Mrs. Barrett was a grave, judicious woman, though she knew little more of the world than myself; but grave and judicious as she was, she did not charge me with being out of my senses; and, indeed, I had a staid manner of my own which ere now had been as good to me as cloak and hood of hodden grey, since under its favour I had been enabled to achieve with impunity, and even approbation, deeds that, if attempted with an excited and unsettled air, would in some minds have stamped me as a dreamer and zealot.
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

“What,” some may be disposed to ask, “can possibly be done to make the country more attractive to a work-a-day people than the town—to make wages, or at least the standard of physical comfort, higher in the country than in the town; to secure in the country equal possibilities of social intercourse, and to make the prospects of advancement for the average man or woman equal, not to say superior, to those enjoyed in our large cities?”
— from Garden Cities of To-Morrow Being the Second Edition of "To-Morrow: a Peaceful Path to Real Reform" by Howard, Ebenezer, Sir

A night man, one who empties necessary houses. TOMBOY.
— from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose

I like to have the papers read to me, and I try to understand the great questions of the day; but I am afraid my knowledge is very unstable; for I change my opinions with every new book I read.
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

At the end of this voyage the whole coast from Fusan to the Tumen was known with some accuracy and mapped out with European names.
— from The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea by Trumbull White

And it really would not cost you anything to be my friend, just to say a word to me, merely one word every now and then.
— from Money (L'Argent) by Émile Zola

Magyar Peasant Woman Note own embroidery on apron: "If I am pure and good, I expect to be honored" Molokan from Russia From a semi-wild tribe, members of which eat no meat
— from The Old World in the New The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People by Edward Alsworth Ross

Is not my own wife even now desperately ill?
— from Jacqueline of the Carrier Pigeons by Augusta Huiell Seaman

Outside that again, forming a sort of suburb, lies to the south the Chinese City with thirteen miles of wall enclosing not only its teeming population, but the great open spaces and parks of the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Agriculture.
— from A Woman In China by Mary Gaunt

None of the evils of which he speaks occurred at any of these meetings; they were attended by ministers and members of different denominations of Christians, most of whom expressed, not merely their approbation of the services, but their gratitude to God for the great spiritual delight they experienced in attending them.
— from The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, 1835 by Various