Man, as is well said, lives by faith; each generation has its own faith, more or less; and laughs at the faith of its predecessor,—most unwisely.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

There are many other peculiarities of climate, habit, custom, and of the manner of living and laboring at the South, but the foregoing, it is supposed, will give the reader an insight and general idea of life on a cotton plantation in Louisiana.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

On my return home I made three of my children, without giving them any clue to my object, look as long and as attentively as they could, at the summit of a tall tree standing against an extremely bright sky.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

She had her hand on the red-leather case, when it occurred to her that there might be something in this case which she had forgotten—something worth selling; for without knowing what she should do with her life, she craved the means of living as long as possible; and when we desire eagerly to find something, we are apt to search for it in hopeless places.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

You may convert some poor wretch whom you have paid to slander his religion; you get some wretched old-clothes-man to speak, and he says what you want; you may triumph over their ignorance and cowardice, while all the time their men of learning are laughing at your stupidity.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Why my next proceeding was to go straight up to the post-bag and take out my own letter and look at it again, with a vague distrust on me, and why the looking at it for the second time instantly suggested the idea to my mind of sealing the envelope for its greater security—are mysteries which are either too deep or too shallow for me to fathom.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

It seemed to me a manifestation of love at least as worthy of admiration as was his domestic fidelity.
— from Captain Macedoine's Daughter by William McFee

According to Herodotus, his cruel policy of destroying men of light and leading among his subjects had been learned from Thrasybulus of Miletus, to whom he sent a deputy for advice as to the best means of securing his position.
— from Greece Painted by John Fulleylove; described by J.A. McClymont by J. A. (James Alexander) M'Clymont

"'I am John's liege man of life and limb and of earthly regard,'" he quoted flippantly.
— from The Man Who Knew by Edgar Wallace

She said her mother dreaded all mention of love and lovers, and I prayed her to keep my love a secret from all the world.
— from Dora Thorne by Charlotte M. Brame

Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were chronicled in this narrow space not
— from The Village Watch-Tower by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

In former ages the priests elected the kings and deposed them at will; but a certain king had caused all the priests to be strangled [ 248 ] and since then a law had been passed that, if the king were maimed or lost a limb, all the people of his court had to inflict the same injury on themselves, for which reason the king’s person was guarded with great care and was divine and sacred; and the travellers did not see him.
— from The Tour: A Story of Ancient Egypt by Louis Couperus

Nor was the splendid bait offered by Lord Bellingham half as attractive to Archy as it would have been to a young man of less adventurous life and habits.
— from The Rock of the Lion by Molly Elliot Seawell

And did you call—(according to old laws Which bid us, lest the sacred grow profane, Assimilate ourselves in outward rites With strangers fortune makes our lords, and live As Christian with the Christian, Jew with Jew Druse only with the Druses)—did you call Or no, to stand 'twixt you and Osman's rage, (Mad to pursue e'en hither through the sea
— from The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition by Robert Browning

And, if we try to find out what exactly the chief things are which give his discussion its colour and interest, it seems to me we may distinguish that what he has in his mind, wrapped up in more or less ambiguous language, are the following propositions, to all of which I have tried to urge what seem to me the most obvious objections:— That utility is a property which distinguishes true beliefs from those which are not true; that, therefore, all true beliefs are useful, and all beliefs, which are useful, are true—by "utility" being sometimes meant "utility on at least one occasion," sometimes "utility in the long run," sometimes "utility for some length of time."
— from Philosophical Studies by G. E. (George Edward) Moore