As to the rest, nothing vexes me so much in folly as that it is more satisfied with itself than any reason can reasonably be.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

My only regret is that I cannot tell him I am his mother, as I think he would love me still more if he knew that he owed his being to me.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The light footstep moved about the kitchen, followed by the sound of the sweeping brush, hardly making so much noise as the lightest breeze that chases the autumn leaves along the dusty path; and Adam's imagination saw a dimpled face, with dark bright eyes and roguish smiles looking backward at this brush, and a rounded figure just leaning a little to clasp the handle.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

I told Don Fernando at parting, that as I was now his, he might see me on other nights in the same way, until it should be his pleasure to let the matter become known; but, except the following night, he came no more, nor for more than a month could I catch a glimpse of him in the street or in church, while I wearied myself with watching for one; although I knew he was in the town, and almost every day went out hunting, a pastime he was very fond of.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“Monsieur,” said Mademoiselle d’Aubigne to Scarron, as if she wished to join in the conversation he was engaged in with Raoul, “do you not admire Monsieur Voiture’s friends?
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

Kusug kitang muawat sa múda sa mga kanù, We are quick to imitate American fashions.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

Braille is especially useful in making single manuscript copies of books.
— 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

The mother shewed me all the things her daughter had bought, and complained that she had not got any clothes for her brother.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Modern Social Movements.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Now it did not need that the men should marry in order that they might quarrel, for hardly was the breath out of their mother's body when they set to squabbling, without any woman to help them.
— from The Bondman: A New Saga by Caine, Hall, Sir

A superior position was offered her by her being silent A whisper of cajolery in season is often the secret A contented Irishman scarcely seems my countryman A woman who has mastered sauces sits on the apex of civilization A man who rejected medicine in extremity A maker of Proverbs—what is he but a narrow mind wit A dash of conventionalism makes the whole civilized world kin A lover must have his delusions, just as a man must have a skin A cloud of millinery shoots me off a mile from a woman
— from Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Collected Works of George Meredith by George Meredith

They loved their mistress so much that at her call they would unhesitatingly come, or at her behest go whithersoever and whensoever she wished.
— from Zuñi Folk Tales by Frank Hamilton Cushing

'Seeing my poor master was so disturbed in his mind,' said Matthew, 'the doctor bid me run as fast as I could for the stuff he had ordered: which I did.
— from The Adventures of Hugh Trevor by Thomas Holcroft

That thought, out of the lowest depths of despair, would at any time make me strike my forehead against the stars.
— from Liber Amoris, Or, The New Pygmalion by William Hazlitt

“Pardon me,” said my host, gaily, “while I put a bottle of wine on ice.
— from The Old and the New Magic by Henry Ridgely Evans