June had hardly been at home at all that week; she had given him nothing of her company for a long time past, not, in fact, since she had become engaged to Bosinney.
— from The Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property by John Galsworthy

But the real wife had not only her claims, she had still a hold on his heart, and it was his intense desire that the hold should remain strong.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

The legend related of Chu I is as follows: During the T’ang dynasty, in the reign-period Chien Chung (A.D. 780–4) of the Emperor Tê Tsung, the Princess T’ai Yin noticed that Lu Ch’i, a native of Hua Chou, had the bones of an Immortal, and wished to marry him.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

Such blow no other hand could deal, Though gauntleted in glove of steel.
— from The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott

The need of hostility, cruelty, revenge, and violence is reverted, "it steps backwards"; in the thirst for knowledge there lurks both the lust of gain and of conquest; in the artist, the powers of dissimulation and falsehood find their scope; the instincts are thus transformed into demons with whom a fight takes place, etc.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

On leaving him I walked towards the park, but wishing to change a twenty-pound note before going in I went to a fat merchant, an epicure whose acquaintance I had made at the tavern, and put down the note on his counter, begging him to cash it for me.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

But legislators who would establish this principle are apt to overlook what they ought to consider; that while they regulate the quantity of provisions which each individual shall possess, they ought also to regulate the number of his children; for if these exceed the allotted quantity of provision, the law must necessarily be repealed; and yet, in spite of the repeal, it will have the bad effect of reducing many from wealth to poverty, so difficult is it for innovators not to fall into such mistakes.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

Ninety-seven posts with the heads of dead men were already standing before the castle, and no one had come forward for a long time.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

Heretofore, not only had commission to the Gentiles been withheld from the church, but gratuitous labors by her in that behalf would have been necessarily futile, for lack of power accompanying the word.
— from A Bible History of Baptism by Samuel J. (Samuel John) Baird

And Madame Vardeine would have rushed into the arms of the young men; but they were cruel enough to shrink from the embraces of that lady in chemise and camisole, who at that moment concealed none of her charms.
— from Sans-Cravate; or, The Messengers; Little Streams by Paul de Kock

Of course, much is to be said in excuse of man, brute though he be. Consider the multiplicity of his occupations, the practical nature of his cares.
— from The Parisians — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

He had not to ask himself if it was possible that Mr. Linton might have a word or two to say to him, respecting the word or two which he, George Holland, had just said about Mrs. Linton; for George knew very well that, though during the previous week or two he had heard some persons speaking lightly of Mrs. Linton, coupling her name with the name of Herbert Courtland, yet he had never had occasion to couple their names together except during the previous half hour, so that it could not be Mr. Linton’s intention to take him to task, so to speak, for his indiscretion—his slander, Phyllis might be disposed to term it.
— from Phyllis of Philistia by Frank Frankfort Moore

[Pg 25] phia, Jefferson included among the articles of indictment against George the Third this paragraph: "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery or to incur a miserable death in the transportation thither."
— from The Battle of Principles A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict by Newell Dwight Hillis

It has been observed, in regard to Edward III., by Sir James Mackintosh, that "though his victories left few lasting acquisitions, yet they surrounded the name of his country with a lustre which produced strength and safety; which perhaps also gave a loftier tone to the feelings of England, and a more vigorous activity to her faculties."
— from Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies. Volume I by Anonymous

In vain the wife urged her affection for her husband—in vain she appealed to manly feelings and love of home—in vain she exhibited the order of government by which she had been admitted—in vain she clung to the neck of her chained and suffering companion.
— from Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission by Daniel C. (Daniel Clarke) Eddy

"There's no one here capable of doing anything.
— from Jaffery by William John Locke