Juan Velasquez de Leon, (who was closely related to Velasquez,) Diego de Ordas, Escobar, (whom we commonly termed the page,) Pedro de Escudero, and others of Velasquez's party, still continued refractory, and things at last came to such a pass, that, in the end, they formally refused to obey Cortes.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

"Essendo conveniente usar qualche ricognizione a quelli della maestranza del-l'Arsenal nostro, che prontamente sono concorsi all' incendio occorso ultimamente a S. Zuane Grizostomo nelli stabeli detti di CA' MILION dove per la relazion fatta nell collegio nostro dalli patroni di esso Arsenal hanno nell' estinguere il foco prestato ogni buon servitio…."—(Comm.
— from The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Rustichello of Pisa

Omni modo generet laetitiam in iis, de iis quae audiuntur et videntur, aut odorantur, aut gustantur, aut quocunque modo sentiri possunt, et aspectu formarum multi decoris et ornatus, et negotiatione; jucunda, et blandientibus ludis, et promissis distrahantur, eorum animi, de re aliqua quam timent et dolent.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Skimpole reasons with himself, this is a tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us comfortably when we are murdered.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

It cannot be effaced from a man's soul what his ancestors have preferably and most constantly done: whether they were perhaps diligent economizers attached to a desk and a cash-box, modest and citizen-like in their desires, modest also in their virtues; or whether they were accustomed to commanding from morning till night, fond of rude pleasures and probably of still ruder duties and responsibilities; or whether, finally, at one time or another, they have sacrificed old privileges of birth and possession, in order to live wholly for their faith—for their "God,"—as men of an inexorable and sensitive conscience, which blushes at every compromise.
— from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The first designate the line adopted by an army in a preliminary, decisive enterprise, after which it is at liberty to select a more advantageous or direct line.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

She ought to be put in jail for life instead of that poor dear——” Eugene and Goriot rang the door-bell at that moment.
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

She shouted back, and in another minute the boyish form of Peter Dale emerged among the oaks above her.
— from Helena by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

That magnificent battle not only signalized the genius for war of the British admiral, but proclaimed aloud the existence of a power destined ever, and in all parts, to clip the wings of the coming emperor.
— from The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol 1 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Had I attempted the latter, I should have been falling into metaphysics; but my aim is of a practical character, such as that of Butler in his Analogy , with this difference, that he treats of probability, doubt, expedience, and duty, whereas in these pages, without excluding, far from it, the question of duty, I would confine myself to the truth of things, and to the mind's certitude of that truth.
— from An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent by John Henry Newman

They had made great sacrifices, and left the presidency deeply embarrassed; and yet the republican party who had the power and the strongest disposition to relieve their necessities, felt they had no right to do so by appropriating money from the public Treasury.
— from Thirty Years' View (Vol. 2 of 2) or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850 by Thomas Hart Benton

"Peter," demanded Ellen, "are you reading again?"
— from The Lovely Lady by Mary Hunter Austin

Now Asâl, by conversing with him, found, that the Mekoul, i.e. what Hai Ebn Yokdhan saw by this sort of Speculation; and the Menkoul, i.e. what Asâl had learn'd out of the Alcoran, and the Tradition of the Prophets , did exactly answer one the other, as a Copy does its Original.
— from The Improvement of Human Reason Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan by Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik Ibn Tufayl

It is thus apparent that among rude tribes of modern centuries, as in the prehistoric dawn, exceptional aptitude and skill found recognition as readily as in any civilised community.
— from The Lost Atlantis and Other Ethnographic Studies by Wilson, Daniel, Sir