“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved!
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The exquisite Trimalchio, who keeps a clock and a liveried bugler in his dining-room, so that he can tell, instantly, how much of his life has run out!”
— from The Satyricon — Complete by Petronius Arbiter

I can’t say, but that if ... ... have missed of him likewise: However, the Collonel ... ... have missed of him likewise: However, the Colonel ... ... that Night, bccause her Mother in Law was to lye in her ... ... that Night, because her Mother in Law was to lye in her ... ... CHAP.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

She again fixed her eyes upon the Crucifix, took her Rosary, and while She told her beads, the quick motion of her lips declared her to be praying with fervency.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

Look on thy country, look on fertile France, And see the cities and the towns defac'd By wasting ruin of the cruel foe; As looks the mother on her lowly babe
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

I have no false pride, as many men of high lineage like my own have, and, in default of better company, will hob and nob with a ploughboy or a private soldier just as readily as with the first noble in the land.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

And long afterwards, at painful moments of his life, he recalled among other pangs of remorse all the circumstances of that waking, and that earthenware basin, and the china jug filled with cold water in which there were still floating icicles, and the oval cake of soap at fifteen kopecks, in pink paper with letters embossed on it, evidently bought for the bridal pair though it fell to Ivan Ilyitch to use it, and the old lady with the linen towel over her left shoulder.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The business was to make ourselves easy for life by means of his legacy, a task very difficult, and, in the usual methods of laying out money, altogether impracticable, so that, after much canvassing, we could come to no resolution that night, but when we parted, recommended the matter to the serious attention of each other.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Six months of hard labor would do you no end of good.
— from The Lani People by Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone

I cannot refrain from adding to these examples of the little account commonly made of human liberty, the language of downright persecution which breaks out from the press of this country, whenever it feels called on to notice the remarkable phenomenon of Mormonism.
— from On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

Dauntrees had advanced half-way down the bank, and the glare disclosed him as suddenly arrested in his career; his sword gleamed above his head whilst his short cloak was drawn by the motion of his left arm under his chin; and his broad beaver, pistolled belt, and wide boots, now tinged with the preternatural light, gave to his figure that rich effect which painters are pleased to copy.
— from Rob of the Bowl: A Legend of St. Inigoe's. Vol. 1 (of 2) by John Pendleton Kennedy

Perhaps no circumstances could have extenuated the old man's surly manners or his lack of all citizenly graces and virtues; but his neighbors commonly rebuked his present way of living and forgot the troubled past that had brought it about: the sharp-tongued wife, the unloving and disloyal sons, the daughter's hapless fate, and all the other sorry tricks that fortune had played upon him—at least that was the way in which he had always regarded his disappointments and griefs.
— from New Chronicles of Rebecca by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

"On the contrary, Mr. Ronge has justly acquired the universal love and esteem which he so richly enjoys, by his modest and highly decorous conduct, by the exemplary morality of his life—which even the foulest calumny has never ventured to assail—and, further, by his zealous energy in the improvement of youth, as well as by his friendly and winning carriage towards all men." IMG This Declaration, and my own Defence, I forwarded without delay to the Reverend Council, with the observation, that I should also send a testimonial from the magistracy of Grottkau, so soon as I should receive it.
— from John Ronge; The Holy Coat of Treves; New German-Catholic Church by Anonymous

Ross Ruffin was nearest him, and at the very moment of his laying hands on Louis there came a flash of steel.
— from Through Swamp and Glade: A Tale of the Seminole War by Kirk Munroe

We may amuse ourselves with talking as much as we please of the virtue of middle or humble life; that is, we may place our confidence in the virtue of those who have never been tried.
— from Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke by Edmund Burke

[Sidenote: THE ESSAYS] The Essays of Addison give us the full measure of his literary talent.
— from Outlines of English and American Literature An Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived by William J. (William Joseph) Long

With an audacious fancy and a timid heart; oscillating between defiant self-confidence and girlish sensitiveness; snatching inquisitively at every veil that hides from mortal eyes the mysteries of human life; to-day knowing the last word of the last question, to-morrow confessing the alphabet has still to be learnt, and getting comfort after so restless and contradictory a fashion that one would have been intolerable to one's very self if not surrounded by fellows in misfortune---that is in years--who were faring no better, and yet continued to endure their personality.
— from Barbarossa, and Other Tales by Paul Heyse

But if, not content with pleading the statute of limitations for a client who employs the law to escape from a moral obligation, he labours to convince the jury that, in availing himself of this plea, his client is acting in a very honourable, or at least in no blamable manner; if, by an artful colouring of the facts, or by insinuations against other parties, he contrives to lead the culprit in triumph through the court, then we say that a baseness is committed by the advocate, for which there is no excuse, in the constitution of courts of justice, nor in the subtleties of casuistry.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845 by Various

At no moment of his long career, not even when he galloped from the field of Mollwitz nor when he gathered round him the wreckage after Kunersdorf, had the King’s plight seemed so desperate as now.
— from Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia by William Fiddian Reddaway