Those sciences and arts which teach us how we may be most useful to the State; for I consider that the most glorious office of wisdom, and the noblest proof and business of virtue.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

That these ships will with their convoys carry above 2,000 men, and those the best men that could be got; it being the men used to the Southward that are the best men for warr, though those bred in the North among the colliers are good for labour.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

“I shall not be surprised at anything of the kind,” returned Don Quixote; “for if thou dost remember the last time we were here I told thee that everything that happened here was a matter of enchantment, and it would be no wonder if it were the same now.” “I could believe all that,” replied Sancho, “if my blanketing was the same sort of thing also; only it wasn’t, but real and genuine; for I saw the landlord, Who is here to-day, holding one end of the blanket and jerking me up to the skies very neatly and smartly, and with as much laughter as strength; and when it comes to be a case of knowing people, I hold for my part, simple and sinner as I am, that there is no enchantment about it at all, but a great deal of bruising and bad luck.” “Well, well, God will give a remedy,” said Don Quixote; “hand me my clothes and let me go out, for I want to see these transformations and things thou speakest of.” Sancho fetched him his clothes; and while he was dressing, the curate gave Don Fernando and the others present an account of Don Quixote’s madness and of the stratagem they had made use of to withdraw him from that Pena Pobre where he fancied himself stationed because of his lady’s scorn.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Of course—I’ve been mixing up the two songs.
— from Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome

3 The influence of the Moon upon tides, the sleeplessness it causes, the restlessness of the insane under its occasional light, and such treacheries of moonshine as we have already considered, have populated our uninhabited satellite with demons.
— from Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway

Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgment, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring.
— from The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems by Alexander Pope

And so, in that derelict museum, upon the thick soft carpeting of dust, to Weena’s huge delight, I solemnly performed a kind of composite dance, whistling The Land of the Leal as cheerfully as I could.
— from The Time Machine by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Enormous vegetations are multiplied under the torrid seas, and the evil is irresistibly developed from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Florida.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne

Surely nothing can be more ungraceful than to see a lady shuffle and run across a street.
— from The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society by Florence Hartley

Pursued by the underhand dealings of my secret persecutors to every place in which I took refuge, and seeing no other except Corsica where I could in my old days hope for the repose I had until then been everywhere deprived of, I resolved to go there with the directions of M. Buttafuoco as soon as this was possible, but to live there in tranquillity; renouncing, in appearance, everything relative to legislation, and, in some measure, to make my hosts a return for their hospitality, to confine myself to writing in the country the history of the Corsicans, with a reserve in my own mind of the intention of secretly acquiring the necessary information to become more useful to them should I see a probability of success.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Autolycus is somewhat smaller than the foregoing, to which it forms a companion in accordance with what Mädler thought a well-defined relation amongst lunar craters, by which they frequently occurred in pairs, with the smaller one more usually to the south.
— from The Story of the Heavens by Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

Every second man, unfellowed, Took the strokes of two, and gave.
— from Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life by George Meredith

Langham looked at him for a moment, undecided; then that suppressed irritation we have already spoken of broke through.
— from Robert Elsmere by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

Maurice had sent off a messenger early that morning with a letter marked post haste (cito, cito) to Ostend ordering up some four hundred cavalry-men then stationed in that city under Piron and Bruges, to move up to the support of Ernest, and to destroy the bridge and dams at Leffingen before the enemy should arrive.
— from History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce — Complete (1584-1609) by John Lothrop Motley

I was still in Ghent when the Germans moved up to the suburbs.
— from Golden Lads by Arthur Gleason

"Protestants" (having as usual failed to make themselves understood except as deniers of Catholicity, and who are nothing if not negative ) are tcipaiatikonamatizosigok , "those who do not make upon themselves the sign of the wood of the dead body of Christ."
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 05, April 1867 to September 1867 by Various

Rain was the greatest discomfort a soldier could have; it was more uncomfortable than the severest cold with clear weather.
— from Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 by Carlton McCarthy

It was determined, at last, to send a fresh deputation to Brussels, requesting the Regent to order the departure of Meghen, Aremberg, and Brederode from Antwerp; remonstrating with her against any plan she might be supposed to entertain of sending mercenary troops into the city; pledging the word of the senate to keep the peace, meanwhile, by their regular force; and above all, imploring her once more, in the most urgent terms, to send thither the burgrave, as the only man who was capable of saving the city from the calamities into which it was so likely to fall.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Complete (1555-84) by John Lothrop Motley

Presently a number of Indian people were brought out of the prison—men, women, and children—and were marched up to the stakes, and bound to them with cords.
— from Manco, the Peruvian Chief Or, An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas by William Henry Giles Kingston

The collapse of the Cooper pool was more unexpected than the striking of a gusher would be under any circumstances.
— from Sketches in Crude-oil Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globe by John J. (John James) McLaurin