A handsome negress, who served the prettiest of my actresses to whom I shewed great attentions, said to me one day,— “I can’t make out how you can be so much in love with my mistress, who is as white as the devil.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

For however it may be disputed, whether the notion of a merit or demerit in certain actions be natural or artificial, it is evident, that the actions themselves are artificial, and are performed with a certain design and intention; otherwise they coued never be ranked under any of these denominations.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

A multitude of dogs, I could hear, fought over the bodies that lay darkly in the depth of the pit, far below me.
— from The War of the Worlds by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

'But to-day is my only day; if Captain Lennox comes this afternoon, and if we must—if I must really go to-morrow—— ' 'Oh, yes; we shall go to-morrow.
— from North and South by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

That is, it is at once potent for the greatest good and the greatest evil: in the very midst of death it calls for the most intense living; in the face of the greatest renunciation it offers the greatest premium; for the maximum of freedom it demands the utmost giving of one's self; in order to live at one's best it demands the giving of life itself.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

But this reflection, which would tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is contradicted at least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses the same princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the provinces of their wealth.
— 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

Our most learned and rational divines—Basnage, Le Clerc, Beausobre, La Croze, Mosheim, Jablonski—are inclined to favor this charitable judgment; but the zeal of Petavius is loud and angry, and the moderation of Dupin is conveyed in a whisper.
— 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

The discovery of the ultimate law of our psychologic acts has this, then, in common with many other discoveries: it came late and seems so simple that it may justly astonish us.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

In suggestiveness, only the Melancholia of Duerer is comparable to it; and no crude symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued and graceful mystery.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

Genius , inequalities of, i. 88; men of, deficient in conversation, 103; modern persecution of, 197.
— from Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 by Isaac Disraeli

Add to that two months of dieting in cell 24; exercises repeated a thousand times to enable me to hold my features in a certain grimace, to carry my head at a certain inclination, and adapt my back and shoulders to a stooping posture.
— from The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc

I desyre the hand nor weapone of no man to defend me; onelie do I crave audience; whiche, yf it be denyed heir unto me at this tyme, I must seak farther whare I may haif it."
— from The Works of John Knox, Volume 1 (of 6) by John Knox

The great landholders of Clare and [185] Limerick are not in a heavily mortgaged or downright insolvent condition.
— from Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. by Bernard Henry Becker

I hereby challenge you to meet me in the ring at any point within fifty miles of Detroit, in Canada, for fun, simply to decide who is the better man.
— from The Life and Adventures of Ben Hogan, the Wickedest Man in the World by Ben (Benedict) Hogan

“Mr. Smith is a very excellent man,” said a friend of mine one day in conversation to Mr. Pepper.
— from Talkers: With Illustrations by John Bate

A man saw him with many others driven in chains like cattle.
— from The Coming of the King by Bernie Babcock

From another source the message of death is cabled fifteen minutes before the closing of the market.
— from The Transgressors Story of a Great Sin A Political Novel of the Twentieth Century by Francis Alexandre Adams

The emission of the full sum of two hundred millions of dollars in continental bills of credit, which congress had solemnly resolved not to exceed, had been completed in November, 1779, [Pg 209] and the money was expended.
— from The Life of George Washington: A Linked Index to the Project Gutenberg Editions by John Marshall