A nation is, in my mind, an historical group of men of a recognizable cohesion held together by a common enemy.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous

As I was clearing away the weeds from his epitaph the little sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air, and informed me in a low voice that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was unruly, howling, and whistling, banging about doors and windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of honest Preston, which happened to be airing itself in the churchyard, was attracted by the well-known call of “Waiter!” from the Boar’s Head, and made its sudden appearance in the midst of a roaring club, just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the “mirre garland of Captain Death;” to the discomfiture of sundry train-band captains and the conversion of an infidel attorney, who became a zealous Christian on the spot, and was never known to twist the truth afterwards, except in the way of business.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving

My principal endeavour was to learn the language, which my master (for so I shall henceforth call him), and his children, and every servant of his house, were desirous to teach me; for they looked upon it as a prodigy, that a brute animal should discover such marks of a rational creature.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

They are, moreover, of a rough coarse nature, not sensitive to the delicate touch of the highly organized Polygon.
— from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Upon a subsequent occasion, in 1750, when a proposal was made to parliament for putting the trade under the management of a regulated company, and thereby laying it in some measure open, the East India company, in opposition to this proposal, represented, in very strong terms, what had been, at this time, the miserable effects, as they thought them, of this competition.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

LANYON’S NARRATIVE HENRY JEKYLL’S FULL STATEMENT OF THE CASE H2 anchor STORY OF THE DOOR Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable.
— from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Even the Greeks of the ninth century were provoked by the insolence of a female, who, in the front of the standards, presumed to direct their discipline and animate their valor; and their licentious clamors advised the new Semiramis to reverence the majesty of a Roman camp.
— 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

I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights or privileges, or certain badges of distinction, on the ground simply that they were members of this or that race, regardless of their own individual worth or attainments.
— from Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

Humanitarianism, the obliteration of class distinctions, fraternization between men of all races, conditions, and religious creeds, enter of course largely into the spirit of British Masonry, but form simply the basis on which Masons meet together in the lodges and not a political system to be imposed on the world in general.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

There must be a difference, or the tracker could not have performed the feat; a difference minute, shadowy, and not detectible by you or me, or by the late Sherlock Holmes, and yet discernible by a member of a race charged by some people with occupying the bottom place in the gradations of human intelligence.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

This is secured by causing rapid reversals of the primary current by means of a rotating commutator.
— from Life Movements in Plants, Volume I by Jagadis Chandra Bose

A player applied to the manager of a respectable country company for an engagement for himself and his wife, stating that his lady was capable of all the first line of business; but as to himself, he was the worst actor in the world .
— from The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; containing a collection of over one thousand of the most laughable sayings and jokes of celebrated wits and humorists. by Various

A thin piece of water on the lower beat to my mind offered a remote chance for a sea trout, and I was rowed down in a particular direct rainfall to it.
— from Lines in Pleasant Places: Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler by William Senior

The old members of a rising commercial society complain of the loss of simplicity of manners, of the introduction of new wants, of the relaxation of morals, of the prevalence of new habits.
— from How to Observe: Morals and Manners by Harriet Martineau

(leveret), he [29] asked, using one of the pretty pet names he had learned in her country, where he had been for three months on a Royal Commission; "where are you?
— from Nostalgia by Grazia Deledda

41 Accordingly, at the instigation of its leading members, the senate framed an oath in these words, 'I call heaven to witness that I have never countenanced any action prejudicial to any man's civil status, nor have I derived any profit or any office from the misfortune of any Roman citizen.'
— from Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II by Cornelius Tacitus

As soon as Mabel had spoken, all eyes were turned upward, and beheld the muzzle of a rifle cautiously thrust through a hole, June having resorted again to a ruse which had already proved so successful.
— from The Pathfinder; Or, The Inland Sea by James Fenimore Cooper