Thus his early years of practise in elegant conversation prepared the younger Gladstone for his career as a leader and speaker.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

Now, however, after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis, and the death of Cleon and Brasidas, who had been the two principal opponents of peace on either side—the latter from the success and honour which war gave him, the former because he thought that, if tranquillity were restored, his crimes would be more open to detection and his slanders less credited—the foremost candidates for power in either city, Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, and Nicias, son of Niceratus, the most fortunate general of his time, each desired peace more ardently than ever. Nicias, while still happy and honoured, wished to secure his good fortune, to obtain a present release from trouble for himself and his countrymen, and hand down to posterity a name as an ever-successful statesman, and thought the way to do this was to keep out of danger and commit himself as little as possible to fortune, and that peace alone made this keeping out of danger possible.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

When she had discussed these Points in a Discourse, which I verily believe was as learned as the best Philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she asked me whether she was so happy as to fall in with my Sentiments on these important Particulars.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Miss Jenkyns was evidently very much alarmed; and the first part of her letters was often written in pretty intelligible English, conveying particulars of the preparations which were made in the family with whom she was residing against the dreaded event; the bundles of clothes that were packed up ready for a flight to Alston Moor (a wild hilly piece of ground between Northumberland and Cumberland); the signal that p. 77 was to be given for this flight, and for the simultaneous turning out of the volunteers under arms—which said signal was to consist (if I remember rightly) in ringing the church bells in a particular and ominous manner.
— from Cranford by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The mail coach doors were on their hinges, the lining was replaced, the ironwork was as good as new, the paint was restored, the lamps were alight; cushions and greatcoats were on every coach-box, porters were thrusting parcels into every boot, guards were stowing away letter-bags, hostlers were dashing pails of water against the renovated wheels; numbers of men were pushing about, fixing poles into every coach; passengers arrived, portmanteaus were handed up, horses were put to; in short, it was perfectly clear that every mail there, was to be off directly.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

Even poisons are serviceable; they destroy the evil effects of other poisons generated in our system, and must always find a place in every complete pharmacopoeia.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Fortunately the pin in each case pierced only some portion of the dress of the terror-stricken creature, otherwise the consequences might have been most tragical.
— from Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

To prevent his companions from profiting by their own work, members of each expedition were forced to sign contracts that barred press interviews, eliminated cameras, prohibited lecturing or writing, or even trading for trophies.
— from My Attainment of the Pole Being the Record of the Expedition That First Reached the Boreal Center, 1907-1909. With the Final Summary of the Polar Controversy by Frederick Albert Cook

They serve to counteract other poisons generated in our system, and must have a place in every complete pharmacopeia.
— from A Commentary to Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' by Norman Kemp Smith

In closing this communication it only remains for me to assure the Legislature of my continued earnest wish for the adoption of measures recommended by me heretofore and yet to be acted on by them, and of the cordial concurrence on my part in every constitutional provision which may receive their sanction during the session tending to the general welfare.
— from State of the Union Addresses (1790-2006) by United States. Presidents

Winthrop Mackworth was the third son of Serjeant Praed, Chairman of the Board of Audit, and, though his family was both by extraction and by actual seat Devonian, he was born in John Street, Bedford Row, on 26th June 1802, the year of the birth of Victor Hugo, who was perhaps about as unlike Praed in every conceivable point, except metrical mastery, as two men possessing poetic faculty can be unlike one another.
— from Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 by George Saintsbury

Sidonius Apollinaris commemorates the skill of a person named Vectius in the art of training dogs, horses, and birds of prey: "In equis, canibus, [Pg 244] accipitribus instituendis, spectandis, circumferendis, nulli secundus."
— from Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards by William Andrew Chatto