But all this is upon the supposition only that they understood what circumstances they are placed in; whereas now, by a wholesome neglect of thinking, they live as well as heart can wish: whatever of toil and drudgery belongs to their office that they assign over to St. Peter, or St. Paul, who have time enough to mind it; but if there be any thing of pleasure and grandeur, that they assume to themselves, as being hereunto called: so that by my influence no sort of people live more to their own ease and content.
— from In Praise of Folly Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts by Desiderius Erasmus

The custom operates well enough in one way, since a man is nearly sure of procuring employment, and encounters no obstacles; on the other hand, there is less encouragement to preserve a good character.
— from Hodge and His Masters by Richard Jefferies

She made, indeed, no scruple of plainly and bluntly telling her husband that the colonel had a most manifest intention to attack the chastity of Amelia.
— from Amelia — Volume 3 by Henry Fielding

My job being to tell what I saw and heard, I want to say here that throughout the entire mêlée I never saw one periscope!
— from The U-boat hunters by James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

These last particles they call atoms , because their mass is not susceptible of physical division, although their volume is infinitely divisible in a mathematical sense.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875 by Various

For myself, I never saw our prize in life at all.
— from Two Dianas in Somaliland: The Record of a Shooting Trip by Agnes Herbert

No good Christian or ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriot should.
— from Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems by Ben Jonson

Not sick of business, as those are who lose themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which cramp in matters impertinent; not savoring of perfumes and paintings as those do, who seek to please the reader more than nature beareth, and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof, being agreeable to truth , and apt for action ;'—[this passage contains some hints as to this author's notion of what a book should be, in form, as well as substance, and, therefore, it would not be strange, if it should apply to some other books, as well]—'and far removed from that natural infirmity , whereunto I noted those that write in their own professions , to be subject , which is that they exalt it above measure ; for your majesty hath truly described, not a king of Assyria or Persia, in their external glory, [and not that kind of king, or kingly author is he talking of] but a Moses , or a David, pastors of their people .
— from The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded by Delia Salter Bacon