They got an accession of above a million of useful subjects, constituting a never-failing nursery of seamen, soldiers, labourers, and mechanics; a most valuable acquisition to a trading country, exposed to foreign wars, and obliged to maintain a number of settlements in all the four quarters of the globe.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

At Athens it is said that the first man who gave money to the judges for his acquittal was Anytus the son of Anthemion, when he was tried for treachery at Pylos towards the end of the Peloponnesian War, a period when men of uncorrupted simplicity and virtue were still to be found in the Forum at Rome.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

Venture then went to his various engagements, where he supped, while I walked alone, meditating on his great merit, coveting and admiring his rare talents, and cursing my own unlucky stars, that did not call me to so happy a life.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

At midnight, sixty men of us set out armed with corselets and helmets, together with the Christian king, the prince, some of the chief men, and twenty or thirty balanguais.
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

Have we then, come upon a monster of unknown species, which still exists within the vast waste of waters—a monster more voracious than a shark, more terrible and bulky than the whale?
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

“You must oblige us,” said he, “indeed you must.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

nd, I could only make out uncertain, strange, and incomprehensible words.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

His own corps perceived him coming through the host, and loud their shout of welcome rose, and all the men of Ulster sent forth a cry of exultation and of joy.
— from Cuchulain, the Hound of Ulster by Eleanor Hull

"Many of us," said a Sergeant, "did not need to come back because owing to having received serious wounds the first time we were excused from further military service—but they all came back none the less.
— from The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 by Various

Creighton’s tutor, Duport (who gave us our large silver salt-cellar), spoke up for his pupil, and thereon the master said that the charge looked like malice, and it did not matter much if Creighton did neglect to go to the private prayer meetings of undergraduates since he never failed to go to chapel and to his tutor’s lectures.
— from Cambridge Papers by W. W. Rouse (Walter William Rouse) Ball

This condition, rather than impassable mountains or unmelted snows, was the chief obstacle to a thorough exploration of the Upper Yellowstone.
— from The Yellowstone National Park: Historical and Descriptive by Hiram Martin Chittenden

It makes one uncomfortable, shall we say, to step out of one's class?"
— from Tape Jockey by Tom Leahy

Many of us seem to think that if we say ‘I am tired,’ that is a reason for not doing anything.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) by Alexander Maclaren

{204} "That's just why so many of us shy at the Matrimonial Jump," he confided to her.
— from People You Know by George Ade

The masses are conservative, and their conservatism usually holds them one or two centuries in arrears of advancing thought; and even putting the masses out of the question, one has to be very hospitable to receive truth at all times as a welcome guest, for truth is certainly very naked and uncompromising; we love to sigh for it, Béranger said, and, it may be added, most of us stop there.
— from The Philosophy of Disenchantment by Edgar Saltus

Common interests will be determined by Boards of Experts, who will be chosen by the members of these groups by means of universal suffrage.
— from Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory by E. V. (Ernst Viktor) Zenker