She was good enough for Mr. Elton, no doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury—handsome enough—to look plain, probably, by Harriet's side.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

We say Aramis, because the young man entertained no doubt that it was his friend who held this dialogue from the interior with the lady of the exterior.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

The faint twilight, which the stars shed, did not enable her to distinguish what it was; but she judged it to be a sentinel, on watch, and she removed her light to a remote part of the chamber, that she might escape notice, during her further observation.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Awake My fairest, my espous’d, my latest found, Heav’ns last best gift, my ever new delight, Awake, the morning shines, and the fresh field Calls us, we lose the prime, to mark how spring Our tended Plants, how blows the Citron Grove, What drops the Myrrhe, & what the balmie Reed, How Nature paints her colours, how the Bee Sits on the Bloom extracting liquid sweet.
— from Paradise Lost by John Milton

But this, it may be, is a question belonging more properly to an investigation different from ours: and it is quite clear, that on the supposition of its not being sent from the Gods direct, but coming to us by reason of virtue and learning of a certain kind, or discipline, it is yet one of the most Godlike things; because the prize and End of virtue is manifestly somewhat most excellent, nay divine and blessed.
— from The Ethics of Aristotle by Aristotle

El hijo de Caracas pasea su primera juventud por las plazas de las ruidosas cortes de la Europa extranjera; mientras el nativo de las Misiones gasta sus tiernos años en los campamentos de los ejércitos de un pueblo desgraciado, invadido por un usurpador injusto, y que defiende su independencia a esfuerzos de [3] patriotismo y de virtud....
— from Heath's Modern Language Series: The Spanish American Reader by Ernesto Nelson

Mundi epitome, naturae deliciae.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent; nor does nature adorn the human ruin with blossoms of new beauty, that have their roots and proper nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of decay, as she sows wall-flowers over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Awake My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found, Heav'ns last best gift, my ever new delight, Awake, the morning shines, and the fresh field 20 Calls us, we lose the prime, to mark how spring Our tended Plants, how blows the Citron Grove, What drops the Myrrhe, & what the balmie Reed, How Nature paints her colours, how the Bee Sits on the Bloom extracting liquid sweet.
— from The Poetical Works of John Milton by John Milton

I scarce uplift my eyes, Nor dare to question; doubts on doubts arise.
— from The Odyssey by Homer

Now, is Philip engaged to Miss Ellington?” “No, dear; indeed he is not,” said Mrs. Home.
— from The Angel of Pain by E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

But such men experience no difficulty whatever in performing their mental computations in the decimal system; and they acquire through constant practice such quickness and accuracy of calculation, that it is difficult to see how octonary reckoning would materially assist them.
— from The Number Concept: Its Origin and Development by Levi L. (Levi Leonard) Conant

“Owing it as we do,” he said, “very, very largely to our friend Gosse, to that peculiar, that honest but restless and, as it were, at times almost malignantly ambitious organizing energy of our friend, I cannot altogether—altogether, even if in any case I should have taken so extreme, so devastatingly isolating a step as, to put it violently, stand out ; yet I must confess to a considerable anxiety, a kind of distress, an apprehension, the terror, so to speak, of the kerbstone, at all this stream of intellectual trafficking, of going to and fro, in a superb and towering manner enough no doubt, but still essentially going to and fro rather than in any of the completed senses of the word getting there , that does so largely constitute the aggregations and activities we are invited to traverse.
— from Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump; Being a First Selection from the Literary Remains of George Boon, Appropriate to the Times by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

She was dear to me, not to you, and the infinitely delicate yet powerful chain of conditions [pg 168] and relations that operated between the messenger’s voice and my emotional nature did not connect him with yours.
— from A Librarian's Open Shelf: Essays on Various Subjects by Arthur E. (Arthur Elmore) Bostwick

The most enlightened nations do not found their laws and penalties on an abstract regard to wrong ; nor has government any concern with that which has no influence on the peace and safety of society.
— from A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings On Moral, Historical, Political, and Literary Subjects by Noah Webster

He just sat still, returning my look with cold motionless eyes, no doubt trying to discern the features of the man he had wronged through the film of age.
— from The Moon Rock by Arthur J. (Arthur John) Rees

Brakemen are prosaic men enough, no doubt, in the ordinary sense, but they love a railroad as Shakespeare loved a sonnet.
— from The Voice of the Machines An Introduction to the Twentieth Century by Gerald Stanley Lee

If we were as well advanced in our knowledge of their central organisation, we might even now do something fairly vigorous under the law of conspiracy.
— from Ambrotox and Limping Dick by Oliver Fleming

No language could be more explicit, no declaration more positive, that Jesus was the son of Joseph.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

"You're a nice one to complain," continued Maxime; "you spend more than a hundred thousand francs a year on your dress, you live in a splendid mansion, you possess some superb horses, your caprices become law, and the newspapers mention every new dress you wear as though they were relating something of the highest importance; all the women are jealous of you, every man would give ten years of his life just to kiss the tips of your fingers.
— from The Rush for the Spoil (La Curée): A Realistic Novel by Émile Zola