Sandoval also made his men promise him neither to surrender the town to Velasquez nor any one else, and that none of his men might forget their promise he ordered a gallows to be erected on an elevated spot outside the town.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

I denounce against all strait lacing, squeezing for a shape, till you mould my boy’s head like a sugar-loaf, and instead of a man-child, make me father to a crooked billet.
— from The Way of the World by William Congreve

[*] [*] Another thing that makes me fix the date of this entry at the middle of the eighteenth century is that, curiously enough, I have an acting copy of “Hamlet,” written about 1740, in which these two lines are misquoted almost exactly in the same way, and I have little doubt but that the Vincey who wrote them on the potsherd heard them so misquoted at that date.
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

Whatever may have been the obstinate injustice of destiny in this case, Thénardier was one of those men who understand best, with the most profundity and in the most modern fashion, that thing which is a virtue among barbarous peoples and an object of merchandise among civilized peoples,—hospitality.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

An orchard, good tillage, good grounds, seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to a citizen; but to a large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of the crop.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I remember that in a conversation with me on one occasion long prior to this, General Butler remarked that the Confederates would find great difficulty in getting more men for their army; possibly adding, though I am not certain as to this, "unless they should arm the slave."
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

I have been hurrying down provisions and forage, and tomorrow night propose to move McPherson from the left to the extreme right, back of General Thomas.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

But Miss Mowcher, finding that I was not at present disposed for any decoration within the range of her art, and that I was, for the time being, proof against the blandishments of the small bottle which she held up before one eye to enforce her persuasions, said we would make a beginning on an early day, and requested the aid of my hand to descend from her elevated station.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I recall a sentence (uttered by a politician) which has been running in my mind for three months.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

They had scarcely begun their repast again when someone else entered to take something out of a cupboard, whereupon the two Mice, more frightened than before, ran away and hid themselves.
— from Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend by Aesop

Mr. Mason felt the water rolling down his back in streams as he thought of a hot drive through the Florida sand and woods, but he could not say no, Jake's honest face was so anxious and pleading.
— from The Cromptons by Mary Jane Holmes

But Sheridan's cavalry, followed by the Sixth Corps, in its magnificent march from the North Anna, had suddenly and unexpectedly disturbed the security of the old plantation.
— from The Boys of '61 or, Four Years of Fighting, Personal Observations with the Army and Navy by Charles Carleton Coffin

Unmanured continuously 38 3 ⁄ 8 21 3 ⁄ 4 Superphosphate for turnips only 29 3 ⁄ 8 16 1 ⁄ 2 Mixed manure for turnips only 44 3 ⁄ 8 25 1 ⁄ 4 Mean produce of unmanured barley in barley field during the same season 21 1 ⁄ 2 12 1 ⁄ 8 The unmanured turnips were so very small in quantity, that the barley in the first series was practically grown after a fallow; this barley, however, was a much larger crop than that grown after turnips manured with superphosphate only, the available nitrogen of the soil in this case being exhausted by the turnips.
— from Cooley's Cyclopædia of Practical Receipts and Collateral Information in the Arts, Manufactures, Professions, and Trades..., Sixth Edition, Volume I by Richard Vine Tuson

On the contrary, It is written (Ecclus. 15:14): "God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel"; and the gloss adds: "That is of his free-will."
— from Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint

My mind for the last half-hour had been in a highly excited state; I had been repeating verses of old Huw Morris, brought to my recollection by the sight of his dwelling-place; they were ranting roaring verses, against the Roundheads.
— from Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery by George Borrow

The second case is yet more remarkable: “A butcher was brought into the drug store of Mr. Macfarlan, from the market-place opposite, laboring under a terrible accident.
— from Femina, A Work for Every Woman by John A. (John Alexander) Miller

A PRINCESS OF MARS Forty-three million miles from the earth—a succession of the weirdest and most astounding adventures in fiction.
— from Mixed Faces by Roy Norton

I think I liked Tari the better for not having asked me to his house; now that hazard had brought me to the door, he made me feel that I was really welcome.
— from Faery Lands of the South Seas by James Norman Hall

On the margin below he has depicted with the most minute figures the procession that Rome holds for the solemn office of the Corpus Christi, thronged with officers with their torches, Bishops, and Cardinals, and the most Holy Sacrament borne by the Pope, with the rest of the Court and the Guard of Halberdiers, and finally Castel S. Angelo firing artillery; all such as to cause every acutest wit to marvel with amazement.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 09 (of 10) Michelagnolo to the Flemings by Giorgio Vasari

"And I'm making mittens for the soldiers.
— from Changing Winds A Novel by St. John G. (St. John Greer) Ervine