I do not know how that can be accomplished, he said, nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of; and therefore I wish that you would do me the favour of considering temperance first.
— from The Republic by Plato

Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this—an art which gives to all our cognitions the form of the understanding, although with respect to the content thereof we may be sadly deficient—that general logic, which is merely a canon of judgement, has been employed as an organon for the actual production, or rather for the semblance of production, of objective assertions, and has thus been grossly misapplied.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

So that the real duties of a Secretary of State seem to be three: to fight claims upon us by other States; to press more or less fraudulent claims of our own citizens upon other countries; to find offices for the friends of Senators when there are none.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

“This is an alliance which, whoever—whatever your friends may be, must be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense; and we are not to be addressing our conduct to fools.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

Cager , or GAGER , the old cant term for a man.
— from A Dictionary of Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words Used at the Present Day in the Streets of London; the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the Dens of St. Giles; and the Palaces of St. James. by John Camden Hotten

'Shall I mention, sir,' insinuated the landlord, expecting it to be received as a matter of course, 'the form of a reference?'
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

These two estates, which are naturally inseparable, are equally fatal to the common good; from the one come the friends of tyranny, and from the other tyrants.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Paul Petrovitch's tone was now studiously polite, for he was beginning to feel irritated with the man—his aristocratic nature could not altogether stomach Bazarov's absolute lack of ceremony, the fact that this doctor's son not only knew no diffidence, but actually returned snappish and reluctant answers, and infused a brusquerie akin to rudeness into his tone.
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

The experience of eleven centuries has enabled posterity to produce a much more singular parallel; and to affirm with confidence, that the ravages of the Barbarians, whom Alaric had led from the banks of the Danube, were less destructive than the hostilities exercised by the troops of Charles the Fifth, a Catholic prince, who styled himself Emperor of the Romans.
— 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

He found, that, in both cases, certain formalities necessary to constitute a legal entrance had been omitted; and he fulfilled for old Cudjo these formalities, thus settling his title; and, moreover, he sent legal papers by which the sheriff of the county was enabled to do him justice: and so old Cudjo was re-instated in his rights.
— from Palmetto-Leaves by Harriet Beecher Stowe

She was no sooner on her feet than she flew to the window and flung back the latch, with the intention of calling the first passer-by.
— from The Confessions of Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc

No, it was the offering up of the will of Christ that formed the essence of the sacrifice.
— from The Discipline of War Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent by John Hasloch Potter

On came the Fokkers and Gothas, the black iron crosses painted on the wings of the machines standing out in bold relief in the clear air.
— from Air Service Boys in the Big Battle; Or, Silencing the Big Guns by Charles Amory Beach

Seaforth's men were commanded to retire and make off before they had occasion or command to fight; but the men hovering, and not understanding the mystery, were commanded again to make off and follow Drummond with the horse, who gave only one charge to the enemy and then fled, which they did by leaving both the wings and some of their own men to the brunt of the enemy, because they stood at a distance from them, the right wing being sore put to by my Lord Gordon, and seeing Drummond with the horse and their neighbours fly, they began to follow.
— from History of the Mackenzies, with genealogies of the principal families of the name by Alexander Mackenzie

"I will trouble you no more, but tell you I do expect, as soon as they come to the House, you will send them to me, otherwise I must take my own course to find them."
— from Charles I Makers of History by Jacob Abbott

It is not the desire of new acquisitions, but the glory of conquests, that fires the soldier's breast; as indeed the town is seldom worth much, when it has suffered the devastations of a siege; so that though I did not openly declare the effects of my own prowess, which is forbidden by the laws of honour, it cannot be supposed that I was very solicitous to bury my reputation, or to hinder accidental discoveries.
— from The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 04 The Adventurer; The Idler by Samuel Johnson

Congress, by an act approved the 3d day of March, 1875, authorized the inhabitants of the Territory of Colorado to form a State government, with the name of the State of Colorado, and therein provided for the admission of said State, when formed, into the Union upon an equal footing with the original States.
— from State of the Union Addresses by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

We except of course the fashion of mercilessly spoiling the mediæval houses which has gone on as merrily
— from Studies of Travel: Italy by Edward A. (Edward Augustus) Freeman