Here he sacrificed to the god, and, on consulting the oracle, received that celebrated answer in which the Pythia speaks of him as beloved by the gods, and a god rather than a man, and when he asked for a good system of laws, answered that the god gives him what will prove by far the best of all constitutions.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

She was too sprightly to allow of their walking at a slow pace on her account, but she was very grateful to be talked to, and very willing to talk to any extent: so, when they came to their part of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious than ever.
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens

His father had commanded him from the depths of his coffin to do all the good in his power to this Thénardier, and for four years Marius had cherished no other thought than to acquit this debt of his father’s, and at the moment when he was on the eve of having a brigand seized in the very act of crime by justice, destiny cried to him: “This is Thénardier!”
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Sustain your mother, cheer Augustine, watch over Harry, and be to them what Helen longed to be."
— from Work: A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

But Macheras, at the instigation of Antigonus, without the approbation of Herod, as being corrupted by money, went about to take a view of his affairs; but Antigonus suspecting this intention of his coming, did not admit him into the city, but kept him at a distance, with throwing stones at him, and plainly showed what he himself meant.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

An old volume of historical anecdotes, belonging to the chief of Delwara, states that he became an ascetic at the foot of Meru, where he was buried alive after having overcome all the kings of the west, as in Ispahan, Kandahar, Kashmir, Irak, Iran, Turan, and Kafiristan; all of whose daughters he married, and by whom he had one hundred and thirty sons, called the Nausshahra Pathans.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

Of course in these fashionable days fathers and mothers are looked upon as a prejudice, but even now the law does not allow you to drag your old father about by the hair, to kick him in the face in his own house, and brag of murdering him outright—all in the presence of witnesses.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Kala Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him, as Big Toomai said, “We have swept the hills of wild elephants at the last catch.
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

'Proceed,' the bride and bridegroom ought to set their mind on having a brave offspring.
— from Laws by Plato

I think of her, and bring fruits to your child, not to make a profit for myself.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

His education had now commenced: an education in the principles of heroic action, by John Adams, the colossus of the American Revolution.
— from Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams Sixth President of the Unied States With the Eulogy Delivered Before the Legislature of New York by William Henry Seward

For a time he succeeded remarkably well in dodging us, as we had only a meager description of his appearance; but on the 20th of May he was seen by Officers Schuettler and Hoffman on the North Side.
— from Anarchy and Anarchists A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators by Michael J. Schaack

Doubtless the treatment of her accusers by Christ, and abundant grace poured into her soul, had already moved the woman's heart to repentance, and Christ, exercising His Divine power, absolved her from her sin.
— from The Gospel of St. John by Joseph MacRory

On entering the room where they stood crowded together, Waverley easily recognised the object of his visit, not only by the peculiar dignity of his appearance, but by the appendage of Dugald Mahony, with his battleaxe, who had stuck to him from the moment of his captivity as if he had been skewered to his side.
— from Waverley; Or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since by Walter Scott

The sun had just risen on one of the loveliest vales of Caernarvonshire, as a travelling chaise and six swept up to the door of a princely mansion, so situated as to command a prospect of the fertile and extensive domains, the rental of which filled the coffers of its rich owner, having a beautiful view of the Irish channel in the distance.
— from Precaution: A Novel by James Fenimore Cooper

The Franciscans Alexander of Hales and Bonaventura stand side by side with the brilliant Dominican teachers Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas.
— from Church History, Volume 2 (of 3) by J. H. (Johann Heinrich) Kurtz

We noticed that all the women brought burdens, which proved to be pots full of hot atole , bundles of large tortillas , trays heaped high with tamales , or sacks full of little cups.
— from In Indian Mexico (1908) by Frederick Starr

His companion, on the other hand, after brooding over Leech and Tenniel with a sombre eye, beat a boorish retreat without a word.
— from Fathers of Men by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

Yet I should not have devoted so many words to it, did I not recognize the light it has thrown on human actions by its study of congenital organic tendencies.
— from The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes: An Index of the Project Gutenberg Editions by Oliver Wendell Holmes

At the table Mr. Porter told, for the benefit of Mrs. Melicent Porter and Mrs. Punderson, some of the events, both pathetic and tragic, that had occurred in the old house during his boyhood and youth, and Mrs. Melicent Porter told again the events of the day in June—only a year before—wherein the battle of Monmouth had been fought near her New Jersey home, and she had spent the day in doing what she could to relieve the sufferings of men so spent with battle and heat and wounds that they panted to her door with tongues hanging from their mouths; also of her perilous journey from New Jersey to Connecticut on horseback, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Baldwin, her father—during which journey it was, that she had thrown her daughter Melicent in safety from her horse to the bank of the river they were fording, while the animal, having lost its footing, was going down the current.
— from The Only Woman in the Town, and Other Tales of the American Revolution by Sarah J. (Sarah Johnson) Prichard