After Babylon had been taken, the march of Dareios himself 1 against the Scythians took place: for now that Asia was flourishing in respect of population, and large sums were being gathered in as revenue, Dareios formed the desire to take vengeance upon the Scythians, because they had first invaded the Median land and had overcome in fight those who opposed them; and thus they had been the beginners of wrong.
— from The History of Herodotus — Volume 1 by Herodotus

April 17th.—Preliminaries of peace at Leoben signed by Bonaparte.
— 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

Out of the Ship and Brigantine, the Pyrates got a good supply of Provisions and Liquor, so that they gave over the designed Cruise, and watered at Tobago , and hearing of the two Sloops that had been fitted out and sent after them at Corvocoo , they sailed to the Island of Martinico , to make the Governor some sort of an Equivalent, for the Care and Expedition he had shewn in that Affair.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

For these opposite passions, a larger scope was allowed in the revolutions of antiquity, than in the smooth and solid temper of the modern world, which cannot easily repeat either the triumph of Alexander or the fall of Darius.
— 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

[Footnote: These problems and theorems are mostly taken from the Treatise on the Social Contract, itself a summary of a larger work, undertaken without due consideration of my own powers, and long since abandoned.]
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

As for their color, they were like the Irishman's pig, which would not stay to be counted, every change of position and light seemed to give them a new hue; but their prevailing color was black, or nearly so.
— from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

Do you know a maxim of Phocylides—that ‘when a man begins to be rich’ (or, perhaps, a little sooner) ‘he should practise virtue’?
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

This day Captain Taylor brought me a piece of plate, a little small state dish, he expecting that I should get him some allowance for demorage [“‘Demurrage’ is the compensation due to a shipowner from a freighter for unduly decaying his vessel in port beyond the time specified in the charter-party or bill of lading.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

After living for two or three years in the vilest haunts in London, Lucie came to Holland, where, not being able to sell her own person any longer, she became a procuress—a natural ending to her career.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

There's always a good fifteen minutes wasted in such operas where a feller in the orchestra plays a little something on the flute and the coloratura [Pg 182] soprano sings the same music on the stage, the idee being to show that you couldn't tell the difference between the feller playing the flute and the coloratura soprano except the feller playing the flute has all his clothes on.
— from Worrying Won't Win by Montague Glass

Affection's ties oft sunder; and the home Of peace and love, sorrow and death can enter.
— from Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing by T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur

But whatever may be thought of the advantages offered by the towns of Peru and La Salle—for their destiny is one—for settlement and the investment of capital, there can be no doubt about the inducements presented to farmers and others by the surrounding country.
— from The History of Peru by Henry S. Beebe

[21] We are now in the very throes of the revolution that appears to be destined, before it closes, to secure for most of the great inland centres of population a large share of the advantages that result from being on the seaboard.
— from Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries With a description of the Panama, Suez, Manchester, Nicaraguan, and other canals. by J. Stephen (James Stephen) Jeans

“Only practising a little sword-play, sir,” said the boy, as soon as his head was relieved.
— from The Young Castellan: A Tale of the English Civil War by George Manville Fenn

Besides the wars with Denmark and with Poland, he also had a short campaign (in which he took several Prussian towns) with Brandenburg, the vassal and ally of Poland, although, like Sweden, a Lutheran country, so he had really the practical experience of three wars before entering that which gives him and his country their place in history.
— from History of the Life of Gustavus Adolphus II., the Hero-General of the Reformation by Harriet Earhart Monroe

Now burst open one or two of those other packages a little—so;” she took out a packet of letters and bruised their official wrappings under her little foot until the tape fastening was loosened.
— from Colonel Starbottle's Client by Bret Harte