The gravitating Power of the Sun is transmitted through the vast Bodies of the Planets without any diminution, so as to act upon [Pg 268] all their parts to their very centers with the same Force and according to the same Laws, as if the part upon which it acts were not surrounded with the Body of the Planet, The Rays of Light, whether they be very small Bodies projected, or only Motion or Force propagated, are moved in right Lines; and whenever a Ray of Light is by any Obstacle turned out of its rectilinear way, it will never return into the same rectilinear way, unless perhaps by very great accident.
— from Opticks Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Isaac Newton

The stranger paused a moment in reverie before this tender and calming spectacle.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Under the title of comets he includes, not only those bodies which are permanent and move in regular orbits, but such as are transient, and are produced from various causes, the nature of which is not well understood.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

Literature has its piety, its conscience; it cannot long forget, without forfeiting all dignity, that it serves a burdened and perplexed creature, a human animal struggling to persuade the universal Sphinx to propose a more intelligible riddle.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

226 Not that reason wishes to expel passion altogether (that is neither 103 possible, nor advisable), but only to keep it within bounds and order, and to engender the moral virtues, which are not apathetic, but hold the due proportion and mean in regard to passion.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, could you have no redress if you were to prosecute a publisher for bringing out, under your name, what you never said, and ascribing to you dull stupid nonsense, or making you swear profanely, as many ignorant relaters of your bon-mots do?'
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order to make of him a man who is also clothed by the state.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

For Goethe, possessing all modern interests, ready to be lost in the perplexed currents of modern thought, he defines, in clearest outline, the problem of culture—balance, unity with oneself, consummate Greek modelling.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

I don’t speak to anyone, and when people address me I reply in monosyllables.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

It was recalled by one witness that a neighbor girl could bewitch a pail and make it roll towards her.
— from A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 by Wallace Notestein

Society has no right to punish any man in revenge—no right to punish any man except for two objects—one, the prevention of crime; the other, the reformation of the criminal.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes by Robert Green Ingersoll

Sulphurous acid is evolved, and its reducing powers assist materially in retaining and promoting a good colour in the product.
— from Animal Proteins by Hugh Garner Bennett

The Jewish race is, on the other hand, proclaimed even by its severest critic, an uncompromising opponent of the Bible , to have the merit of having conceived the idea of monotheism “earlier, and retained it more firmly, than any of the less philosophical and more immoral religions (!!) of the ancient world.”
— from The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2 of 4 by H. P. (Helena Petrovna) Blavatsky

I heard the gentleman with pain and mortification, I repeat it, with pain and mortification I heard him declare that nations like individuals should pocket their honor for money.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16) by United States. Congress

I’d rather not fight any brothers—I only want to pop to the sister; I don’t want any brothers to be popping at me in return!
— from Single Life: A Comedy, in Three Acts by John Baldwin Buckstone

The priory, although much in ruins, is very interesting, and well worth seeing and exploring with a reconstructive eye.
— from Highways and Byways in Sussex by E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas

Plans and manœuvres in respect to Margaret's marriage.
— from Richard III Makers of History by Jacob Abbott

1824), without, however appearing to have been fully acquainted with the facts of the case: "These verses are not the production of Pope, as might indeed readily have been perceived, but of Aaron Hill."
— from Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 by Various

There must have been, too, an extraordinary assemblage of negro pages and majordomos in ruby silks and canary and velvet.
— from San Cristóbal de la Habana by Joseph Hergesheimer