There was nothing whatever in this dim marble prison but five more of these biers.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

When therefore any religion has struck its roots deep into a democracy, beware lest you disturb them; but rather watch it carefully, as the most precious bequest of aristocratic ages.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

The Hyperboreans were a mythical people beyond the Rhipaean mountains, in the far North.
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Were it possible, indeed, for one great company of merchants to possess themselves of the whole crop of an extensive country, it might perhaps be their interest to deal with it, as the Dutch are said to do with the spiceries of the Moluccas, to destroy or throw away a considerable part of it, in order to keep up the price of the rest.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

If then, as was probable, some vast cavity existed in the interior of the granite, it might, perhaps, be of great use.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

And since then, with very few exceptions, I have heard nothing but abuse, and this too in a spirit of bitterness at least as disproportionate to the pretensions of the poem, had it been the most pitiably below mediocrity, as the previous eulogies, and far more inexplicable.—This may serve as a warning to authors, that in their calculations on the probable reception of a poem, they must subtract to a large amount from the panegyric, which may have encouraged them to publish it, however unsuspicious and however various the sources of this panegyric may have been.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

I never laid my head down on my pillow, but I prayed with tears to do it.
— from The Battle of Life: A Love Story by Charles Dickens

That son was engaged in the medical profession, but he was at length anxious to go as a medical missionary to China.
— from Memorials of the Independent Churches in Northamptonshire with biographical notices of their pastors, and some account of the puritan ministers who laboured in the county. by Thomas Coleman

I feel myself free to write of the subject for the reason that it has been more than a decade of years since my connection with the World ceased, and the personal friendship I once enjoyed with Mr. Pulitzer became a matter of mere reminiscence to both of us.
— from Recollections of a Varied Life by George Cary Eggleston

If Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious conduct on the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself involved in this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished by ensuing circumstances.
— from Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

He is armed after the best and newest suggestions of science for naval equipment—his vital parts and locomotive machinery protected by the cuirass, his artillery, of great weight and superior rifling, on the Moncrieff system, swift to attack and agile to retreat.
— from Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, May 1885 by Various

As soon as the huge crates stood in the quay, my men were already engaged in freeing from their dark prisons my poor birds born for sunshine and air.
— from My Escape from Donington Hall, Preceded by an Account of the Siege of Kiao-Chow in 1915 by Gunther Plüschow

for the coldest part of the ocean may perhaps be too low for a time when corals thrived in latitude 70°.
— from Climatic Changes: Their Nature and Causes by Ellsworth Huntington

"Miss Phillips?" "Bother Miss Phillips!"
— from The Lady of the Ice: A Novel by James De Mille

Scribbled secretly in the back of the note-book that lay always on the reading stand by her couch were hieroglyphic notes that reminded her that he had coffee at six-thirty; might possibly be caught in bed with proof-sheets or books till eight-forty-five, if not out riding; was inaccessible between nine and ten, dictating correspondence to Blake; was inaccessible between ten and eleven, conferring with managers and foremen, while Bonbright, the assistant secretary, took down, like any court reporter,
— from The Little Lady of the Big House by Jack London

In such delights did joy amongst my peers; But riper age such pleasures doth reprove: My fancy eke from former follies move To stayed steps; for time in passing wears, (As garments do, which waxen old above,)
— from The Shepheard's Calender: Twelve Aeglogues Proportionable to the Twelve Monethes by Edmund Spenser