How many youths are delayed in their course because nobody believes in them, because nobody encourages them, because they get no sympathy and are forever tortured for not doing that against which every fiber of their being protests, and every drop of their blood rebels?
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

It's not easy to believe that it could cost you such distress to confess such a secret....
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

seeing it were not even this, but that Thou madest it, and therefore because it was not, could not deserve of Thee to be made.
— from The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

It is not enough to brush the dust off these gods and goddesses of our ancestors and put them up on pedestals as ornaments in our museums and libraries.
— from The Younger Edda; Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson

The governor felt it very deeply that the expedition had failed, and wished to send another armada in accordance with the orders which the king had given him; but he could not execute this because the troops from New Spain did not arrive, and because of the Indians, who lost no occasion which presented itself to shake off the yoke of the Spaniards.
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows

I am extremely fond of Angela, and I shall spare no effort to bring the sunshine back into her heart."
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

He must maintain, therefore, that we can determine the content and circumference of the moon more certainly by the naked eye, than by the aid of mathematical reasoning.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

So Rousseau, writing of the nine years he spent at Annecy, with nothing but his happiness to tell:— "How tell what was neither said nor done nor even thought, but tasted only and felt, with no object of my felicity but the emotion of felicity itself!
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

The whole revenue of all of them taken together is evidently not equal to both the money and the consumable goods, but only to one or other of those two values, and to the latter more properly than to the former.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Mr. ———, who loved buttered muffins, but durst not eat them because they disagreed with his stomach, resolved to shoot himself; and then he eat three buttered muffins for breakfast, before shooting himself, knowing that he should not be troubled with indigestion: HE had two charged pistols; one was found lying charged upon the table by him, after he had shot himself with the other.'
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

It was a fine estate, with a very grand house for the New England town by the sea in which it was situated.
— from The Cromptons by Mary Jane Holmes

It was characteristic of the understanding between these two that Patrick made no effort to “break the news,” or soften it in any way.
— from The Hermit of Far End by Margaret Pedler

"It came near enough to being tragedy," she answered.
— from The Kingdom of Slender Swords by Hallie Erminie Rives

Besides—Wayland laughed aloud—the idea of her nature permitting a Silenus near enough to breathe the same atmosphere that she breathed was inconceivable.
— from The Freebooters of the Wilderness by Agnes C. Laut

For where the planter has only to deal, as he has in Ceylon, with the coffee on his land and nothing else, the business, though even then of course requiring considerable skill and intelligence, is comparatively speaking a simple one.
— from Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore With chapters on coffee planting in Coorg, the Mysore representative assembly, the Indian congress, caste and the Indian silver question, being the 38 years' experiences of a Mysore planter by Robert H. (Robert Henry) Elliot

Lancashire may not supply the cornfield: the soil and climate, though good for potatoes, are unfriendly to the cerealia; there is no need either to be too exacting; if the sickle has no work, there is plenty for the scythe and the spade.
— from Lancashire: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes by Leo H. (Leo Hartley) Grindon

" "I never expect to be that.
— from Westerfelt by Will N. (Will Nathaniel) Harben

Mrs Lycett-Landon did not enjoy the ball that night.
— from A Widow's Tale, and Other Stories by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

"It is naturally easier to believe that when circumstances coincide with our wishes, sir," he said.
— from For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss