It is quite otherwise with my author; the elegance and perfection of his way of speaking makes us lose the appetite of his plot; his refined grace and elegance of diction everywhere occupy us: he is so pleasant throughout, “Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni,” [“Liquid, and likest the pure river.” —Horace, Ep., ii. s, 120.]
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

“To think of your rigging me up like this, and then letting me—BE SEEN!”
— from Pollyanna by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

This event conveys many useful lessons to a thoughtful observer.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

As we drew a little nearer, and saw the whole adjacent prospect lying a straight low line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have improved it; and also that if the land had been a little more separated from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed up, like toast and water, it would have been nicer.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

In respect to the particular point of the preservation of animal bodies for food, I dwelt on this topic in the lectures delivered before the Society of Arts, in April and May of last year (1878), explaining very definitely that the course of research in the direction of preservation must ultimately lead to a process by which we should keep the structures of animals in a form of suspended molecular life."
— from The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, November 1879 by Various

I am the instrument of a divine ally, without whose active working I can accomplish nothing: who forbids altogether my teaching of one man — tolerates, without assisting, my unavailing lessons to another — assists efficaciously in my teaching of a third, in which case alone the pupil receives any real benefit.
— from Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 2 by George Grote

Music is so far the most universal language, that any one piece in a particular strain symbolizes all the analogous phenomena spiritual or material—if you can talk of spiritual phenomena.
— from Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 1 by Edward FitzGerald

“Teddy” envied me “my baccalaureate enthusiasm,” and, encouraged evidently by this quality, he would read Chaucer in a sing-song voice, or, when this recreation failed, would make up limericks to a guitar accompaniment.
— from The Great White Tribe in Filipinia by Paul T. (Paul Thomas) Gilbert

The transcontinental express had made up lost time and came roaring in just as the stage rattled up to the platform.
— from The Freebooters of the Wilderness by Agnes C. Laut

As we rode out to receive the Wilson cattle the next morning, Uncle Lance took advantage of the occasion to jolly Nancrede further about the senior member of the firm, the foreman smiling appreciatingly.
— from A Texas Matchmaker by Andy Adams

381 Contrary to his original plan Rodney kept his party moving until late that afternoon, when he halted the soldiers in the rear of another plantation while he and Dick went to the house to get something to eat, and make inquiries concerning their pursuers.
— from Rodney, the Overseer by Harry Castlemon

"It shall be my untiring labor to avert the adoption of any measure that entails an appeal to force," Trueman assures her.
— from The Transgressors Story of a Great Sin A Political Novel of the Twentieth Century by Francis Alexandre Adams

He spoke sharply: "What do you mean by following me up like this, and skulking in the brambles?
— from The Bushranger's Secret by Clarke, Henry, Mrs.