Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o' the time: We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole, and underwrit, "Here may you see the tyrant." MACBETH.
— from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Several persons, likewise, of the first distinction in Gaul, Spain, Syria, and Greece, had their estates confiscated upon such despicably trifling and shameless pretences, that against some of them no other charge was preferred, than that they held large sums of ready money as part of their property.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

Their worships, as he called them, were about a score of fusty crack-ropes and gallow-clappers, or rather more, all posted before a bar, and staring at each other like so many dead pigs.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

To these speeches they gave, of course, their own interpretation; fancying, no doubt, that at all events I should come into possession of vast quantities of ready money; and provided I paid them all I owed, and a trifle more, in consideration of their services, I dare say they cared very little what became of either my soul or my carcass.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe

She did not stay to listen to my comment on her mutiny—she swept out of the library and sat down at the piano in the other room, making a picture of herself between the tall white candles which illumined the dark mahogany and the mulberry brocades.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey

Our religion, morality, and philosophy are decadent human institutions.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

But however that may be, no greater absurdity, to use no harsher term, could be presented, than that of rewarding men and punishing women for the same act, without giving to women any voice in the question which should he rewarded and which punished .
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

5.—Let green corn, in the time of green corn, be grated, and to a pint of it put a pint of rich milk, a pint of water, a little butter, salt and pepper.
— from Barkham Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 by Barkham Burroughs

You have many times given us the joy of relieving misery and providing instruction for the ignorant and depraved."
— from Christmas with Grandma Elsie by Martha Finley

Over this track the brave Swiss Bouquet led the first English army that crossed the Ohio river, making a [Pg 27] tri-track road to the Muskingum valley and bringing to a triumphal close Pontiac’s bloody rebellion.
— from Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals by Archer Butler Hulbert

So perfect is his tact in finding, or rather making a place for everything, that, while inviting, he eludes the charge of pedantry.'
— from The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg by Thomas De Quincey

The representations of rivers, mountains, and provinces, were carried before the Imperial car.
— from History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1 by Edward Gibbon

After remarking upon the marvelous analogy between Christianity and Buddhism as found to exist by the first missionaries to Thibet, he goes on: 'Not less, however, was the surprise of the first Spanish ecclesiastics, who found, on reaching Mexico, a priesthood as regularly organized as that of the most civilized countries.
— from The Native Races [of the Pacific states], Volume 5, Primitive History The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 5 by Hubert Howe Bancroft

I perceive that all this is reprehensible; I envy those who act from principle; I would fain be virtuous, yet cannot discover what virtue is; for my blasé feelings make me perceive, in all the dogmas of religion, morality, and philosophy, only arbitrary beliefs without any eternal foundation, which change at every advance of the nations in civilization, are now wrested here, now there, nay, even dependent upon the fashion of the day; and thus I have formed the despairing conclusion, that there is no virtue, believe the loathing of my own deeds which sometimes seizes upon me to be a relic of old school prejudices, and despise myself.
— from A Twofold Life by Wilhelmine von Hillern

on the other hand, is familiar in districts in which the bird abounds, and is commonly quoted, by contrast with its unrivalled voice, as the converse of the gaudy colouring of raucous macaws and parrakeets.
— from Birds in the Calendar by Frederick G. (Frederick George) Aflalo

[Pg 17] their limit of growth territorially; and we pay six hundred million dollars every year to get the seventy-five per cent of our raw material and produce from our farms to our railways.
— from The Future of Road-making in America by Archer Butler Hulbert

The Boishnobos have been defined as a class of Oriya religious mendicants and priests to Sūdras.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 1 of 7 by Edgar Thurston