A Noun is a composite significant sound, not marking time, of which no part is in itself significant: for in double or compound words we do not employ the separate parts as if each were in itself significant.
— from The Poetics of Aristotle by Aristotle

This was probably the case among the hunting nations of North America, before their country was discovered by the Europeans, with whom they now exchange their surplus peltry, for blankets, fire-arms, and brandy, which gives it some value.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

It is not easy to state precisely wherein the difference between these two sorts of knowledge consists, but it is easy to feel the difference.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell

When two formations have been deposited in two regions during nearly, but not exactly, the same period, we should find in both, from the causes explained in the foregoing paragraphs, the same general succession in the forms of life; but the species would not exactly correspond; for there will have been a little more time in the one region than in the other for modification, extinction, and immigration.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

This consolation is not happiness, it is not even the smallest part of it, for no one would wish to have occasion for it, or would, perhaps, even desire a life in such circumstances.
— from The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant

There would be nothing amusing in the saying did there not exist that salutary precept in the realm of hygiene: "One should not eat between meals.
— from Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Bergson

For there ought to be a particular theorem, which may be easily proved from the definition, to the effect that every line, which has all its points at equal distances from another point, must be a curved line—that is, that not even the smallest part of it can be straight.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Who has not experienced the sovereign power of those two words, pronounced with a certain accent in the ear of a terrified little being: Say nothing!
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The [Pg 78] Nazis elevated the Soviet practice all the way into a principle, the principle of the leader ( Führer in German).
— from Psychological Warfare by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

The public can judge whether a sense of "duty to the Post Office Department and the community", induced our brother to make this charge against us (which if proved would consign us to the Penitentiary) and under the pretence of searching for letters, which perhaps never existed; to send Police Officers to invade not only our store, but our dwelling house, where not even the presence of our aged Mother could protect from intrusion.
— from History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills by Robert B. Shaw

The coming Capricorn will not enjoy the same privileges.
— from The Wonders of Instinct: Chapters in the Psychology of Insects by Jean-Henri Fabre

Six of these were full and overflowing; and then we drew near enough to see persons walking over the lock-gates.
— from The Life of Thomas Telford, Civil Engineer With an Introductory History of Roads and Travelling in Great Britain by Samuel Smiles

Neükomm’s “Fantasia Concertante,” written for the Philharmonic Concerts, and there produced in 1832, was played by nearly, if not exactly, the same persons who originally performed it, and was heard with great attention, though, perhaps, not with that enthusiasm which it excited in an audience of London connoisseurs.
— from The Harmonicon. Part the First by Various

The epoch of the peace of Amiens must be considered as the most glorious in the history of France, not excepting the splendid period of Louis XIV.'s victories and the more brilliant era of the Empire.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon by Various

At Herrnhut, in a word, if nowhere else, the social problem was solved.
— from A History of the Moravian Church by J. E. (Joseph Edmund) Hutton

Man has not even the sad preeminence of Sin.
— from The Philosophy of Natural Theology An Essay in confutation of the scepticism of the present day by William Jackson

I know of no engagement that should prevent me from disposing of my hand as I think fit.
— from The Historical Nights' Entertainment: Second Series by Rafael Sabatini

Nor is this one imperial column adorned by these alone: there are, besides,—alas for Rousseau!—two other spolia opima by which the French master is, in his own field, proved not the first, nor even the second,— proximus, sed non secundus ,—so wide is the distance between De Quincey and any other antagonist.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various