Although necessity had compelled me to remain indifferent to the attitude of the critics, yet this particular notice gave me much pleasure, and I had invited my unknown critic to come and hear the first production of Tannhauser in Dresden.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

But they who most unpardonably calumniate this Christian era, are the very men who either themselves fled for asylum to the places specially dedicated to Christ, or were led there by the barbarians that they might be safe.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

There is nothing properer to make us conceive this confusion than a sort of pictures, usually shown as surprising pieces of art, wherein the colours, as they are laid by the pencil on the table itself, mark out very odd and unusual figures, and have no discernible order in their position.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

We may use categoric terms concerning our lovers, spouses, or children, but they have no real meaning; these persons are to us purely individual, all trace of the inclusive category has disappeared; they are, in the full sense of the word, our neighbors, being so near that when we look upon them we see nothing else, not even ourselves.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

But these, which must be taken as material conditions, that is, as belonging to the possibility of things themselves, they employed merely in a formal signification, as belonging to the logical requisites of all cognition, and yet most unguardedly changed these criteria of thought into properties of objects, as things in themselves.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

He endeavors to extenuate all that is appalling in the condition and treatment of the slaves; he would make us consider those cruelties as possibly "justified by necessity."
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

That he had information of the most unquestionable certainty, that certain citizens of the Eastern States (I think he named Massachusetts particularly) were in negotiation with agents of the British government, the object of which was an agreement that the New England States should take no further part in the war then going on; that, without formally declaring their separation from the Union of the States, they should withdraw from all aid and obedience to them, that their navigation and commerce should be free from restraint and interruption by the British; that they should be considered and treated by them as neutrals, and as such might conduct themselves towards both parties; and, at the close of the war, be at liberty to rejoin the confederacy.
— from Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4 by Thomas Jefferson

But in ancient times it was believed that the hair of any young woman might, under certain trying circumstances, change into serpents.
— from Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan: Second Series by Lafcadio Hearn

[257] Two troops of horse artillery and three companies of foot, constituted the artillery brigade; and some details of sappers and miners, under Captain Thomson, completed the Bengal force.
— from History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 1 (of 3) Third Edition by Kaye, John William, Sir

We mounted upon chairs to climb up into our beds, and then had all sorts of laughing alarms at the strange noises that seemed to pervade the house: the gruff voice of the vetturino and stable-boys, the stamping and snorting of the horses which were located beneath us, and the screams of another unhappy fowl, immolated for the refection of a fresh party of travellers, whose arrival about midnight completely disturbed the short interval that remained to us for repose.
— from The Englishwoman in Italy Impressions of life in the Roman states and Sardinia, during a ten years' residence by Gretton, G., Mrs.

So off he and Giles had to go into the dark yard and get in some water, and then they had to fetch in coals for the fires, and when John found that all the water in the back kitchen was frozen, and there was none but what was boiling to wash his hands in, he broke out again and denounced Val, and that minute up came the carrier's cart to the back door, having rescued the four smallest Mortimers and Aunt Christie and the nurse, who had been found stuck fast in the sociable in a drift, and in the children burst, full of ecstasy and congratulations, and thinking it the greatest fun in the world that we should all be in the kitchen.
— from Fated to Be Free: A Novel by Jean Ingelow

Do not let him see he is under suspicion, and we will not move until certain there can be no mistake in the matter."
— from Brave Tom; Or, The Battle That Won by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Nor is it the azalea alone which claims our admiration; clematises, wild roses, honeysuckles, and a hundred others, mingle their flowers with them, and make us confess that China is indeed the ‘central flowery land.’”
— from The Middle Kingdom, Volume 1 (of 2) A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts, and History of the Chinese Empire and its Inhabitants by S. Wells (Samuel Wells) Williams

After his porridge we pushed him out again with a strong party under orders to carry the nearest R.E. dump by force or fraud, and secure large quantities of timber, nails, canvas and, if possible (the up-to-date R.E. dump secretes many unexpected commodities), Turkey carpets, wall-paper, sofa-cushions and bedroom-slippers.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, December 5, 1917 by Various

Material uncleanness consented to contaminates that self.
— from Mastery of Self for Wealth, Power, Success by Frank C. (Frank Channing) Haddock