After this communication was at an end, I carried him and his two men into my apartment, leading them in just where I came out, viz.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

F. Better be Cibber, I’ll maintain it still, Than ridicule all taste, blaspheme quadrille, Abuse the city’s best good men in metre, And laugh at peers that put their trust in Peter.
— from An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires by Alexander Pope

And it would be difficult to show why a man is more a loser by a generous action, than by any other method of expense; since the utmost which he can attain by the most elaborate selfishness, is the indulgence of some affection.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense 39 Depriv'd thee of!—Hold off the earth a while, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: [ Leaps into the grave.
— from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare

As Nicholas appeared by no means impressed with the solemnity of the proposed effect, but, on the contrary, received the proposition in a most irreverent manner, and laughed at it very heartily, Mr. Crummles abandoned the project in its birth, and gloomily observed that they must make up the best bill they could with combats and hornpipes, and so stick to the legitimate drama.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

he asked his overseer, a venerable man, resembling his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him back to the house.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

I enjoy a pension from the Government, which I surrender to my wife, and as for me I make a livelihood on my travels.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

A clergyman may be destitute of religious feelings, he may be grossly immoral, he may discharge his duties in the most incompetent manner, and lose his flock; he may do almost any thing short of legal crime, and still he will neither forfeit his living, nor draw on himself any punishment."
— from Secret History of the Court of England, from the Accession of George the Third to the Death of George the Fourth, Volume 2 (of 2) Including, Among Other Important Matters, Full Particulars of the Mysterious Death of the Princess Charlotte by Hamilton, Anne, Lady

Gen. Marion had no entrenching tools to make a regular approach, but on the day after the investment, a party of militia under Ensign Baker Johnson, and of continentals under Mr. Lee, a volunteer in the legion, with a sudden movement, and much intrepidity, made a lodgment near the stockade, and began to pull away the abbatis and fling them down the mound.
— from A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion and a History of His Brigade by William Dobein James

That Hollander element comprises the most insidious menace, and, like a cancer, must be unsparingly excised from South Africa, unless encouragement is intended to be given for an attempt to go one better next time, with a repetition, or rather an aggravation, of the horrors of war and the cost in life and treasure, turning the sub-continent into a second vast Algeria, with perhaps such another "Abd El Kadr" to subdue, and without any reserve asset, as now, to fall back upon towards reimbursing the expense.
— from Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked by C. H. Thomas

Take a common tumbler or glass jar, and having placed a brass ball in one of the holes of the prime conductor, set the machine in motion, and let the balls touch the inside of the tumbler; while the ball touches only one point, no more of the surface of the glass will be electrified, but by moving the tumblers about, so as to make the ball touch many points successively, all the points will be electrified, as will appear by turning down the tumbler over a number of pith or cork balls placed on a table.
— from Endless Amusement A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments in Various Branches of Science; Including Acoustics, Electricity, Magnetism, Arithmetic, Hydraulics, Mechanics, Chemistry, Hydrostatics, Optics; Wonders of the Air-Pump; All the Popular Tricks and Changes of the Cards, &c., &c. to Which is Added, a Complete System of Pyrotechny; Or, the Art of Making Fire-works. by Unknown

For motion is motion, and light is light, and heat heat forever, and their discontinuity is as absolute as their existence.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

"What will be the event of all this I know not; but if I find him still inexorable in a conference I mean this day to hold with him, I think appearances are so much against me, I must at least for a time withdraw with you and our boy to some safe retreat.
— from Mystery and Confidence: A Tale. Vol. 3 by Elizabeth Sibthorpe Pinchard

He gave [29] her a brooch also, and said to his mother, "I think Etta gets low by herself, now Minna is married and Louie is away.
— from The Third Miss Symons by F. M. (Flora Macdonald) Mayor

To follow that way is an initiation, by which they will become able to distinguish, in art, speech, feeling, manners, in men and life generally, what is genuine, animated, and expressive from what is only conventional and derivative, and therefore inexpressive.
— from Essays from 'The Guardian' by Walter Pater