The frequent conquests of all the civilized countries in Asia by the Tartars, sufficiently demonstrates the natural superiority which the militia of a barbarous has over that of a civilized nation.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Made me ready and to my office, and by and by came Mr. Moore to me, and so I went home and consulted about drawing up a fair state of all my Lord’s accounts, which being settled, he went away, and I fell to writing of it very neatly, and it was very handsome and concisely done.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

END- 1605 H2 anchor MEASURE FOR MEASURE DRAMATIS PERSONAE VINCENTIO, the Duke ANGELO, the Deputy ESCALUS, an ancient Lord CLAUDIO, a young gentleman LUCIO, a fantastic Two other like Gentlemen VARRIUS, a gentleman, servant to the Duke PROVOST THOMAS, friar PETER, friar A JUSTICE ELBOW, a simple constable FROTH, a foolish gentleman POMPEY, a clown and servant to Mistress Overdone ABHORSON, an executioner BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner ISABELLA, sister to Claudio MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo JULIET, beloved of Claudio FRANCISCA, a nun MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendants SCENE: Vienna ACT I. SCENE I. The DUKE'S palace Enter DUKE, ESCALUS, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS DUKE.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

" Then Penelope answered, "Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty, whether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and my dear husband with them.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

The merits of a broken speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful scoundrel, are not gauged by its or his observance of the golden rule, ‘Do as you would be done by,’ but are considered with reference to their smartness.
— from American Notes by Charles Dickens

It is, therefore, neither unlikely nor impossible that, when the part adjoining the skin becomes suddenly oppressed by an unwonted cold, it should at once be weakened and should find that the liquid previously deposited beside it without discomfort had now become more of a burden than a source of nutrition, and should therefore strive to put it away.
— from Galen: On the Natural Faculties by Galen

Next beyond the which, on the street side, was sometime a fair cemetery or churchyard, and in the same a parish church called of the Nativity of our Lady, and the Innocents of the Strand, and of some by means of a brotherhood kept there, called St. Ursula at the Strand.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

The decision to take his defence into his own hands now seemed more of a burden than he had originally assumed.
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka

A white girl crouched before him, down by the very mules' feet, with a baby in her arms,-a little mite of a baby that wailed weakly.
— from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

The merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian blood: 12 the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the purest race: the males are sold at a high price, but the females are seldom alienated; and the birth of a noble foal was esteemed among the tribes, as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

He also represented various human emotions, such as the little fear of the water shown by two men who are fighting on horseback, and the extreme terror of death seen in a woman and a man who are mounted on a buffalo, which is filling with water from behind, so that they are losing all hope of being able to save themselves; and the whole work is so good and so excellent, that it brought him very great fame.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 02 (of 10) Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi by Giorgio Vasari

There was a woman I met on a bench, and I just was sure she was going to take all the credit, but I told her that was my business.
— from Out of the Ashes by Ethel Watts Mumford Grant

Dashing away my idle tears, I drew my revolver and shot off the leader's tail, leaving the long line of disconcerted and aimless hogs in the middle of a broad prairie, with no guide but the dephlogisticated tail of a hog who was then three-quarters of a mile away.
— from Bill Nye's Chestnuts Old and New by Bill Nye

They answer all comers also in their own persons unto two several questions of divinity in the open schools at one time for the space of two hours, and afterward reply twice against some other man upon a like number and on two several dates in the same place, which being done with commendation, he receiveth the fourth degree, that is, bachelor of divinity, but not before he has been master of arts by the space of seven years, according to their statutes.
— from Elizabethan England From 'A Description of England,' by William Harrison by William Harrison

It is as though he said: "What I do, I do not by my own authority, but in the name and stead of God, so that you should regard it just as if our Lord Himself had done it in a visible manner.
— from Works of Martin Luther, with Introductions and Notes (Volume II) by Martin Luther

At last Maku turned into an alley, which cut through the middle of a block.
— from The Girl and the Bill An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure by Bannister Merwin

The messenger found him at table, with a number of the leaders of the Whig faction, the Marquis of Annandale being in the chair; and, the prisoner's note being produced, Wringhim read it aloud, accompanying it with some explanatory remarks.
— from The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

Thanks to economical water-wheels and generators, efficient transmission, and motors all but perfect, water-powers, as at Niagara Falls, now send electricity to thousands of distant workshops, to serve not only as an ideal means of actuation, but as a source of light, heat and chemical impulse.
— from Inventors at Work, with Chapters on Discovery by George Iles