I could not prevent my servant from paying you a visit, but this time you will not keep him two hours, and you will not find it difficult to appease his anger.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Either he vnderſtood him not: or elſe, The fellow was not faithfull in deliuery, Of what I bad.
— from The Devil is an Ass by Ben Jonson

A faith of this sort is not furious, it does not de nounce, it does not defend itself: it does not come with “the sword”—it does not realize how it will one day set man against man.
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Sometimes, when the bitter element is refined away, the black part assumes an acidity which takes the place of the bitterness; at other times the bitterness being tinged with blood has a redder colour; and this, when mixed with black, takes the hue of grass; and again, an auburn colour mingles with the bitter matter when new flesh is decomposed by the fire which surrounds the internal flame;—to all which symptoms some physician perhaps, or rather some philosopher, who had the power of seeing in many dissimilar things one nature deserving of a name, has assigned the common name of bile.
— from Timaeus by Plato

I mentioned above that this cosmological argument contains a perfect nest of dialectical assumptions, which transcendental criticism does not find it difficult to expose and to dissipate.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.
— from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

DESDEMONA My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty: To you I am bound for life and education; My life and education both do learn me How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,— I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband; And so much duty as my mother show'd To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may profess Due to the Moor, my lord.
— from Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare

In 1841 Carlyle wrote to John Sterling a few words apropos of the recent publication of Emerson's essays in England: "I love Emerson's book, not for its detached opinions, not even for the scheme of the general world he has framed for himself, or any eminence of talent he has expressed that with, but simply because it is his own book; because there is a tone of veracity, an unmistakable air of its being his , and a real utterance of a human soul, not a mere echo of such.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well, fashion or no fashion, I don't believe there's anything prettier for a spare-room bed than a nice apple-leaf spread, that's what.
— from Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

“O it was a great many years,” answered Partridge, “before I saw my son, as you are pleased to call him.——I went over to Ireland after this, and taught school at Cork (for that one suit ruined me again, and I lay seven years in Winchester jail).”—“Well,” said Allworthy, “pass that over till your return to England.”—“Then, sir,” said he, “it was about half a year ago that I landed at Bristol, where I staid some time, and not finding it do there, and hearing of a place between that and Gloucester where the barber was just dead, I went thither, and there I had been about two months when Mr Jones came thither.”
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

The number found in Dissenting Sunday Schools, according to the printed year books of the various denominations on the same year, was 351,128, or 29 per cent.
— from British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII January and April, 1871 by Various

Now, the colonel had been about town and in the haunts of gamesters for a good score of years, and, truth to tell, he now found it difficult, anywhere, to be received into the company of gentlemen.
— from The Lady of Lynn by Walter Besant

Since the Imperial Conference has decided that each colony is to build its own share of the navy for imperial defense, in view of the European situation, that building is to be begun at once.
— from The Trail of the Axe: A Story of Red Sand Valley by Ridgwell Cullum

The rain fell in torrents; the wind was hushed; and as the night fell in darkness, the columns moved severally to their destinations.
— from Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 by Charles James Lever

There were already with him in Nashville ten thousand soldiers in round numbers, and many thousands of employees in the quartermaster's and other departments who could be put in the intrenchments in front of Nashville, for its defence.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Part 5. by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

"No, father, I dare say if such a request were cabled to the President he would do his best; but Van Zwieten would try and kill Harold in the meantime, and if he succeeded--as he would succeed--he would say it was an accident."
— from A Traitor in London by Fergus Hume

He spoke as a man strong in his own strength, and as yet unacquainted with the perfect weakness of resolution not formed in dependence upon the power of God.
— from An account of the Death of Philip Jolin who was executed for the murder of his father, in the Island of Jersey, October 3, 1829 by Francis Cunningham

"When I'm not fat I don't feel so well.
— from Rex Kingdon on Storm Island by Gordon Braddock

“Well, I’m Nina’s guest just now; frankly, I don’t think she’d like it.”
— from Lucinda by Anthony Hope