or invariable recurrences, I answer that he may be right, it suffices for my argument that they are recurrent, are invariable, can be predicted.
— from On The Art of Reading by Arthur Quiller-Couch

There have been many complaints that the royal family never visited Ireland, and that the money and trade that a royal pageant always brings with it have been purposely withheld from the land of St. Patrick.
— from The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls by Various

Of independent states there were six—the kingdom of Sardinia (comprising Piedmont, the island of Sardinia, and, nominally, Savoy and Nice), where alone in all Italy there lingered some measure of native political vitality; the Papal States; the petty monarchies of Lucca and San Marino; and the two ancient republics of Venice and Genoa, long since shorn of their empires, their maritime power, and their economic and political importance.
— from The Governments of Europe by Frederic Austin Ogg

The polish of Tennyson’s verse, as well as its symbolical meaning for the time, was more acceptable than the actual return to the nature of the fifteenth century, and this the first volume from a pre-Raphaelite was hardly noticed by the critics.
— from Browning and His Century by Helen Archibald Clarke