The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or less of doubt and uncertainty.
— from The Iliad by Homer

Before I went abroad, I was visited by Freeman, who came on purpose to inform me of the infamous stories that were raised at my expense.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I have never lost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is with us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side, Dame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman—all just the same as ever; and I answer, "Yes, dear guardian!"
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

In modern times, the diligence of public teachers is more or less corrupted by the circumstances which render them more or less independent of their success and reputation in their particular professions.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Another is conveyed in the words, 'The Athenians do not care about any man being thought wise until he begins to make other men wise; and then for some reason or other they are angry:' which may be said to be the rule of popular toleration in most other countries, and not at Athens only.
— from Euthyphro by Plato

Without his consent, no act of the pupil could bind himself to his own prejudice, though it might oblige others for his personal benefit.
— 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

Owing partly to improved methods of selection, [555] partly no doubt to chance, even more mutants were found this year than in the former.
— from Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Hugo de Vries

I have to ask the favor of you to procure me a copy of the above work of Pallas, to inform me of the cost, and permit me to pay it here to your use; for I presume you have some mercantile correspondent here, to whom a payment can be made for you.
— from Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4 by Thomas Jefferson

We'll talk of the Beauties (of which I am more than ever sure) when we meet,—Yours truly, C. L. I will barely add, as you are on the very point of printing, that in my opinion neither prologue nor epilogue should accompany the play.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820 by Charles Lamb

In his sapphic odes, as he calls them, the sapphic verse is not more obviously perceptible than in many older compositions of the same kind, into which rhyme is admitted.
— from History of Spanish and Portuguese Literature (Vol 2 of 2) by Friedrich Bouterwek

Know, therefore, that as I have been born of a woman, and I have taken this Body upon Me, it is on purpose that I might offer it up upon the Cross a sacrifice to God, to give Him satisfaction for thy sins, that His mercy may be extended to thy soul, without any wrong done to justice; and this thou art to believe, and not in the notion but from thy very whole soul.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Complete by John Bunyan

At the close of the War of the Rebellion a large amount of uncultivated, wild land, owned by non-residents, was sold in small farms to settlers; and a general disposition prevailed, from high prices of produce, to improve much of the better class of timber lands every-where, underbrushing for pasture, or deadening the large timber for corn, and this had some influence in decimating game.
— from The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life by N. E. (Nelson Edward) Jones

He wisest is who only gives, True to himself, the best he can; Who, drifting in the winds of praise, The inward monitor obeys;
— from The Tent on the Beach, and other poems Part 4 from Volume IV of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier