"I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of abstraction, and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the men of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as that seems to be.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell

The superior merit of Sophia totally eclipsed, or rather extinguished, all the beauties of the poor girl; but compassion instead of contempt succeeded to love.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

At times, dreams of the terrible past still disconnectedly recalled to her, in the mystery of sleep, the events of which her waking memory had lost all trace.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

After referring to the parallelism of the palaeozoic forms of life in various parts of Europe, they add, "If struck by this strange sequence, we turn our attention to North America, and there discover a series of analogous phenomena, it will appear certain that all these modifications of species, their extinction, and the introduction of new ones, cannot be owing to mere changes in marine currents or other causes more or less local and temporary, but depend on general laws which govern the whole animal kingdom."
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

“En when you gits de new bill o’ sale dat sells me to my own self, take en send it in de mail to Mr. Pudd’nhead Wilson, en write on de back dat he’s to keep it tell I come.
— from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain

The speaker, with some show of emotion, asked to be pardoned if he dwelt too freely on passages of their early companionship; he then detailed, with a fine touch of humor, his comrade's peculiar manner of slitting the ears and lips of a refractory Jew who had been captured in one of their previous voyages.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

It has always been my object so to educate you, as that you might, while still in your early youth, be (if I may so express myself) almost any age.
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens

I do not, however, wish to doubt that the sounds may occasionally subserve this end.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

With this I beg to subscribe myself, the reader’s most obedient servant, The Editor.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

The two principal reproaches are, first, the multiplicity of sects, the excessive license of thought, the destruction of all spiritual authority, and the entire dissolution of religious society; secondly, tyranny and persecution.
— from Outlines of Ecclesiastical History by B. H. (Brigham Henry) Roberts

Scores were sliding and climbing down the crossed uprights [67] of the platform, getting their hands and clothes full of splinters, but this they did not mind, only so they escaped being swept from the dizzy height.
— from The Motor Boys in the Clouds; or, A Trip for Fame and Fortune by Clarence Young

And you remember, I doubt not, how often in gathering what most invited gathering, of deep green, starry, perfectly soft and living wood-moss, you found it fall asunder in your hand into multitudes of separate threads, each with its bright green crest, and long root of blackness.
— from Proserpina, Volume 1 Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew by John Ruskin

In judging of the policy of Mr. Pitt, during the Revolutionary war, his partisans, we know, laud it as having been the means of salvation to England, while his opponents assert that it was only prevented by chance from being her ruin—and though the event gives an appearance of triumph to the former opinion, it by no means removes or even weakens the grounds of the latter.
— from Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan — Volume 02 by Thomas Moore

We both feel a happy change in our health from leaving Munich, though I am reconciled to our long stay there by the fact that Mr. Lewes gained so much from his intercourse with the men of science there, especially Bischoff, Siebold, and Harless.
— from George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals. Vol. 2 (of 3) by George Eliot

The number of prostitutes in Europe is still estimated at seven hundred thousand, yet that makes only seven to every thousand females, and though there are many other unchaste women, it is safe to say that in England and America, at any rate, more than nine hundred out of every thousand females are chaste, whereas among savages, as a rule, nearly all females are prostitutes (in the moral sense of the word), before they marry.
— from Primitive Love and Love-Stories by Henry T. Finck

He thought her charming, almost alluring, in spite of her dress which savored too much of small town elegance.
— from Niels Lyhne by J. P. (Jens Peter) Jacobsen

In the summer of 1604 King James made a treaty of peace and amity with the archdukes and with the monarch of Spain, thus extending his friendly relations with the doomed house of Austria.
— from History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce — Complete (1584-1609) by John Lothrop Motley

At the mention of something to eat little Hugh sharpened his croon of pain into a yell.
— from Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City: His Progress and Adventures by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett

Monsieur Dufour, who was now sober, was waiting for them very impatiently, while the young man with the yellow hair was having a mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant