No such importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at present.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

However this may be, it is certain that we form the idea of individuals, whenever we use any general term; that we seldom or never can exhaust these individuals; and that those, which remain, are only represented by means of that habit, by which we recall them, whenever any present occasion requires it.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

“The sensation of red is the normal reaction of normally constructed eyes to light reflected from cinnabar.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

My intention is that you should not make the least change in your plans, nor with respect to the pleasure parties in your honour; I am of no consequence, either the happiness or the misery of a man whom you don't love is a matter of no moment.
— from Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812 For the First Time Collected and Translated, with Notes Social, Historical, and Chronological, from Contemporary Sources by Emperor of the French Napoleon I

Surely, sir, said I, I am of no consequence equal to this, in your honour's family, that such a great gentleman as you, should need to justify yourself about me.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

This reconstruction is often very difficult, and sometimes all that can be established in the end is merely that the tradition before us is certainly false; somewhat as a perplexed geologist might venture on no conclusion except that the state of the earth's crust was once very different from what it is now.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Whose practised memories, cruelly exact, Omit no circumstance, except the fact!— Attend, all ye who boast,—or old or young,— The living libel of a slanderous tongue!
— from The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Either this must be the case, or the local courts must be excluded from a concurrent jurisdiction in matters of national concern, else the judiciary authority of the Union may be eluded at the pleasure of every plaintiff or prosecutor.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

Major-General Slade concluded his despatch with observing, 'Nothing could exceed the gallantry displayed by the officers and men on this occasion.
— from Historical Record of the Third, or Prince of Wales' Regiment of Dragoon Guards Containing an Account of the Formation of the Regiment in 1685, and of Its Subsequent Services to 1838 by Richard Cannon

Lord Kildonan was shortly to take up a post in the Lisbon Embassy, and the boy was unfit to make the voyage: "not that he is sickly," the Earl wrote, "though you'll find him whimsical, or of late I've thought [Pg 8] him so, and to confirm this, 'twas only to-day his old nurse came expressly to tell me he was possess'd: but let that pass; I'll warrant you can find a spell to make all straight.
— from A Thin Ghost and Others by M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James

Even the horses of the King lived upon leaves, and not a horse of all our numerous cavalry ever thoroughly recovered from the effects of such sorry fare.
— from Court Memoirs of France Series — Complete by Various

He came in with elaborate caution in his great muddy boots, and looked at Herbert like a sort of natural curiosity, exclaiming that he only wanted a black cap and a pair of bands to be exactly like Bishop Bowater, a Caroline divine, with a meek, oval, spiritual face, and a great display of delicate attenuated fingers, the length of which had always been a doubt and marvel to his sturdy descendants.
— from The Three Brides by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

These two last papers were in a sealed envelope on which was written: ‘Papers to be restored to the Sieur Pennautier, receiver-general of the clergy, as belonging to him; and I humbly beg those into whose hands they fall, to be good enough to return them to him at my death, they being of no consequence except to him alone.’
— from Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIV by Frantz Funck-Brentano

A provision of the Revised Statutes of North Carolina enacts that slaves thus secreted in the swamps, not returning within a given time, shall be considered outlawed; and that "it shall be lawful for any person or persons whatsoever to kill and destroy such slaves, by such ways and means as they shall think fit, without any accusation or impeachment of crime for the same."
— from Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe

This was not merely due to the incessant ebb and flow of population, the coming and going of different detachments of the imperial army, the founding of new monasteries by men from all parts of the Christian world, the opening of new commercial establishments, the coming of new trading embassies, 65 but to one great and irremediable disaster.
— from Constantinople: The Story of the Old Capital of the Empire by William Holden Hutton

Very few men in the course of nature can expect to see all the pantomimes in one season, but I hope to the end of my life I shall never forego reading about them in that delicious sheet of The Times which appears on the morning after Boxing-day.
— from Some Roundabout Papers by William Makepeace Thackeray