They blamed Kutúzov and said that from the very beginning of the campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen Factories because he was comfortable there, that at Krásnoe he checked the advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite lost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

He only laughed now, and forgot the hint at once.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Besides that excitation of feelings naturally arising from the combat itself, there are others also which do not essentially belong to it, but which, on account of their relationship, easily unite with it—ambition, love of power, enthusiasm of every kind, &c. &c. 18.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

This is what is to be read, on the subject of his dramatic triumphs, in 1483, in the accounts of the “Ordinary:” “To Jehan Marchand and Pierre Gringoire, carpenter and composer, who have made and composed the mystery made at the Chãtelet of Paris, at the entry of Monsieur the Legate, and have ordered the personages, clothed and dressed the same, as in the said mystery was required; and likewise, for having made the scaffoldings thereto necessary; and for this deed,—one hundred livres.” Phoebus de Châteaupers also came to a tragic end.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

The beginning of August 1722, the Pyrates made ready the Brigantine, and came out to Sea, and beating up to Windward, lay in the Track for their Correspondant in her Voyage to Jamaica , and spoke with her; but finding nothing was done in England in their Favour, as ’twas expected, they return’d to their Consorts at the Island with the ill News, and found themselves under a Necessity, as they fancied, to continue that abominable Course of Life they had lately practis’d; in order thereto, they sail’d with the Ship and Brigantine to the Southward, and the next Night, by intolerable Neglect, they run the Morning Star upon the Grand Caimanes , and wreck’d her; the Brigantine seeing the Fate of her Consort, hall’d off in Time, and so weather’d the Island.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

But this is a common mistake of those who know nothing of opium experimentally; I appeal to those who do, whether it is not always found that down to a certain point it can be reduced with ease and even pleasure, but that after that point further reduction causes intense suffering.
— from Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

[18] The yearning of love, the ἱμερος, which has been expressed in countless ways and forms by the poets of all ages, without their exhausting the subject or even doing it justice; this longing which makes us imagine that the possession of a certain woman will bring interminable happiness, and the loss of her, unspeakable pain; this longing and this pain do not arise from the needs of an ephemeral individual, but are, on the contrary, the sigh of the spirit of the species, discerning irreparable means of either gaining or losing its ends.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

I will offer them freely whatever good gifts Providence permits me to distribute, and will tell them to be thankful for what they have and humbly hopeful for more; and surely, if they are not absolute fools, they will condescend to be happy, and will allow me to be a happy year.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Only rogues can disseminate and fools believe that the disgrace of Moreau, and the execution of the Duc d'Enghien, of Pichegru, and Georges, were necessary as footsteps to Bonaparte's Imperial throne; and that without the treachery of Mehee de la Touche, and the conspiracy he pretended to have discovered, France would still have been ruled by a First Consul.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon by Various

There is no accounting for the tastes of English women.
— from The First Violin A Novel by Jessie Fothergill

"We meet here, Lulu, like travelers upon a mountain-top, one coming from the clear, green north, another from the sun-loved south; and we sit together for an hour talking, each of his own, and each story by its strangeness fascinating the other hearer.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V by Various

Go home this moment, and look on my dressing-table for my gloves and nosegay, and fetch them here, as quick as you can run, do you hear?"
— from Alice's Adventures Under Ground Being a facsimile of the original Ms. book afterwards developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll

The third magistrate, whose turn had now arrived, felt that the foundation had thus been substantially laid down, and that the time had come to erect upon it a superstructure of reflection, inference, or exclamation.
— from The Recreations of a Country Parson by Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd

The melancholy, now become habitual, which overcast Major Bridgenorth’s countenance, well qualified him to act as the chief of the group who now advanced from the village.
— from Peveril of the Peak by Walter Scott

Of the steps taken to become a living citizen again, and get back my property from my heirs, I give no account further than to say that they absorbed my attention.
— from The Thread of Flame by Basil King

The marriage feast will be prepared, and we will summon our neighbours and friends to assemble here, this day week.
— from For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

She had always known how to efface herself; she needed no atonement for the so apparent fact that Tante wanted to be left alone with Mr. Drew as much as possible.
— from Tante by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

These extortions are so very frequent, and now so well known, that the poorer classes of emigrants never apply for the ferries, but attempt the passage just as they can, and when we call to mind that the hundreds of cases which are known and spoken of must be but a fraction of those who have disappeared without leaving behind the smallest clue of their former existence and unhappy fate, the loss of human life within the last four or five years must have been awful.
— from Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet by Frederick Marryat