But the worth which he alone can give to himself, and which consists in what he does, how and according to what principles he acts, and that not as a link in nature’s chain but in the freedom of his faculty of desire— i.e. a good will—is that whereby alone his being can have an absolute worth, and in reference to which the being of the world can have a final purpose .
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

For thou must consider the things of the world, not as a loose independent number, consisting merely of necessary events; but as a discreet connection of things orderly and harmoniously disposed.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

Mine Host was finely caught one day with a pot not being filled: Two Old Country men coming to our house in a morning called for a quart of wine, the Drawer believing they were to be choused, brought up a quart pot, but it was little more than half full, he intended they should have it raw, but it being a cold morning, they bad him rost it, that is put it to the fire and burn it; he was now at a loss in not filling out the first glass, but not knowing how to help it, he did set it down before the fire, and I suppose, he intended to fill it up afterwards, but he forgetting that, and the old men being busie in discourse forgot to look to it, when on a sudden they look’d, and the pot was melted almost half way down, which was as far as there was no wine in it; with that the maid seeing it call’d out to them, what honest men do you melt your pot?
— from The English Rogue: Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and Other Extravagants, Comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of Both Sexes: The Third Part by Francis Kirkman

Scraps of verse and rhetoric once so familiar are caught up, wafted noiselessly away, and lodged in neglected books and in the dark corners of fading memories, gradually vanish from familiar knowledge.
— from Literary and Social Essays by George William Curtis

This world has no atmosphere and life is not sustained by breathing, neither by the process found on the Moon.
— from Life in a Thousand Worlds by W. S. (William Shuler) Harris

No effect of colour can well surpass that which is still to be seen in some of our late medieval churches—the grisaille windows of the chancel at Norbury in Derbyshire, the late fourteenth century figure glass of the north aisle at Lowick in Northamptonshire, the fifteenth century east window of the south aisle at St Winnow in Cornwall, the fourteenth century Jesse tree, once in St Chad’s, and now in St Mary’s at Shrewsbury, or the fifteenth century Jesse tree at Llanrhaiadr-yn-Cynmerch , near Denbigh.
— from The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church by A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton) Thompson

You’re goin’ out o’ this world right now, actin’ a lie if not speakin’ one.
— from The One-Way Trail: A story of the cattle country by Ridgwell Cullum

It was their habit, after carefully watching a bird, to look it up in their big, illustrated “Birds of North America,” and learn its name and habits.
— from Dick and Dolly by Carolyn Wells