I’ve changed the scene too, and the effect of it has been to make me care more for my old associations than ever.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

The King was now approaching fast towards his end; and fearing lest Norfolk should escape him, he sent a message to the Commons, by which he desired them to hasten the Bill, on pretence that Norfolk enjoyed the dignity of Earl Marshal, and it was necessary to appoint another, who might officiate at the ensuing ceremony of installing his son Prince of Wales.—Hume’s History of England, vol.
— from The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

Right in the midst of all these embarrassments Halleck informed me that there was an organized scheme on foot in the North to resist the draft, and suggested that it might become necessary to draw troops from the field to put it down.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

Mr. Bartlett watched a wild boar quarrelling rather savagely with his sow; and both had their mouths open and their ears drawn backwards.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

The plan which she devised for this purpose, was to exterminate all the male offspring of Augustus by his daughter Julia, who was married to Agrippa; a stratagem which, when executed, would procure for Tiberius, through the means of adoption, the eventual succession to the empire.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

“I have no desire to make mysteries, but it is impossible at the moment of action to enter into long and complex explanations.
— from The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

XXXII 280 He hated all good workes and vertuous deeds, And him no lesse, that any like did use, And who with gracious bread the hungry feeds, His almes for want of faith he doth accuse; So every good to bad he doth abuse: 285 And eke the verse of famous Poets witt He does backebite, and spightfull poison spues From leprous mouth on all that ever writt: Such one vile Envie was, that fifte in row did sitt.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

At first this amounts to an amiable misrepresentation of natural things; the gods inhabit Mount Olympus and the Elysian Fields are not far west of Cadiz.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

It may very readily be admitted that the mass of the citizens are sincerely disposed to promote the welfare of their country; nay more, it may even be allowed that the lower classes are less apt to be swayed by considerations of personal interest than the higher orders: but it is always more or less impossible for them to discern the best means of attaining the end which they desire with sincerity.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

In the moral philosophy of prudence, for example, the sole business of reason is to bring about a union of all the ends, which are aimed at by our inclinations, into one ultimate end—that of happiness—and to show the agreement which should exist among the means of attaining that end.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Obadiah arose hastily as the sweet tones struck his ear and awaited the arrival of the musical one at the edge of the porch.
— from The Triumph of Virginia Dale by John Francis

This is no mere rash and ignorant jibe of my own at the expense of my English neighbors.
— from Captain Brassbound's Conversion by Bernard Shaw

We must not lay the blame of any one failure at the door of any one particular man, but attribute it to the fault we are most often apt to exalt as a virtue—as if by so doing we exonerated our mistakes—our slack unpreparedness.
— from Eighteen Months in the War Zone The Record of a Woman's Work on the Western Front by Kate John Finze

It appears that in spite of the Ten Articles the Pope had not yet given up all hope of re-establishing his power in Henry’s dominions, and had determined to make use of Pole as the most likely means of accomplishing this end.
— from Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Vol. 1 of 2 Life, Letters to 1535 by Roger Bigelow Merriman

There were many other good authors whom I read and prized, but most of the above I read till their thoughts and feelings became, to a great extent, my own; and the effect of all was to strengthen the already strong practical tendency of my mind.
— from Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again A Life Story by Joseph Barker

Voyage and Discovery There were but two methods of avoiding this ever-increasing policy of exploitation apart from doing without such luxuries: either a complete conquest of the Turks, that would compel them to open up afresh the old caravan routes to the East; or else the discovery of a new route that would avoid their dominions altogether.
— from Europe in the Middle Ages by Ierne L. (Ierne Lifford) Plunket

My father, you must know, who was originally a Turkey merchant, but had left off business for some years, in order to retire to, and die upon, his paternal estate in the county of ———, was, I believe, one of the most regular men in everything he did, whether ’twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

In the midst of all this effusion, Mr. Rivers suddenly appeared in the back room.
— from The Award of Justice; Or, Told in the Rockies: A Pen Picture of the West by A. Maynard (Anna Maynard) Barbour

Briefly presented, the present world is two-fold, being the work of two hostile beings—Ahūra-Mazda, the good principle, and Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman, the evil principle.
— from Persian Literature, Ancient and Modern by Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Armstrong) Reed