No one ever says, in reporting a mess-room conversation, “Lieutenant Jones was very witty, but was naturally inferior to Captain Smith.”
— from What's Wrong with the World by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

No selfishness, and scarce any philosophy, have there force sufficient to support a total coolness and indifference; and he must be more or less than man, who kindles not in the common blaze.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

“Well,” said he, after a little thought, “I now have reason to believe that the convicts are not in the corral.”
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

I have never intended to claim them as slaves.
— from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet A. (Harriet Ann) Jacobs

Though much altered by age, I fancied I could recognize in his spare and slender form something of that delicate mould which I had noticed in the child.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

Although neither is that current month present; but one day only; the rest being to come, if it be the first; past, if the last; if any of the middle, then amid past and to come.
— from The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

And as the geometrician does not deliberate about the triangle, as to whether its interior angles are together equal to two right angles, for he knows it as a fact—and deliberation only takes place in the case of things which differ at different times, not in the case of things which are certain and unchangeable—so the contemplative mind having its scope in first principles, and things that are fixed, and that ever have one nature which does not admit of change, has no need for deliberation.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

The coffee to be of any grade, from No. 8 to No. 1 inclusive (no coffee to grade below No. 8) provided the average grade of Brazilian coffees shall not be above No. 3. Nothing in this contract, however, shall be construed as prohibiting a delivery averaging above No. 3 at the No. 3 grade.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

With the means thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles necessary in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary dimensions.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe

Indeed, there is not in the county a more popular woman than Mrs. Geoffrey Rodney.
— from Mrs. Geoffrey by Duchess

Inga found many of the men from Pingaree among these slaves, but King Kitticut was not in this cavern; so they passed through it and entered another corridor that led to a second cavern.
— from Rinkitink in Oz Wherein Is Recorded the Perilous Quest of Prince Inga of Pingaree and King Rinkitink in the Magical Isles That Lie Beyond the Borderland of Oz by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

It is one of the most famous salmon streams in the south of Norway; and its celebrity may in some way be tested when I state, that, two and three hundred salmon have been taken in the nets in the course of one day at Boom, and the same quantity has been continued through several successive days.
— from A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden 2nd edition by William A. Ross

The destruction of the fast cruiser Novik in Korsakovsk harbour on 21st August, by the Japanese ship Chitose , drove the last nail in the coffin of Russia’s naval power in the Far East; and from that time forward, with the exception of maintaining the effective blockade of Port Arthur, the Japanese navy had little to do except prepare itself at every point to meet the menace of the Baltic Fleet, which at this time was beginning to materialise and take definite shape.
— from Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun: A Story of the Russo-Japanese War by Harry Collingwood

The friends of the prisoner afterwards applied to the Lord Chancellor, who said the king would not grant it without a petition; application was afterwards made to the court of quarter sessions to have him bailed; the court said, there was no such name in the calendar; upon application to the jailer, he said he never returned any man committed by the Council Board.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 3 (of 16) by United States. Congress

You are presently employed as a reporter for a Fort Worth newspaper, is that correct?
— from Warren Commission (08 of 26): Hearings Vol. VIII (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

The situation of the nobility in this country is pitiable; they are under apprehensions that nothing will be left them, but simply such houses as the mob allows to stand unburned; that the small farmers will retain their farms without paying the landlord his half of the produce; and that, in case of such a refusal, there is actually neither law nor authority in the country to prevent it.
— from The French Revolution - Volume 1 by Hippolyte Taine

But nevertheless, if the cognition of these purposes is combined with that of the moral purpose, they are, by virtue of the maxim of pure Reason which bids us seek unity of principles so far as is possible, of great importance 389 for the practical reality of that Idea, by bringing in the reality which it has for the Judgement in a theoretical point of view.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

His short stories of this period are the stirrings of his awakening realism; and among them the one most worthy of notice is "The Cloak," which is filled with a strain of sympathy and pity for the poor, the ignorant, the plain, and the dull people,—social zeros, so different from the proud and aristocratic ideal of romanticism, and who owe their title of citizenship in Russian literature to Gogol.
— from Russia: Its People and Its Literature by Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de