For the moving of Pity, our principal Machine is the Handkerchief; and indeed in our common Tragedies, we should not know very often that the Persons are in Distress by any thing they say, if they did not from time to time apply their Handkerchiefs to their Eyes.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

The deputation in reply might have referred as an evidence of the general interest excited by questions of foreign policy, to the impossibility even of a leader making a house on one; and to the fact that there are not three men in the House of Commons who even pretend to have any acquaintance with the external circumstances of the country; they might have added, that even in such an assembly Mr Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea,—and that was wrong.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

Though she talked war constantly to everyone else she never mentioned it to him or before him, but she watched him like a cat watching a mouse; and when the German retreat from the Bapaume salient began and continued, Susan's exultation was linked up with something deeper than anything she expressed.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

And in this argument nearly every one, Athenian and stranger alike, would be on your side, if you should bring witnesses in disproof of my statement;—you may, if you will, summon Nicias the son of Niceratus, and let his brothers, who gave the row of tripods which stand in the precincts of Dionysus, come with him; or you may summon Aristocrates, the son of Scellius, who is the giver of that famous offering which is at Delphi; summon, if you will, the whole house of Pericles, or any other great Athenian family whom you choose;—they will all agree with you: I only am left alone and cannot agree, for you do not convince me; although you produce many false witnesses against me, in the hope of depriving me of my inheritance, which is the truth.
— from Gorgias by Plato

I lose myself in this high contemplation.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

A want of rationality and measure in the human will, that has not learned to prize small betterments and finite but real goods, compels it to deceive itself about the rewards of life in order to secure them.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

The dining room was duly prepared and lighted up, and the young; gentleman posted there in waiting, for my introduction to him.
— from Memoirs of Fanny Hill A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) by John Cleland

But in the middle of the 15th century there was an old Descriptio Orbis sive Mappamundus in the Hall, and when the apartment was renewed in 1459 a decree of the Senate ordered that such a map should be repainted on the new walls.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

Arbuthnot warns him against the danger of making foes (ll. 101- 104), but Pope replies that his flatterers are even more intolerable than his open enemies.
— from The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems by Alexander Pope

Tis unmanly grief, It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, An understanding simple and unschool’d; For what we know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we in our peevish opposition Take it to heart?
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

They were our sharers of sorrow, they were our makers of joy, Lighting the lamp of manhood in the heart of the lonely boy.
— from Later Poems by Bliss Carman

When she was well out of sight Sigurd crept from under the table, and his stepmother declared that it was most important that he should not stay at home next day; but he said he did not see what harm could come of it, and he did not mean to go out hunting, and the next morning, when the king prepared to start, Ingiborg implored Sigurd to accompany his father.
— from The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Give myself into the hands of the law.
— from The Winning of the Golden Spurs by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman

This morning I met in the Hall with Mr. Fuller, of Christ's, and told him of my design to go to Cambridge, and whither.
— from Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1660 N.S. by Samuel Pepys

But there are times when I have to be dependent on Marigold for carrying me into the houses I enter; on these helpless occasions I am driven about by Marigold in a little two-seater car.
— from The Red Planet by William John Locke

When he told me we would be in Moscow in ten hours, I would say, "Who told you that," and back he would go to the Herr Station Director in a red gown, and return to say that we would get there in twenty hours.
— from Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis by Richard Harding Davis

Mr. Elmer made a short address to the people, telling them that he and his family had come to live among them, and that he thought it would be very pleasant for them all to meet in that house every Sunday, for the purpose of studying the Bible and mutually helping one another.
— from Wakulla: a story of adventure in Florida by Kirk Munroe

The terrified women had scarcely told their tale, before all the men in the "Hargrave Arms" were on their feet, starting into the open air.
— from Mabel: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3) by Newby, C. J., Mrs.

His thoughts consequently at once reverted to the sea; and the day after his father’s funeral, he set out with a sad heart, and yet with the buoyant hope of youth cheering him on in spite of his grief, to take counsel of an old friend, the master of a merchantman, who had been much indebted to his father.
— from Mark Seaworth by William Henry Giles Kingston