'T is best to pause, and think, ere you rush on, If that a 'bonne fortune' be really 'bonne.'
— from Don Juan by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

ἐτέχθην, to bear, bring forth children, Mat. 1.21, 23, et al.; trop. to bear, produce, as the earth, yield, He.
— from A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by William Greenfield

And the mischief on’t is that, according to the rules of art, in every danger that a man comes near, he must undergo a quarantine in fear of the evil, your imagination all the while tormenting you at pleasure, and turning even your health itself into a fever.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

If you pretend any Thing else, you may execute it on this Coast.
— from A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time by Daniel Defoe

Let not a culpable and pernicious indifference to the maintenance of the constitution ever induce you to neglect, in case of need, the prudent advice of the most enlightened and zealous of your fellow-citizens; but let equity, moderation and firmness of resolution continue to regulate all your proceedings, and to exhibit you to the whole universe as the example of a valiant and modest people, jealous equally of their honour and of their liberty.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The tuber peonies are transplanted each year or in some way kept small and the blossoms are lovely and little.
— from Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey

And, in fact, the magicians failed at the third plague; whereas Moses, dealing out the miracles delegated to him, brought ten plagues upon the land, so that the hard hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians yielded, and the people were let go.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

The east is a fair country, inhabited by a civilized people: the air is healthy, the waters are pure and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and fruitful increase.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

If it be so, I am sure you must be included in that part, that discerning part, and therefore entreat you to let me know how far I have been rightly informed.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

The arphid died in a shower of sparks, which was really quite lovely (though not nearly as pretty as the effect you get when you nuke a frozen grape, which has to be seen to be believed).
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

She only took notice of you out of pity, and to encourage you.
— from Try and Trust; Or, Abner Holden's Bound Boy by Alger, Horatio, Jr.

We do not pretend notwithstanding our high opinion of Lee, to defend all his rants and extravagancies; some of them are ridiculous, some bombast, and others unintelligible; but this observation by no means holds true in general; for tho' some passages are too extravagant, yet others are nobly sublime, we had almost said, unequalled by any other poet.
— from The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume II. by Theophilus Cibber

Your Majesty has at the same time been pleased also to express your gracious appreciation of the patriotism and reliance upon your paternal designs which the Estates of the Realm have on this occasion manifested.
— from Pax mundi A concise account of the progress of the movement for peace by means of arbitration, neutralization, international law and disarmament by K. P. (Klas Pontus) Arnoldson

Return from your useless excursions; enter again into a real world; keep to second causes , and leave to divines their first cause , of which nature has no need, to produce all the effects you observe in the world.
— from Good Sense by Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'

So, when a writer annoys you for ten pages and then enchants you for ten lines, you must not explode against his style.
— from Literary Taste: How to Form It With Detailed Instructions for Collecting a Complete Library of English Literature by Arnold Bennett

Such a conquest he knew might so far weaken your enemy or strengthen your own position as to enable you to secure a satisfactory peace.
— from Some Principles of Maritime Strategy by Julian Stafford Corbett

The boy afterwards became a Court Page, but he looked very out of place among the Europeanized youngsters who swaggered about at the Palace.
— from At the Court of the Amîr: A Narrative by John Alfred Gray

“So strongly was the animal guarded, that it came to be a proverb among the English yeomanry, that a person could no more do this or that hard thing than ‘they could steal Brownie from the stables of the king.’
— from Zigzag Journeys in Europe: Vacation Rambles in Historic Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth

But, while you seek, by every means within your control, to enlarge the sphere of your perceptions, and to elevate your standard of intellectual pleasures, carefully avoid all semblance of conscious superiority, all dilettanti pretension, all needless technicalities of artistic language.
— from The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness and Fashion or, Familiar Letters to his Nephews by Margaret C. (Margaret Cockburn) Conkling