Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone, Closed the oration of the trusty maid: She loiter'd, and he told her to be gone, An order somewhat sullenly obey'd; However, present remedy was none, And no great good seem'd answer'd if she stay'd: Regarding both with slow and sidelong view, She snuff'd the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

They are not naturally daring and enterprising, but home-loving and affectionate.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

In such distress of mind I could not do anything else but abandon myself to chance, whatever the result might be, and the most essential thing for the present was to secure a lodging and my daily food.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

He declared, and demonstrated to the satisfaction of all those who were able to form an opinion upon the subject, that there is no difference appreciable either by the eye, or by any other test, between a germ that will develop into an oak, a vine, a rose, and one that (given its accustomed surroundings) will become a mouse, an elephant, or a man.
— from Erewhon; Or, Over the Range by Samuel Butler

Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Noble deeds always enrich, but millions of mere dollars may impoverish.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

This statement is, no doubt, an exaggeration; but we may attribute, with some reason, to Mithridates the introduction at this time of various practices and usages, whereby the Parthian Court was assimilated to those of the earlier Great Monarchies of Asia, and became in the eyes of foreigners the successor and representative of the old Assyrian and Persian Kingdoms.
— from The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6: Parthia The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations. by George Rawlinson

The cat would plant herself in front of the mouse hole and not do anything else but just watch for the mouse.
— from Friar Tuck Being the Chronicles of the Reverend John Carmichael, of Wyoming, U. S. A. by Robert Alexander Wason

The sight of this lady, who was young, pretty, well dressed, in a low bodice no doubt, and escorted by a man for whom her face beamed with all the charms of love, produced such a terrible effect on Lambert's soul and senses, that he was obliged to leave the theatre.
— from The Works of Honoré de Balzac: About Catherine de' Medici, Seraphita, and Other Stories by Honoré de Balzac

He never did anything else but think.
— from A Sovereign Remedy by Flora Annie Webster Steel

The braves did not do anything except bring their weapons out of the tepees and stand by until their nags were brought up.
— from Carl the Trailer by Harry Castlemon

Still, as our Lord did not tune His pulpit to the taste of the loungers of Galilee, no more will a minister worth the name do anything else but press deeper and deeper into the depths of truth and life, till, as was the case with his Master, his followers, though few, will be all the more worth having.
— from Bunyan Characters (1st Series) by Alexander Whyte

“And as for wisdom,” pursued Socrates, “what shall we say it is? Tell me whether are men said to be wise in regard to the things they know, or in regard to those they do not know?” “There can be no doubt,” answered Euthydemus, “but that it is in consideration of what they know; for how can a man be wise in things he knows not?”
— from The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates by Xenophon

Add that, thanks to this sort of reasoning, which for the rest was not altogether without a certain naïve logic, the merchants spoken of did not do an especially brilliant business.
— from The Non-religion of the Future: A Sociological Study by Jean-Marie Guyau

The practice followed equally by Mahomedan, Christian, and Jewish merchants, in the East, of never drawing an exact balance of the actual state of their capital, is another cause that renders the details of book-keeping less necessary here than in Europe.
— from Travels in Arabia; comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans regard as sacred by John Lewis Burckhardt