Brav’d in mine own house with a skein of thread!
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

When I lately retired to my own house, with a resolution, as much as possibly I could, to avoid all manner of concern in affairs, and to spend in privacy and repose the little remainder of time I have to live, I fancied I could not more oblige my mind than to suffer it at full leisure to entertain and divert itself, which I now hoped it might henceforth do, as being by time become more settled and mature; but I find— “Variam semper dant otia mentem,” [“Leisure ever creates varied thought.”—Lucan, iv.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Heaven have I power to lock and to unlock, As thou dost know; therefore the keys are two, The which my predecessor held not dear.' Then urged me on his weighty arguments There, where my silence was the worst advice; And said I: 'Father, since thou washest me Of that sin into which I now must fall, The promise long with the fulfilment short Will make thee triumph in thy lofty seat.' Francis came afterward, when I was dead, For me; but one of the black Cherubim Said to him: 'Take him not; do me no wrong; He must come down among my servitors, Because he gave the fraudulent advice From which time forth I have been at his hair; For who repents not cannot be absolved, Nor can one both repent and will at once, Because of the contradiction which consents not.' O miserable me!
— from Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell by Dante Alighieri

Three years ago, when the steamer "Sunnyside" was wreck'd of a bitter icy night on the west bank here, Walter went out in his boat—was the first man on hand with assistance—made a way through the ice to shore, connected a line, perform'd work of first-class readiness, daring, danger, and saved numerous lives.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

How often have you prattled to me of him with all the fondness of a parent?
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

But (for his greater satisfaction) he strictly examined the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple on that day: he made inquiries of all he met, whether he had been seen in the city; nay, further, he dispatched messengers on horseback, who ascertained that at the time specified, Basilides was more than eighty miles from Alexandria.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

At the end of that time, however, his memory of his wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as keen as on that memorable night when he had stood by John Ferrier’s grave.
— from A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

Many of his writings are still extant.
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek during the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form by Cassius Dio Cocceianus

Erling and his people placed their array on the other side of the river; but at the back of his array were men on horseback well armed, who had the king with them.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

Hanson was springing toward him and making on him with a speed Phil could not realise in a man so weighty; a speed he could not begin to emulate.
— from The Spoilers of the Valley by Robert Watson

THE FIFTH PART CHRISTOPHER RUDD'S ADVENTURE IN IRELAND, AND THE MANNER OF HIS WINNING A WIFE headpiece to Fifth Part
— from A Gentleman-at-Arms: Being Passages in the Life of Sir Christopher Rudd, Knight by Herbert Strang

Also the manor of Eldhall, the manor of Horninger, with all the corne and graine within and about the same.
— from Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (11 of 12) Edward the Third, Who Came to the Crowne by the Resignation of His Father Edward the Second by Raphael Holinshed

I was near 'em as I am to you; and I could make out he was all to bits—'eard his breath rattle in his blooming lungs as he come down the ladder.
— from The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson

And finally that which excedes all the rest and is more immediately and directly against God, there hath also been many cruell mockings of his Worship, and horrid blasphemies;
— from The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland by Church of Scotland. General Assembly

There are marks on her wrists, as if she had been bound by ropes, and similar marks on her ankles."
— from The Diamond Pin by Carolyn Wells

If the memory of her was all that he was to have, he resolved that at least that memory should be perfect.
— from Blix by Frank Norris

He also had in his possession what I should suppose to be the most valuable find yet made—an engraved scarab of dark green hæmatite, comprising on its tiny surface the figure of a man on horseback, with a spear in his hand and a dog by his side, the whole cut with the delicacy of the finest intaglio.
— from With a Camera in Majorca by Margaret D'Este

He took everything easily, especially life and death, and would have ridden up to a roaring battery or into any other of the many mouths of hell with a smile upon his lips.
— from Mrs. Darrell by Foxcroft Davis