As the embryo often shows us more or less plainly the structure of the less modified and ancient progenitor of the group, we can see why ancient and extinct forms so often resemble in their adult state the embryos of existing species of the same class.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

This idea, having once seized upon my fancy, greatly excited it, and I lost myself forthwith in revery.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

For men are always disposed to respect and defend rights, when the victims of oppression stand up manfully for themselves.
— from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

He might harp as long as he pleased upon her scolding; but she never scolded, except for his advantage; but he would never be satisfied, even tho’f she should sweat blood and water in his service—I have a great notion that our aunt, who is now declining into the most desperate state of celibacy, had formed some design upon the heart of Sir Ulic Mackilligut, which she feared might be frustrated by our abrupt departure from these lodgings.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

He tells me also, as a friend, the great injury that he thinks I do myself by being so severe in the Yards, and contracting the ill-will of the whole Navy for those offices, singly upon myself.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

"When in past days," she had argued, "you had no rice to eat, there remained myself, who was still worth several taels; and hadn't I urged you to sell me, wouldn't I have seen both father and mother die of starvation under my very eyes?
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

before the above-named 124th Olympiad, these cities, chiefly through the instrumentality of the Macedonian kings, became so estranged and ill-disposed to each other, and so divided and opposed in their interests, that some of them had to submit to the presence of foreign garrisons, sent first by Demetrius and Cassander, and afterwards by Antigonus Gonatas, while others even fell under the power of Tyrants; for no one set up more of such absolute rulers in the Greek states than this last-named king.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

To live the same quiet Secretary life, carefully avoiding chances of recognition, until they shall have become more accustomed to their altered state, and until the great swarm of swindlers under many names shall have found newer prey.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

The cymbals and horns in the orchestra struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and waved his feet about very rapidly.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Its navigating was marked by an encounter with an immense school of squid, unusual mollusks that are near neighbors of the cuttlefish.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

He had been a Revolutionary soldier, a member of Congress, governor of Virginia, envoy to France and England, and Secretary of State under Madison.
— from History of the United States by John Clark Ridpath

"If there were some plot against this man Delora," he said, "to prevent his carrying out some undertaking, monsieur would help to frustrate it?"
— from The Lost Ambassador; Or, The Search For The Missing Delora by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

For the present moment, however, some of the rubbish that the commotion of "the Ordonnances" stirred up may still be seen floating about on the surface; and it is difficult to observe without a smile in what chiefly consists the liberty which these immortals have so valiantly bled to acquire.
— from Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (Vol. 1) by Frances Milton Trollope

For this reason, the dead person becomes to him a demon , an invisible being capable of seizing upon man, of overpowering or killing him, or of bringing sickness upon him.
— from Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind by Wilhelm Max Wundt

John of Spires used movable type, and succeeding him were many distinguished printers, whose presses supplied the civilised world with books.
— from Old Continental Towns by Walter M. (Walter Matthew) Gallichan

In every field a multitude of weed stalks and stout grass stems are holding their heads above the snow tightly clasping their store of seeds until members of the Sparrow family shall thrash them out against the frozen crust beneath.
— from The Bird Study Book by T. Gilbert (Thomas Gilbert) Pearson

I loved her; for she bent on me A smile and look of sorcery; Until my heart could not be free; Alas! that such deceit should be;—
— from Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems by James Avis Bartley

I made one spring upon my Cape Town gentleman, and took him by the throat with one hand, while I hit the biggest Dutchman full behind the ear, felling him to the deck, on which the man-o'-war's-man grappled his watch-mate, and Webb was struggling with me sufficiently to keep both my hands full, when I had a pleasant inkling of a Malay Lascar slipping toward my back with a bare kreese in his fist.
— from The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant by George Cupples

He often sings until midnight, and on the morrow he again sallies forth before the dawn, and may soon return with a superabundance of food.
— from James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 1 by Thomas Say