The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so muffled in shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter of impossibility to guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet and green veil which ornamented the head, and which, having been crushed and flattened, for two hundred and fifty miles, in that particular angle of the vehicle from which the lady’s snores now proceeded, presented an appearance sufficiently ludicrous to have moved less risible muscles than those of John Browdie’s ruddy face.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

Reason = Virtue = Happiness, simply means: we must imitate Socrates, and confront the dark passions permanently with the light of day—the light of reason.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist Complete Works, Volume Sixteen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The Master said, 'The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress.' CHAP.
— from The Analects of Confucius (from the Chinese Classics) by Confucius

There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims.
— from Areopagitica A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England by John Milton

Terms that are miscellaneous in scope are clumsy tools at best; in addition they are frequently treacherous, for their ambiguous reference causes us to confuse things that should be distinguished.
— from How We Think by John Dewey

But if I can express at this distance the thoughts I had about me at that time, I was in tenfold more horror of mind upon account of my former convictions, and the having returned from them to the resolutions I had wickedly taken at first, than I was at death itself; and these, added to the terror of the storm, put me into such a condition that I can by no words describe it.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

In short he left me in such a condition that I have been until now in a hospital getting cured of the injuries which that rascally clown inflicted on me then; for all which your worship is to blame; for if you had gone your own way and not come where there was no call for you, nor meddled in other people’s affairs, my master would have been content with giving me one or two dozen lashes, and would have then loosed me and paid me what he owed me; but when your worship abused him so out of measure, and gave him so many hard words, his anger was kindled; and as he could not revenge himself on you, as soon as he saw you had left him the storm burst upon me in such a way, that I feel as if I should never be a man again.” “The mischief,” said Don Quixote, “lay in my going away; for I should not have gone until I had seen thee paid; because I ought to have known well by long experience that there is no clown who will keep his word if he finds it will not suit him to keep it; but thou rememberest, Andres, that I swore if he did not pay thee I would go and seek him, and find him though he were to hide himself in the whale’s belly.” “That is true,” said Andres; “but it was of no use.”
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

But in taking life for myself, In seizing and crushing their souls, As a child crushes grapes and drinks From its palms the purple juice, I came to this wingless void, Where neither red, nor gold, nor wine, Nor the rhythm of life are known.
— from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

Rising from his seat, and holding himself perfectly erect, he exclaimed: "Oh, mamma, I shall also cross the Alps some day, as the emperor did!"
— from Queen Hortense: A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era by L. (Luise) Mühlbach

It even fared worse; for Kalkbrenner did not content himself with spoiling the general effect of the work, by means of pieces introduced from Mozart's other operas, and from Haydn's symphonies: he mutilated it so as completely to alter its form, and further debased it by mixing with its pure gold the dross of his own vile music.
— from History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe by H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland) Edwards

This apparent contradiction of the reasonable as manifested in such a commonplace thing as chintz of a bed-hanging affected this ordinarily unimaginative woman as no ghostly appearance could have done.
— from The Wind in the Rose-Bush, and Other Stories of the Supernatural by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

This greater particularity in the statement of Philippa's services in Geoffrey's grant, the fact that Philippa was in the duke's household (evidenced by the Christmas gifts of silver cups to her) and the fact that nothing else connects Chaucer definitely with John of Gaunt, make it seem almost certain that the grant of an annuity to Chaucer was made merely in order to increase the sum given to Philippa.
— from Chaucer's Official Life by James R. (James Root) Hulbert

The pebble was afterwards polished, cut, and set in Etruscan gold as a pendant, marked with a mystic inscription signifying a challenge to fate to lessen the ardour of my attachment; and when I found it among my trinkets, long years after my real fate had found and claimed me, I could have wept for the delicious rainbow-tinted sorrows of first youth!
— from More Italian Yesterdays by Fraser, Hugh, Mrs.

"In that case I shall burn her, for it would not be safe to send good men in such a craft to a port where she could be condemned.
— from On The Blockade by Oliver Optic