I should willingly tell them, that the fruit of a surgeon’s experience, is not the history of his practice and his remembering that he has cured four people of the plague and three of the gout, unless he knows how thence to extract something whereon to form his judgment, and to make us sensible that he has thence become more skillful in his art.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Mr. Rappit, the hair-dresser, with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward, like the simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to her at that moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at St. Ogg's she would carefully refrain from entering through the rest of her life.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

"Go back," said my uncle, speaking to himself, "and must it be so?" "Go back—yes, and without losing a single moment," I vehemently cried.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

He held up his lantern, and looked earnestly in my uncle’s face, as he handed it in, when, by its light, my uncle saw, to his great surprise, that an immense crowd of mail-coach guards swarmed round the window, every one of whom had his eyes earnestly fixed upon him too.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The ‘saints’ thus made, unfortunately, seem to have equally realistic ideas that the Gentiles are adherents of the Prince of this world, and their sacramental bands have shown some striking imitations of those events of history which, when not labelled ‘Christian,’ are pronounced barbarous.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

“Eh, man,” cried my uncle, scrambling to his feet, “give me a meenit!
— from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

“This big pot in the police who sized me up so that he knew how the goggles would go with my hair and socks—by God, he never saw me at all!”
— from The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

Painting also seems useful to enable a man to judge more accurately of the productions of the finer arts: nor is it like the gymnastic exercises, which contribute to health and strength; for neither of these things do we see produced by music; there remains for it then to be the employment of our rest, which they had in view who introduced it; and, thinking it a proper employment for freemen, to them they allotted it; as Homer sings: "How right to call Thalia to the feast:" and of some others he says: "The bard was call'd, to ravish every ear:" and, in another place, he makes Ulysses say the happiest part of man's life is "When at the festal board, in order plac'd, They hear the song.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

Men usually seem to have.
— from The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

If he had stopped there all would have been well, so it seemed to Jesus, whose present mind was not able to grasp why a miracle should be necessary to prove to men that the love of God was in the heart rather than in observances, and the miracle that Paul continued to relate with so much unction seemed to him so crude; yet he once believed that God was pleased to send his only begotten son to redeem the world by his death on a cross.
— from The Brook Kerith: A Syrian story by George Moore

It is also said that King John of France was imprisoned in this chamber during his stay at Canterbury, but this is most unlikely, seeing that he was treated by the Black Prince more as a sovereign than as a captive.
— from The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.] A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Archiepiscopal See by Hartley Withers

'Tis said he hopes much from the King's return And swears by Lion-Heart; and though King Richard Is brother to yourself, 'tis all the more Ungracious, sir, to hope he should return, And overset your rule.
— from Collected Poems: Volume Two by Alfred Noyes

"She is a snake in the grass, that pretty widow, and she makes my mistress unhappy," said the housekeeper, the first month that Mrs. Belmont came, and her opinion was adopted by all the other servants.
— from Kathleen's Diamonds; or, She Loved a Handsome Actor by Miller, Alex. McVeigh, Mrs.

So Billie waited, but her heart ached as she watched Chet march up smilingly to hear "the glad news."
— from Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance; Or, The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners by Janet D. Wheeler

Soon after his arrival he wrote to my uncle, saying that he still wished me to proceed to England to have my education attended to, that he could stay at Cape Town about a month, and would like me to remain with him during that period, after which I should embark for England.
— from The White Chief of the Caffres by Alfred W. (Alfred Wilks) Drayson

Maryanne, as I am all alone, you can bring me up some tea here—I can’t take the trouble to dine—alone.’
— from Ombra by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

His long returns of melancholy; the writing of poetry, which Mrs. Unwin suggested to him to divert his thoughts; his gardening, his walks, his tame hares, his successive acquaintances with Lady Austen, Lady Hesketh, and the like all—this we know.
— from Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 1 (of 2) by William Howitt