During this interval the master of the house took his opportunity to break a large hole through his shop into a bulk or stall, where formerly a cobbler had sat, before or under his shop-window; but the tenant, as may be supposed at such a dismal time as that, was dead or removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping.
— from A Journal of the Plague Year Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London by Daniel Defoe

Once, you know, when I was a sub-lieutenant, some of us had a drop too much.
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov

Nor is it possible without Letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or (unless his memory be hurt by disease, or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

Not what the man knows, but what he wills, determines his worth or unworth, his strength or weakness, his happiness or misery.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

And it was so simple too; but if the spirits evoked by our fears and our unrest have ever to vouch for each other’s constancy before the forlorn magicians that we are, then I—I alone of us dwellers in the flesh—have shuddered in the hopeless chill of such a task.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Some of us have rode in coaches and chariots, with three footmen behind them, without making so much fuss about it.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

He affirmed, that of a parliament thus constituted, the crown would always have influence enough to secure a great majority in its dependence, from the great number of posts, places, and pensions it had to bestow; that such a parliament would (as it had already done) lengthen the term of its sitting and authority, whenever the prince should think it for his interest to continue the representatives, for, without doubt, they had the same right to protect their authority ad infinitum, as they had to extend it from three to seven years.—With a parliament, therefore, dependent upon the crown, devoted to the prince, and supported by a standing army, garbled and modelled for the purpose, any king of England may, and probably some ambitious sovereign will, totally overthrow all the bulwarks of the constitution; for it is not to be supposed that a prince of high spirit will tamely submit to be thwarted in all his measures, abused and insulted by a populace of unbridled ferocity, when he has it in his power to crush all opposition under his feet with the concurrence of the legislature.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

In order more effectually to secure this object, upon Junia’s dying in child-bed, he engaged in a criminal commerce with Ennia Naevia, the wife (258) of Macro, at that time prefect of the pretorian cohorts; promising to marry her if he became emperor, to which he bound himself, not only by an oath, but by a written obligation under his hand.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

I believe that not one of us had at this time the slightest suspicion of the good faith of the savages.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

In all cases, however, of uterine hemorrhage in the latter months, the danger cannot be so accurately estimated by the quantity of blood which appears externally, as by the general symptoms.
— from The Matron's Manual of Midwifery, and the Diseases of Women During Pregnancy and in Childbed Being a Familiar and Practical Treatise, More Especially Intended for the Instruction of Females Themselves, but Adapted Also for Popular Use among Students and Practitioners of Medicine by Frederick Hollick

It made a great stir, and Cauchon burst out upon her with an awful threat—the threat of instant condemnation unless she obeyed.
— from Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2 by Mark Twain

I was depending not only upon his fluent German but also upon his superior knowledge of the situation to help me to pass serenely through this ordeal.
— from Behind the Scenes in Warring Germany by Edward Lyell Fox

When the Mars man has once blasted his way in here and disposed of us, he'll be ready for the space ship.
— from The Great Dome on Mercury by Arthur Leo Zagat

It has been placed on the map in accordance with the topography shown on USGS Hoaglin Quadrangle.
— from California Athabascan Groups by Martin A. Baumhoff

“Monsieur is wasting time,” was the reply, and he went on using his brush angrily for a few minutes.
— from The Tiger Lily by George Manville Fenn

At the base of the hill, stood the goddess of Wisdom with her favorite bird (the owl) upon her shoulder, and pointing the attention of young aspirants to its beetling summit.
— from Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman by William L. (William Leete) Stone

Four men supported the summer king upon two poles, one under his knees and the other under his arms; and four others bore the winter king in a similar undignified posture.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

It is true that man’s historic brutalities are hidden under the gloss of what he calls patriotism or preservation of the race; but if the average man were asked the cause for his own unbridled hate of other races, he could give no intelligent answer.
— from The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and Flow by Edward Alfred Steiner