“I’ll ask leave to go to the front, this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Never perhaps has the energy and effect of a single mind been more remarkably felt than in the sudden, though transient, reformation of Rome by the tribune Rienzi.
— 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

To the extreme fatigues of the body and to the dangers peculiar to them and to their works, laughing and without any ado they answer that if greater fatigues and dangers prove greater nobility, the art of quarrying the marbles from the bowels of mountains by means of wedges, levers, and hammers must be more noble than sculpture, that of the blacksmith must surpass the goldsmith's, and that of masonry must be superior to architecture.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10) Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi by Giorgio Vasari

They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law.
— from Rockets, Missiles, and Spacecraft of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution by Lynne C. Murphy

Yet no deed of mine Shines brighter in the memory of the world, And none is treasured more by me: Look how I saved the Blisses from divorce, And kept the children free from that disgrace, To grow up into moral men and women, Happy themselves, a credit to the village.
— from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

“Suppose the Indians come back?” Mr. Murthwaite answered me before Mr. Franklin could speak.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

They played me a pitiful trick once: got away with some of my best men.
— from Persuasion by Jane Austen

When the crop, however, sprang up, the Swallow again remarked: “Our destruction is impending; come, let us root up the noxious blades, lest, if they shortly grow up, nets may be made thereof, and we may be taken by the contrivances of man.”
— from The Fables of Phædrus Literally translated into English prose with notes by Phaedrus

The second month was now passing, after the marriage rites, when the saffron-colored Aurora, dispelling the darkness in the morn, beheld me, as I was planting nets for the horned deer, from 256 VII.
— from The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII by Ovid

For Heaven’s sake give me back my cigarette case.
— from The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde

[406] See the letter of Mr. Boudinot, member of Congress for Jersey, No. 47.
— from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9) Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private by Thomas Jefferson

But Wishart, taking the priest in his arms, said, "Whatsoever hurts him shall hurt me; for he hath done me no mischief, but much good, by teaching more heedfulness for the time to come."
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

And with these words, Mrs. Barnaby mounted the last stair, and entered the room.
— from The Widow Barnaby. Vol. 3 (of 3) by Frances Milton Trollope

To a few only is it given to translate, with rare distinction and excellence, something of this manifold message of Beauty—though all of us would fain be, with your Marius, ‘of the number of those who must be made perfect by the love of visible beauty.’
— from William Sharp (Fiona Macleod): A Memoir Compiled by His Wife Elizabeth A. Sharp by Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Amelia) Sharp

The first condition of the vicarious satisfaction which, according to our prophecy, is to be performed by the Servant of God, is, according to ver. 9 ("Because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth"), but more especially still, according to ver. 11 ("He, the righteous one, my Servant, shall justify the many") the absolute righteousness of the suffering subject.
— from Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

"What a noble, generous soul you must be, Mrs. Tuke," she said, and she looked straight into the cold, blue eyes and smiled her sweetest.
— from A Gamble with Life by Silas K. (Silas Kitto) Hocking

So that, after all, to suppose that Mrs. Bargrave could hatch such an invention as this from Friday noon till Saturday noon, supposing that she knew of Mrs. Veal's death the very first moment, without jumbling circumstances, and without any interest too; she must be more witty, fortunate, and wicked too, than any indifferent person, I dare say, will allow.
— from A True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs. Veal The Next Day after Her Death, to one Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury, the 8th of September, 1705; which Apparition Recommends the Perusal of Drelincourt's Book of Consolations against the Fears of Death by Daniel Defoe

And I pray with what Art can the high Rate of Medicines be maintain’d, if the World could not be amused with the Imagination of being kept alive in all the Distempers, by the Force of these two?
— from Medicina Flagellata; Or, The Doctor Scarify'd by Anonymous

After the interval of a few minutes a stable door opposite was thrown open, and Mad Bess made her appearance, led by two grooms.
— from Frank Fairlegh: Scenes from the Life of a Private Pupil by Frank E. (Frank Edward) Smedley