Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

The people are industrious, apt to learn, as well as cheerful and pleasant, and none can endure more labour when it is necessary; but, except in that case, they love their ease.
— from Utopia by More, Thomas, Saint

The Arabian Nights—futile enough in any case—would be absolutely intolerable if they contained no Oriental manners, no human passions, and no convinced epicureanism behind their miracles and their tattle.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

and said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace; and nobody could ever find him to stop or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of.
— from A Journal of the Plague Year Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London by Daniel Defoe

His soldiers are drawn together from every part, and nothing can escape their fury.
— from The History of Sandford and Merton by Thomas Day

With God all things are possible, and no conversion ever takes place save by the almighty power of the Holy Ghost .
— from A Retrospect by James Hudson Taylor

There were no paupers and no charities, either public or private, to be found in the country.
— from Mizora: A Prophecy A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch by Mary E. Bradley Lane

The play-bill, with a wealth of theatrical rhetoric, invited Odo to attend the Performance to be given that evening at the Philodramatic Academy by the celebrated Capo Comico Tartaglia of Rimini and his world-renowned company of Comedians, who, in the presence of the aristocracy of Vercelli, were to present a new comedy entitled "Le Gelosie di Milord Zambo," with an Intermezzo of singing and dancing by the best Performers of their kind.
— from The Valley of Decision by Edith Wharton

The concentration of a large portion of our naval forces in the North Sea is no surrender of our command of the sea in any part of the world, because that command does not exist, never has existed in time of peace, and never can exist even in time of war until [Pg 136] we have fought for it and secured it.
— from Naval Warfare by James R. (James Richard) Thursfield

The author’s literary executor, rather than seek to publish a new commercial edition of the book, decided to make the novel available as an open access publication, freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder’s written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission).
— from When the Owl Cries by Paul Alexander Bartlett

The grave utterances of the church then rolled out upon the palpitating pair, and no couple ever joined their whispers thereto with more fervency than they.
— from Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy

Among those divines who are most earnest for a revision, and would be most competent to take part in it, there is not one, so far as I am aware, who would not watch with the greatest jealousy over the Saxon character of our version, who would wish to substitute for a single venerable phrase a nineteenth century equivalent, who would not sacrifice anything excepting truth to the preservation of that which is popular and human, who would not expect, as the reward of a steadfast adherence to truth, that the book would become more a book for the English people, and less a book for the schools.
— from The Gospel of St. John: A Series of Discourses. New Edition by Frederick Denison Maurice

Without these black soldier-ants the country would be overrun by the white ants; they are so extremely prolific, and nothing can exceed the energy with which they work.
— from Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone

She drew out the bag now and showed it to her companion, who gave a sort of grunt, and permitted a new crease, expressive of satisfaction, to appear upon her broad countenance.
— from A Marriage Under the Terror by Patricia Wentworth