But it may well be call'd poor mortals' plague; For, like a pestilence, it doth infect The houses of the brain.
— from Every Man in His Humor by Ben Jonson

The shadow on the ocean cast By his vast form, as on he passed, Flew like a ship before the gale When the strong breeze has filled the sail, And where his course the Vánar held The sea beneath him raged and swelled.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

Indeed the great surgeon, Billroth, is said to have asserted that he attempted new methods of operation on women first because they are less subject to pain, for like savages they are beings of a lower status and hence better able to resist than men.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

It was after all but the love of beauty that made him censure the poets; for like a true Greek and a true lover he wished to see beauty flourish in the real world.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

du fühlst, mit deinen 5 Mängeln, / Dass du noch wandeln kannst nicht unter Gottes Engeln —O still pray for life; thou feelest that with those faults of thine thou canst not walk among the angels of God.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to see it; and it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the liberation of a poor reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip of consumption.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

It may be that this, cut from the last report but one of the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, a long name for a weary task, has a suggestion of it: “In the depth of winter the attention of the Association was called to a Protestant family living in a garret in a miserable tenement in Cherry Street.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

These changes were necessary, because army commanders only could order courts-martial, grant discharges, and perform many other matters of discipline and administration which were indispensable; but my chief purpose was to prepare the whole army for what seemed among the probabilities of the time--to fight both Lee's and Johnston's armies combined, in case their junction could be formed before General Grant could possibly follow Lee to North Carolina.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

Somewhat revived by observing this, Emily, when the gondolieri dashed their oars in the water, and put off from the steps of the portico, felt like a criminal, who receives a short reprieve.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Cinereous; head white, clothed behind and beneath with cinereous hairs; frontalia deep black, widening towards the face; palpi and antennæ black; thorax with five black stripes, the exterior pair incomplete, the middle cinereous intervals interlined; abdomen tessellated, with three black stripes, the lateral pair forming lanceolate streaks on the 3rd and 4th segments; legs black, very stout; wings grey; veins black; præbrachial vein forming a right angle at its flexure, near which it is curved inward, and is thence almost straight to its tip; discal transverse vein slightly curved near each end, parted by much less than its length from the border, and from the flexure of the præbrachial; alulæ white.
— from Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 4 Zoology by Linnean Society of London

We at once made up our minds to remain where we were for that day, or perhaps for longer if necessary.
— from Snow Shoes and Canoes Or, The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory by William Henry Giles Kingston

One is projected from Leadville to Salt Lake City, following the carbonate belt, as shown in Hayden's Geological Map, around through the Eagle River, Roaring Fork, and White River Agency districts, into Utah.
— from Scientific American, Vol. XLIII.—No. 1. [New Series.], July 3, 1880 A Weekly Journal of Practical Information, Art, Science, Mechanics, Chemistry, and Manufactures by Various

It came in, however, at length, bringing several papers for Lord St. Eval and his wife, from the Malvern family, but only two from Oakwood, one, in the handwriting of Ellen, to Percy, and one for Robert Langford, evidently from Mr Hamilton.
— from The Mother's Recompense, Volume 2 A Sequel to Home Influence by Grace Aguilar

A catch-all for the author’s afterthoughts and for the corrections provided by friends who have read manuscript or galley proof—as well as a place for legitimate references—they are often a nuisance and always a typographical eyesore.
— from Early Man in the New World by Joseph A. Hester

The representatives of the cable company kept these conditions long under consideration, continuing, in the meantime, to prepare for laying the cable.
— from State of the Union Addresses (1790-2006) by United States. Presidents

Ils dansent deux à deux, & par fois l'vn çà & l'autre là; estans telles danses semblables à celles des Fées, vrais Diables incorporez, qui regnoient il n'y a pas long temps.
— from The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology by Margaret Alice Murray

"To judge from her letters—and we have been corresponding pretty freely lately—one would think she was a girl in her teens; she is absurdly happy—even Dinah says so.
— from Herb of Grace by Rosa Nouchette Carey

At noon we called at a farm-house to get something to eat and at night we paid for lodging in a rude tavern beside the way, and so at last reached the railway and the Connecticut River.
— from A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland

Each of these buds of a tree has its proper leaves or petals for lungs, produces its viviparous or its oviparous offspring in buds or seeds; has its own roots, which extending down the stem of the tree are interwoven with the roots of the other buds, and form the bark, which is the only living part of the stem, is annually renewed, and is superinduced upon the former bark, which then dies, and with its stagnated juices gradually hardening into wood forms the concentric circles, which we see in blocks of timber.
— from Zoonomia; Or, the Laws of Organic Life, Vol. I by Erasmus Darwin