One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks.
— from The Aesop for Children With pictures by Milo Winter by Aesop

By assigning a magic value to morality they gave a moral value to religion.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

their paddles are of a uniform shape of which this is an imitation these paddles are made very thin and the middle of the blade is thick and hollowed out siddonly and made thin at the sides while the center forms a kind of rib.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

But if no government is more vigorous than this, there is also none in which the particular will holds more sway and rules the rest more easily.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

what has double meaning: a pun; a hamper: five score of herrings: a. ambiguous; witty; elegant Mwysair, n. punning word Mwythach, n. pampered state Mwythedd, n. emolliency, softness, blandishment Mwythiad, n. a mollifying Mwythig, a. puffed up, bloated Mwytho, v. to puff; to mollify Mwythol, a. emollient Mwythus, a. sleek; delicate; nice Mwythusdra, n. a pampered state Mwythusiad, n. a pampering My, pron.
— from A Pocket Dictionary: Welsh-English by William Richards

Belloni was not in town, things were therefore at a standstill, and I had plenty of time to think over the object of my visit to Paris, while an unceasing accompaniment was poured out to my meditations by the barrel-organs which infest the cites of Paris.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

“I am bound by my vow to do so,” replied the knight; “but I would willingly know who you are, who request my assistance in their behalf?”
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

"Stap my vitals, Tuppy, old corpse," I said, concerned, "you're looking pretty blue round the rims."
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

Mr Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare,— “If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare— One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other'sarms, breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.”
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

Make visits to them also as often, and stay as long as you can, for there will be changes at the old place after awhile.
— from The Wedding Ring A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those Contemplating Matrimony by T. De Witt (Thomas De Witt) Talmage

Now the time draws so near when I hope to have the happiness of seeing you, that I think it will be better to treat the matter verbally, the more so as my most beloved Majesty is easily displeased with what may be written with the best intention, instead that in conversation the immediate reply renders any misunderstanding, however small, very difficult; and as I do not wish to have any great or small with you, and see no occasion for it, I will give my answer de vive voix .
— from The Letters of Queen Victoria : A Selection from Her Majesty's Correspondence between the Years 1837 and 1861 Volume 1, 1837-1843 by Queen of Great Britain Victoria

But that for which I and the rest of the unlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long is this: that he treats Marcus Aurelius's writings, as he treats all the other remains of Greek and Roman antiquity which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter of learning, but as documents with a side of modern applicability and living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in them can be made clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch's Roman Lives he deals with the modern epoch of Cæsar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but as food for men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary life and action, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats this truly modern striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, but as a present source from which to draw "example of life, and instruction of manners."
— from Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold by Matthew Arnold

Many valuable trivialities are lost by the effort to go deeper than the surface.
— from Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, September, 1878 by Various

But about Crailey, Fanchon had a presentiment more vivid than any born of the natural fears for his safety; it came to her again and again, reappearing in her dreams; she shivered and started often as she worked on the flag, then bent her fair head low over the gay silks, while the others glanced at her sympathetically.
— from The Two Vanrevels by Booth Tarkington

THE RENAISSANCE POPES From the time of Martin V the Papacy became more and more an Italian power.
— from Early European History by Hutton Webster

Bonaparte had won too many victories, to need the title of a German duke; he had obtained a sufficiently ample share of the war-booty not to need the wealth and the treasures of sovereign gifts.
— from Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon by L. (Luise) Mühlbach