It is one of those old, old towns which impress one as a continuation and outgrowth of nature, as much as the nests of the bower-birds or the winding galleries of the white ants; a town which carries the traces of its long growth and history like a millennial tree, and has sprung up and developed in the same spot between the river and the low hill from the time when the Roman legions turned their backs on it from the camp on the hillside, and the long-haired sea-kings came up the river and looked with fierce, eager eyes at the fatness of the land.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

In the very high compass those notes are only given which can really be used; anything higher and not printed as actual notes are either too difficult to produce or of no artistic value.
— from Principles of Orchestration, with Musical Examples Drawn from His Own Works by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

The most profound and capacious minds of Rome and Greece were never able to reach the idea, at once so general and so simple, of the common likeness of men, and of the common birthright of each to freedom: they strove to prove that slavery was in the order of nature, and that it would always exist.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

And can that earth-artificer have a freer power over his brother potsherd (both being made of the same metal), than God hath over him, who, by the strange fecundity of His omnipotent power, first made the clay out of nothing, and then him out of that?'
— from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Omar Khayyam

At the same moment, springing as it seemed out of nothing, a man and several half-grown boys appeared on each side of the fly and began dragging out the suit-cases.
— from The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

We find the Apostles enjoining the love of our neighbour as ourselves, benevolence, the requital of hatred with love and well-doing, patience, meekness, the endurance of all possible injuries without resistance, abstemiousness in nourishment to keep down lust, resistance to sensual desire, if possible, altogether.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

Once she had suffered from “things that came out of nothing and meant she didn’t know what.”
— from A Room with a View by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

Thought, and cultivation, are necessary equally to the happiness of a country and a city life; in the first they prevent the uneasy sensations of indolence, and afford a sublime pleasure in the taste they create for the beautiful, and the grand; in the latter, they make dissipation less an object of necessity, and consequently of interest.'
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

This desire of change, is like the breach of the first of Gods Commandements: For there God says, Non Habebis Deos Alienos; Thou shalt not have the Gods of other Nations; and in another place concerning Kings, that they are Gods.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

He observed, “that among the diversions of our nobility and gentry, I had mentioned gaming: he desired to know at what age this entertainment was usually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed; whether it ever went so high as to affect their fortunes; whether mean, vicious people, by their dexterity in that art, might not arrive at great riches, and sometimes keep our very nobles in dependence, as well as habituate them to vile companions, wholly take them from the improvement of their minds, and force them, by the losses they received, to learn and practise that infamous dexterity upon others?”
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

The hope which had been entertained of aid from Charles was now abandoned; and the overthrow of Norfolk and his policy of alliance with the Empire was seen at the midsummer of 1532 in the conclusion of a league with France.
— from History of the English People, Volume III The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 by John Richard Green

There was then a mighty production of papers on the part of the cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and great work of signing, sealing, stamping, inking, and sanding, with exceedingly blurred, gritty, and undecipherable results.
— from Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

What new phase in the life of our nation and our Empire does this tremendous ceremony inaugurate?
— from An Englishman Looks at the World Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Israel thus grew into the conception of the Infinite Power, manifest in the order of nature and in the order of conscience as conscious Power; One in whose image man was made, the Father of the mystic "I"; whose nature is the law of creation, whose purpose is its plan, whose will is its exhaustless energy.
— from The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible by Richard Heber Newton

But he never lost sight of the fact that the life of the mill-hand is an anomaly—is a life not in the order of nature, and which requires to be justified by manifest necessity and by continuous care.
— from Wordsworth by F. W. H. (Frederic William Henry) Myers

I have, for example, in a haunted house, seen the phenomenon on one night and not on another, though on both occasions other people in the room have witnessed it.
— from Ghostly Phenomena by Elliott O'Donnell

Who was this girl with the bronze-red hair, the perfect outline of nose and mouth and chin, the sea-shell colouring?
— from Red Pepper's Patients With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular by Grace S. (Grace Smith) Richmond

It was a middle course between Scylla and Charybdis, which were represented on the one side by Arius, who maintained that the Son was created out of nothing; and by Sabellius on the other hand, who maintained that the Son was only a mode, manifestation, or name of God; God being called the Father, as Creator of the world; called Son, as Redeemer of the world; and Spirit, as Sanctifier of the world.
— from Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors by James Freeman Clarke