I regret to leave you, and more to leave her, now, but I will not encourage this compound of meanness and cruelty, and, as I will not ask you to renounce him, I see you no more.’
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

This applicability, the prerequisite of significant thought, is also its eventual test; and the gathering of new experiences, the consciousness of more and more facts crowding into the memory and demanding co-ordination, is at once the presentation to reason of her legitimate problem and a proof that she is already at work.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

And yet corruption does not explain the condition of modern journalism.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

In the year of our Lord 684, Egfrid, king of the Northumbrians, sending his general, Berct, 720 with an army into Ireland, miserably laid waste that unoffending nation, which had always been most friendly to the English; insomuch that the invading force spared not even the churches or monasteries.
— from Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede, the Venerable, Saint

The remains of the Gothic nation evacuated the country, or mingled with the people; the Franks, instead of revenging the death of Buccelin, abandoned, without a struggle, their Italian conquests; and the rebellious Sinbal, chief of the Heruli, was subdued, taken and hung on a lofty gallows by the inflexible justice of the exarch.
— 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

And the “three days’ journey” to Marah, a distance of thirty-three miles, was their first experience of absolute hardship, for not even the curtain of miraculous cloud could prevent them from suffering keenly by heat and thirst.
— from The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Exodus by G. A. (George Alexander) Chadwick

The money [G] shall be paid at the end of seven years in the usual place and manner, the kings not enjoining the coining of money.
— from Protestantism and Catholicity compared in their effects on the civilization of Europe by Jaime Luciano Balmes

I must now explain the cause of my husband's temporary ukase.
— from Philip Gilbert Hamerton An Autobiography, 1834-1858, and a Memoir by His Wife, 1858-1894 by Eugénie Hamerton

Before this period of exhaustion and reaction could come to a natural end, two changes of momentous importance had overtaken the world.
— from Latin Literature by J. W. (John William) Mackail

Since I can remember, nobody ever took care of me.
— from A Life for a Life, Volume 2 (of 3) by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Gentlemen of the Jury, the same sword was soon to strike at the neck of New England; the charter of Massachusetts could not be safe in such a time.
— from The Trial of Theodore Parker For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence by Theodore Parker

With practically no exceptions, the composers of musical compositions are engaged in various other walks of life, and this line of work is more or less incidental to the occupations they follow.
— from Arguments before the Committee on Patents of the House of Representatives, conjointly with the Senate Committee on Patents, on H.R. 19853, to amend and consolidate the acts respecting copyright June 6, 7, 8, and 9, 1906. by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Patents

'No,' said he to himself, 'I will not endanger the comfort of my Lucy's present retreat until I can offer her a home of her own.'
— from Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Complete by Walter Scott