In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that they might be safe and protected; but no sooner do they emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him curses full of hate.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

Leo was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins.
— 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

It was expressly stated that no evil was intended to the King, whose greatest danger lay in separating himself from his Parliament.
— from The Great Civil War in Lancashire (1642-1651) by Ernest Broxap

They contented themselves with exacting from the conquered such tribute as they could extort, leaving their new subjects to manage their own affairs much as they had done before, till the conquerors, gradually corrupted by the luxuries which their position afforded, and having failed to make for themselves any firm footing in their new empire, were in their turn overwhelmed by fresh hordes of nomadic invaders.
— from The Dawn of History: An Introduction to Pre-Historic Study by C. F. (Charles Francis) Keary

‘Come, come,’ cried the king; ‘I will have no excuses, what is this trade?’
— from The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Among these was a young woman, corresponding in her period of life to New England women in their twentieth or twenty
— from A Strange Discovery by Charles Romyn Dake

Oh! it was a sad sight,—sad to see men in the vigorous health of early youth and the strong powers of manhood’s prime cast lifeless on the ground and left to rot there for the mistaken idea on the Kafirs’ part that white men were their natural enemies, when, in truth, they brought to their land the comforts of civilised life; sad to think that they had died for the mistaken notion that their country was being taken from them, when in truth they had much more country than they knew what to do with—more than was sufficient to support themselves and all the white men who have ever gone there, and all that are likely to go for many years to come; sad to think of the stern necessity that compelled the white men to lay them low; sadder still to think of the wives and mothers, sisters and little ones, who were left to wail unavailingly for fathers and brothers lost to them for ever; and saddest of all to remember that it is not merely the naked savage in his untutored ignorance, but the civilised white man in his learned wisdom, who indulges in this silly, costly, murderous, brutal, and accursed game of war!
— from The Settler and the Savage by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

But almost all dramatists, I take it, jot down brief passages of dialogue which they may or may not eventually work into the texture of their play.
— from Play-Making: A Manual of Craftsmanship by William Archer