Please excuse me; I can’t do so.
— from The Sea-Gull by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

[2099] Nam qui ob literas emersisse illos credat, desipit; qui vero ingenii, eruditionis, experientiae, probitatis, pietatis, et Musarum id esse pretium putat (quod olim revera fuit, hodie promittitur) planissime insanit.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

DON GONZALO: No; pero estar me interesa No, but it interests me en su entrevista.
— from Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla

On oublie la Patti pour elle .” “Maman, I have asked you not to say anything to me of that,” he answered, scowling.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Pray excuse my impertinence.
— from The Middle-Class Gentleman by Molière

If, by this appellation, men mean to inveigh against their ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be, against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind—all those who view them with a philosophical eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

The case, no doubt, is different in society as actually constituted; it is conceivable that the practically effective morality in such a society, resting on a basis independent of utilitarian or any other reasonings, may not be materially affected by the particular act or expressed opinion of a particular individual: but the circumstances are, I conceive, very rare, in which a really conscientious person could feel so sure of this as to conclude that by approving a particular violation of a rule, of which the general (though not universal ) observance is plainly expedient, he will not probably do harm on the whole.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

If, however, it be maintained, that the consciousness [135] of the transiency of pleasure either makes it less pleasant at the time or causes a subsequent pain, and that the deliberate and systematic pursuit of pleasure tends to intensify this consciousness; the proposition, if borne out by experience, would certainly constitute a relevant objection to the method of Egoistic Hedonism.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

When they had fled through the set stakes and trench and many Achaeans had been laid low at the hands of the Trojans, they halted at their ships, calling upon one another and praying every man instantly as they lifted up their hands to the gods; but Hector wheeled his horses this way and that, his eyes glaring like those of Gorgo or murderous Mars.
— from The Iliad by Homer

Senora mia, mi persona esta muy indigna de allegar a tanta hermosura.
— from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson

I said that I would willingly pay extra money if the baggage would arrive earlier, and asked him to go to that man to get the business settled.
— from Three Years in Tibet by Ekai Kawaguchi

Bull was a ready instrument, but his present value as an assistant had become a matter of doubt, since practically every man in the Gap had threatened within the week to blow his head off––though
— from Nan of Music Mountain by Frank H. (Frank Hamilton) Spearman

"While the law presumes every man innocent until proven guilty, yet it is not such a presumption as to rebut evidence.
— from The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin by Henry M. Hunt

Margaret even exaggerated somewhat, and told him that she had a large sum lying idle in a bank—as indeed she had, considering Rylton paid in his princely allowance to her, with determined punctuality, every month, in spite of his knowledge of the fact that she would not touch it.
— from The Hoyden by Duchess

The average Englishman was probably even more ignorant of Ireland, which was sixty miles away, than of America, which was three thousand miles away.
— from The Framework of Home Rule by Erskine Childers

In ten years the percentage of physically efficient men in the rural districts decreased from 60.5 to 58.2 per cent., and this decrease is even more marked in particular provinces.
— from Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View by Price Collier

Of course, property everywhere makes independence; but so long as it remains merely the power to hire things done, it creates no social differentiation.
— from The Americans by Hugo Münsterberg

A world in itself, equal in dimensions to twelve hundred and eighty of ours; the whole firmament rolling round it in the short space of ten hours, a movement so rapid that the eye could probably perceive the heavenly bodies to change their places every moment; its year dragging out a length of more than four thousand days, and more than ten thousand of its own days, while its nocturnal skies are lighted up with four brilliant moons;—these are some of the peculiarities which characterize this magnificent planet.
— from Letters on Astronomy in which the Elements of the Science are Familiarly Explained in Connection with Biographical Sketches of the Most Eminent Astronomers by Denison Olmsted

The feeling did not last—the heart had been too long atrophied by the constantly recurring spectacles of cruelties, massacres, and wholesale hecatombs perpetrated in the past eighteen months in the name of liberty and fraternity to be capable of a sustained effort in the direction of gentleness or of pity.
— from El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness