He wished me to wait for the proofs Vernes promised, and I am still waiting for them: he thought it best that I should in the meantime be silent, and I held my tongue, and shall do so the rest of my life, censured as I am for having brought against Vernes a heavy imputation, false and unsupportable by proof, although I am still fully persuaded, nay, as convinced as I am of my existence, that he is the author of the libel.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Unconscious of that, and of most things, he had left the coat so, both when he had laved his face in the river, and when he had cast himself upon the bed; though it would have been much easier to him if he had unloosened it.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

[Exeunt some with LORD SAY] The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they have it.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

The pains of banishment made them the more eager to have it brought to a close.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

"You are going to see your mother, Eugène; tell her I am sure that she will rejoice more than any one at my happiness.
— from Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 For the First Time Collected and Translated, with Notes Social, Historical, and Chronological, from Contemporary Sources by Emperor of the French Napoleon I

"Mr. Skimpole," said I, raising my eyes to his, "I have so often heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of life—" "Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who's the junior partner?
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Let me elaborate this hypothesis: I do not for a minute accept the very "pain in the soul" as a real fact, but only as an explanation (a casual explanation) of facts that could not hitherto be precisely formulated; I regard it therefore as something as yet absolutely in the air and devoid of scientific cogency—just a nice fat word in the place of a lean note of interrogation.
— from The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Errors have in a measure explained themselves, have, in part, furnished us with the warning that we must assume the existence of psychic processes of which we know nothing, for the sake of the connection of the phenomena.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud

His court was adorned with luxury and science; but, in a reign of three-and-twenty years, Harun repeatedly visited his provinces from Chorasan to Egypt; nine times he performed the pilgrimage of Mecca; eight times he invaded the territories of the Romans; and as often as they declined the payment of the tribute, they were taught to feel that a month of depredation was more costly than a year of submission.
— 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

As her sisters, who were by no means equal to her in attractions, were married, and Psyche still remained unwedded, her father consulted the oracle of Delphi, and, in obedience to the divine response, caused her to be dressed as though for the grave, and conducted to the edge of a yawning precipice.
— from Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome by E. M. Berens

Yet it was an excitement not altogether pleasurable; for with my very natural curiosity, and with my eagerness to have it gratified, were blended certain fears imbibed from the only quality of reading that had been mine.
— from The Strolling Saint; being the confessions of the high and mighty Agostino D'Anguissola, tyrant of Mondolfo and Lord of Carmina, in the state of Piacenza by Rafael Sabatini

In less than four minutes the balloon was completely inflated, and the men employed to hold it down with ropes perceived that it was on the point of rising.
— from Wonderful Balloon Ascents; Or, The Conquest of the Skies A History of Balloons and Balloon Voyages by Fulgence Marion

Why should I make him more my enemy than he is?"
— from Two Years Ago, Volume II. by Charles Kingsley

And after a moments reflection, "Listen, gentlemen," said he— "Ci-gît, mais c'est mal entendu, Pour lui le mot est trop honnête, Ici l'amiral est pendu, Par les pieds, à faute de tête."
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845 by Various

It was my twenty-first birthday and the old man had just informed me that as the eldest son I might expect the house in which we stood to be mine one day and with it a secret which has been handed down from father to son ever since the Moores rose to eminence in the person of Colonel Alpheus.
— from The Filigree Ball Being a full and true account of the solution of the mystery concerning the Jeffrey-Moore affair by Anna Katharine Green

Now, let me show you more explicitly that he is quite right.
— from Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical Inquiry by George Ticknor Curtis

I had formed that soul, trained that mind, enlarged that heart; I knew it; he was incapable of cowardice or meanness.
— from The Village Rector by Honoré de Balzac

If it adds to the cup of your many sorrows to give me even to him, I will try to take the bitter for my portion, and then sweeten as best I may the life that hitherto you have devoted to me.
— from Infelice by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans

Thus the whole universe teaches man, either that he is corrupt, or that he is redeemed; every thing teaches him his greatness or his misery; the abandonment by God is shown in the heathen, the protection of God is shown in the Jews.
— from The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal by Blaise Pascal