'T is pity learned virgins ever wed With persons of no sort of education, Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, Grow tired of scientific conversation: I don't choose to say much upon this head, I 'm a plain man, and in a single station, But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

He who, courteous in his words, conceals deceit in his heart, may understand that he is himself described in this Fable.
— from The Fables of Phædrus Literally translated into English prose with notes by Phaedrus

I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back your honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick lieutenant—Is he in the army, then? said my uncle Toby ——He is, said the corporal——And in what regiment?
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

For some of the principal Methymnian exiles had carried over about fifty heavy infantry, their sworn associates, from Cuma, and hiring others from the continent, so as to make up three hundred in all, chose Anaxander, a Theban, to command them, on account of the community of blood existing between the Thebans and the Lesbians, and first attacked Methymna.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

6th.—He has not alluded to this momentous mystery since, and I have seen no reason to repent of my unwillingness to hear it.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

It was while the curate had sat and talked so wildly to me under the hedge in the flat meadows near Halliford, and while my brother was watching the fugitives stream over Westminster Bridge, that the Martians had resumed the offensive.
— from The War of the Worlds by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

her ear is so bad that it made me angry, till the poor wretch cried to see me so vexed at her, that I think I shall not discourage her so much again, but will endeavour to make her understand sounds, and do her good that way; for she hath a great mind to learn, only to please me; and, therefore, I am mighty unjust to her in discouraging her so much, but we were good friends, and to dinner, and had she not been ill with those and that it were not Friday (on which in Lent there are no plays)
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

11.) Suetonius (viii. 17) mentions that Domitian used to seize the estates of persons the most unknown to him, if any one could be found to assert that the deceased had expressed an intention to make the emperor his heir.—
— from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus

“Indeed!” said D’Artagnan; “I am most unhappy to hear it, on account of those fine animals.”
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

If he observed a Man untractable to his Inferiors, he would find an Opportunity to take some favourable Notice of him, and render him insupportable.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

It’s to make us think he is going down to your place.”
— from Dick o' the Fens: A Tale of the Great East Swamp by George Manville Fenn

“What does he want of me, ungrateful that he is?”
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

Then she was about to go back and choose her road, but a child’s voice said: “Won’t you help me up this hill? I fall back when I try to climb.”
— from Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens by Margaret W. (Margaret White) Eggleston

I despaired, at first, said the corporal, of being able to bring back your honour any kind of intelligence concerning the poor sick lieutenant—Is he in the army, then? said my uncle Toby ——He is, said the corporal——
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

But my heart within me muses in some measure upon this, how I may stretch forth my hands upon the shameless wooers, being but one man, while they abide ever in their companies within.
— from The Odyssey of Homer, Done into English Prose by Homer

Never has the attempt to bring about this consummation been made with more spirit and energy than in the literature and political constitutions of the last century; and yet this church lives still in our day, and what she has lost in temporal sovereignty is doubly and trebly made up to her in the growing number of her children and the gradually-increasing insight into the significance of her mission for human society.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 23, April, 1876-September, 1876. A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

and his family or national birthright was more urged than his individual enterprise.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 98, December, 1865 A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics by Various

Sir Ian complained to the Dardanelles Commission that no preliminary scheme of operations had been drawn up by the War Office; and he certainly got little assistance in that direction, although it might not have been of much use to him if he had.
— from Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 by Callwell, C. E. (Charles Edward), Sir

I dared not lay the book on the ground, as I should have done if it had been my own, so I asked my uncle to hold it.
— from Philip Gilbert Hamerton An Autobiography, 1834-1858, and a Memoir by His Wife, 1858-1894 by Eugénie Hamerton