From instances of popular tumults, seditions, factions, panics, and of all passions, which are shared with a multitude, we may learn the influence of society in exciting and supporting any emotion; while the most ungovernable disorders are raised, we find, by that means, from the slightest and most frivolous occasions.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

I directed the letter to Henry B. Northup, of Sandy Hill—stating that I had been kidnapped, was then on board the brig Orleans, bound for New-Orleans; that it was then impossible for me to conjecture my ultimate destination, and requesting he would take measures to rescue me.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

the few who believed in my innocence; at the last parting she swore to me to remain faithful to me unto death, and rather to die than betray her love for me—and within one year after that she married a man I knew, who possessed certain good qualities, but who was not at all a sensible man.
— from The Crushed Flower, and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev

Thou art the King of Courtesie: Fall off again my sweet youths, come and every man Trace to his house again, and hang his pewter up, then to The Tavern and bring your wives in Muffes: we will have Musick and the red grape shall make us dance, and rise Boys.
— from Philaster; Or, Love Lies a Bleeding by John Fletcher

We seem to be touched by a wand which makes us dance and run about happily, like children.
— from Essays — Second Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson

They were smarting with shame at the thought that it was their son, the lad of whom they had been so proud and upon whose future they had built such high hopes, who was the author of my undeserved disgrace and ruin, so far as my career in the British Navy was concerned; and they wanted me at home in order that they might have the comfort of doing what they could to make up to me for their son’s treachery.
— from Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War by Harry Collingwood

One day, having, as I thought, nicely calculated so that nothing should go away untasted, to my utter dismay a roast turkey and a pig appeared in all their substantial reality.
— from Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage Round the World of H.M.S. Beagle Under the Command of Captain Fitz Roy, R.N. by Charles Darwin

We have it from the inside by one who had part in it, born and bred to the humble life he described; and, finally, it is not given as a full day-to-day record—photographed as we may say—with all the minute unessential details and repetitions, but as it appeared when looked back upon from a distance, reliving it in memory, the sights and sounds and events which had impressed the boy's mind standing vividly out.
— from Afoot in England by W. H. (William Henry) Hudson

I had no need to speak in Platt-Deutsch , or to disguise my voice, which either the sharp north-easter, or my embarrassment, or both together, made unnaturally deep and rough.
— from Hammer and Anvil: A Novel by Friedrich Spielhagen

[152:1] Now this, I say, makes us desire a revelation of the Supreme Moral Governor which is assuredly not to be found in the laws which control mere physical forces.
— from The Lost Gospel and Its Contents Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself by M. F. (Michael Ferrebee) Sadler