But Adeline's malicious eyes Sparkled with her successful prophecies, And look'd as much as if to say, 'I said it;' A kind of triumph I 'll not recommend, Because it sometimes, as I have seen or read it, Both in the case of lover and of friend, Will pique a gentleman, for his own credit, To bring what was a jest to a serious end: For all men prophesy what is or was, And hate those who won't let them come to pass.
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

But when once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult of revolution; when successive monarchs have crossed the throne, so as alternately to display to the people the weakness of their right and the harshness of their power, the sovereign is no longer regarded by any as the Father of the State, and he is feared by all as its master.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

When in addition to the motives thus suggested by my own reason, I bring into distinct remembrance the number and the series of great men, who, after long and zealous study of these works had joined in honouring the name of Plato with epithets, that almost transcend humanity, I feel, that a contemptuous verdict on my part might argue want of modesty, but would hardly be received by the judicious, as evidence of superior penetration.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

On the contrary, if we ascribe objective reality to these forms of representation, it becomes impossible to avoid changing everything into mere appearance.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Only one who knows the disastrous effects of a long war can realize the supreme importance of rapidity in bringing it to a close.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi

es in three hours a thousand years of feudalism; it makes of its logic the muscle of unanimous will; it multiplies itself under all sorts of forms of the sublime; it fills with its light Washington, Kosciusko, Bolivar, Bozzaris, Riego, Bem, Manin, Lopez, John Brown, Garibaldi; it is everywhere where the future is being lighted up, at Boston in 1779, at the Isle de Léon in 1820, at Pesth in 1848, at Palermo in 1860, it whispers the mighty countersign: Liberty, in the ear of the American abolitionists grouped about the boat at Harper’s Ferry, and in the ear of the patriots of Ancona assembled in the shadow, to the Archi before the Gozzi inn on the seashore; it creates Canaris; it creates Quiroga; it creates Pisacane; it irradiates the great on earth; it was while proceeding whither its breath urge them, that Byron perished at Missolonghi, and that Mazet died at Barcelona; it is the tribune under the feet of Mirabeau, and a crater under the feet of Robespierre; its books, its theatre, its art, its science, its literature, its philosophy, are the manuals of the human race; it has Pascal, Régnier, Corneille, Descartes, Jean-Jacques: Voltaire for all moments, Molière for all centuries; it makes its language to be talked by the universal mouth, and that language becomes the word; it constructs in all minds the idea of progress, the liberating dogmas which it forges are for the generations trusty friends, and it is with the soul of its thinkers and its poets that all heroes of all nations have been made since 1789; this does not prevent vagabondism, and that enormous genius which is called Paris, while transfiguring the world by its light, sketches in charcoal Bouginier’s nose on the wall of the temple of Theseus and writes Credeville the thief on the Pyramids.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Mrs. Dr. dear, can you tell me if R-h-e-i-m-s is Rimes or Reems or Rames or Rems?" "I believe it's really more like 'Rhangs,' Susan." "Oh, those French names," groaned Susan.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

Let the reader reflect upon the fact, that, in this christian country, men and women are hiding from professors of religion, in barns, in the woods and fields, in order to learn to read the holy bible .
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

The main difference between British and foreign usage with regard to quartering is this, that in England quarterings are usually employed to denote simply descent from an heiress, or representation in blood; in Scotland they also implied the possession of lordships.
— from A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

He was buried in the church of Raffin in Bamffshire, in the family vault of the Gordons of Buckie.
— from Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. Volume II. by Thomson, A. T., Mrs.

On recollection, I believe I sent them to you a year or two ago.
— from Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3 by Thomas Jefferson

I believe there is no doubt that the cultivation of madder in the vicinity of Avignon is of recent introduction; but it is certain that it was grown by the ancient Romans, and throughout nearly all Europe in the middle ages.
— from The Earth as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh

Other well-known politicians whom I have noticed here lately have been Lord Beatty and Lord Fisher strolling arm-in-arm beside the Long Canal, and Mr. Jack Jones looking contemptuously at the Kynge's Beestes; and the other day, owing to identical errors in our choice of routes , I bumped into Sir Eric Geddes no fewer than five times during one afternoon in the Maze.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-05-05 by Various

"Why, father?" "Why, all the rest of Rome is back in the old days."
— from Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson

The oldest railroad in Brazil is the Petropolis road.
— from The Railroad Question A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and remedies for their abuses by William Larrabee

"After he's put his hand to a little bill, he'll remember it's a very green thing to do, but he don't often remember it before, I fancy.
— from Beatrice Boville and Other Stories by Ouida

DR. CHARLES).—THE CHURCH IN THE CATACOMBS: A Description of the Primitive Church of Rome, illustrated by its Sepulchral Remains.
— from Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847 Of Things and Persons Concerning the Church and Education by T. W. (Thomas William) Allies

His daughter was well aware that his consent would never be voluntary: she preferred marrying without it, to marrying against it; and trusted to obtain his forgiveness when there was no remedy:—a common mode of reasoning, I believe, in such cases.
— from The Romance of Biography (Vol 2 of 2) or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols. by Mrs. (Anna) Jameson

He read and re-read its glowing descriptions of nature, committed favorite portions to memory, and never tired of recounting its beauties in the hearing of his sympathetic friends.
— from Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers by W. E. (William Edward) Winks