I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; E for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

After this general view of the religious Mysteries of the ancient world, let us now proceed to a closer examination of those which are more intimately connected with the history of Freemasonry, and whose influence is, to this day, most evidently felt in its organization.
— from The Symbolism of Freemasonry Illustrating and Explaining Its Science and Philosophy, Its Legends, Myths and Symbols by Albert Gallatin Mackey

The other, which is codified in a single country, gives it its gods, its own tutelary patrons; it has its dogmas, its rites, and its external cult prescribed by law; outside the single nation that follows it, all the world is in its sight infidel, foreign and barbarous; the duties and rights of man extend for it only as far as its own altars.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“You too, my most excellent friend, if you were not superior to Pythagoras, in birth and reputation, would have migrated from Miletus and gone elsewhere.
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

I do not by any means engage for its being returned.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

This new present, and the monthly payment of ten sequins put me at my ease, for I had expensive tastes of which I could not cure myself.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Though she now viewed him with horror, as the murderer of her aunt, and scarcely knew what she said in reply to his impatient enquiries, her answers and her manner convinced him, that she had not taken a voluntary part in the late scheme, and he dismissed her upon the appearance of his servants, whom he had ordered to attend, that he might enquire further into the affair, and discover those, who had been accomplices in it.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

I shall not hesitate to make extracts, for I catch at anything to save labor; but those will be the best versions of what I want to convey.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

and I hold this confirmed by having noticed that when I was by the wall of the yard witnessing the acts of thy sad tragedy, it was out of my power to mount upon it, nor could I even dismount from Rocinante, because they no doubt had me enchanted; for I swear to thee by the faith of what I am that if I had been able to climb up or dismount, I would have avenged thee in such a way that those braggart thieves would have remembered their freak for ever, even though in so doing I knew that I contravened the laws of chivalry, which, as I have often told thee, do not permit a knight to lay hands on him who is not one, save in case of urgent and great necessity in defence of his own life and person."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

He embraced the stake with great cheerfulness, and when they went behind him to set fire to the fagots, he said, "Come here, and kindle it before my eyes; for if I had been afraid of it, I had not come to this place."
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

Into the area inclosed by this network of roots a person might enter, for it was about six feet wide, and, looking up, behold the base of the trunk eight or ten yards above his head.
— from The Romance of Natural History, Second Series by Philip Henry Gosse

In its present more extended form it is offered to a wider public as the record of “a life in civic action worn,” and as a slight tribute from a grateful pupil, an attached co-worker, and a lifelong friend to the memory of a strenuous high-minded man, of large aims and generous impulses, who spent his abilities and energies unstintingly in promoting the welfare of science and the good of his kind.
— from The Right Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe P.C., D.C.L., F.R.S. A Biographical Sketch by T. E. (Thomas Edward) Thorpe

To the architect falls the task, in the new dispensation, of providing the appropriate material environment for its new life.
— from Architecture and Democracy by Claude Fayette Bragdon

When one has noted a card, take it and put it at the bottom of the pack, then shuffle the cards till it come again to the bottom; then see what is the bottom card, for it is the noted card, which you may do without being taken notice of; thus, when you have shuffled the cards, turn them with their faces towards you, and nock their ends upon the table, as though you would knock them level; and whilst you are so doing, take notice of the bottom card, which you may do without suspicion, especially having shuffled them before; then when you know the card shuffle them again, and give them to any of the company, and let them shuffle them, for you know the card already, and may easily find it at any time.
— from Hocus Pocus; or The Whole Art of Legerdemain, in Perfection. By which the meanest capacity may perform the whole without the help of a teacher. Together with the Use of all the Instruments belonging thereto. by Henry Dean

I couldn’t believe it at the time.” “No, it is astonishing until you get used to the idea, and see how it makes everything fit in.
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

Mr. Lincoln became very much excited, fearing it indicated that eleven of the jury were against him.
— from Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Volume 1 (of 2) by William Henry Herndon

He promises me also a modell of a ship, which will please me exceedingly, for I do want one of my own.
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1662 N.S. by Samuel Pepys

As the gases that surrounded the earth became consolidated into vegetation, as this stupendous growth decomposed the noxious atmosphere, drawing from it its grosser particles and working them up into solid matter, extracting from it what was fatal to animal life, this earth entered upon another era of its progress.
— from Wild Northern Scenes Or, Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod by S. H. (Samuel H.) Hammond

"And now," said the vagabond, "lest the thought of 'Aunt Twaddles'' candy brings tears to my eyes, for I have eaten some of it myself, let us pause for a moment while we more comfortably seat ourselves before I proceed with the story."
— from The Village of Hide and Seek by Bingham Thoburn Wilson

Stellária, a medicinable earth found in Samos, marked like a starre.
— from Queen Anna's New World of Words; or, Dictionarie of the Italian and English Tongues by John Florio