Soon, however, as time went on, and he began to take part in public affairs, he proved that his apparent want of energy was really due to serenity of intellect, that he was cautious because he weighed matters well beforehand, and that while he was never eager or easily moved, yet he was always steady and trustworthy.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

But nothing has a greater effect both to encrease and diminish our passions, to convert pleasure into pain, and pain into pleasure, than custom and repetition.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as subtle, belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the "Science of Morals" belonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and coarse-fingered:—an interesting contrast, which sometimes becomes incarnate and obvious in the very person of a moralist.
— from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

But the Romans, no less than the Carthaginians, had their reasons 32 for entertaining hopes of victory: for when the vessels got locked together the contest became one of sheer strength: their engines, the “crows,” grappled all that once came to close quarters: and, finally, both the Consuls were present in person and were witnesses of their behaviour in battle.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

Guided by the principles involved in these ideas, we must, in the first place, so connect all the phenomena, actions, and feelings of the mind, as if it were a simple substance, which, endowed with personal identity, possesses a permanent existence (in this life at least), while its states, among which those of the body are to be included as external conditions, are in continual change.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

X. C. V. Goes With Her Mother to Brussels and From Thence to Venice, Where She Becomes a Great Lady—My Work-girls—Madame Baret—I Am Robbed, Put in Prison, and Set at Liberty Again—I Go to Holland—Helvetius’ “Esprit”—Piccolomini The day after my interview with M. de Sartine I waited on Madame du Rumain at an early hour.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

But (by the definition of pain), in proportion as the pain is greater, so also is it necessarily opposed to a greater part of man's power of activity; therefore the greater the pain, the greater the power of activity employed to remove it; that is, the greater will be the desire or appetite in endeavouring to remove it.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

They were all carefully packed in paper, and each package was labelled "Bathsheba Boldwood," a date being subjoined six years in advance in every instance.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Perhaps the man would not have been particularly noticed, were it not that, during his ascent to one of the yards, [pg 152] he, with a sort of covert intentness, kept his eye fixed on Captain Delano, from whom, presently, it passed, as if by a natural sequence, to the two whisperers.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

He had been drowned, fished up, hanged, drawn, and quartered; after which his scattered fragments, having been exposed on all the principal towers of the city, had been put in pickle and deposited in a chest.
— from PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete by John Lothrop Motley

But the practice is pernicious at every season, and is never good for the health.”
— from The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius

As the wind sprang up from the north the mast, which had been securely tied to the outside of the boat, was quickly placed in position, and the sail was soon doing its work.
— from Winter Adventures of Three Boys in the Great Lone Land by Egerton Ryerson Young

Price of flour, from 4 to 5 dollars a barrel; butter 14 cents per lb.; other provisions in proportion and mechanic's and good labourer's wages 1 dollar, and shipbuilder's 1 dollar and a half, a day.
— from Hulme's Journal, 1818-19; Flower's Letters from Lexington and the Illinois, 1819; Flower's Letters from the Illinois, 1820-21; and Woods's Two Years' Residence, 1820-21 by John Woods

'—Mr Villars said every thing to justify himself, adding, that the most candid mind will sometimes, under certain circumstances, deviate from itself; but it is the property only of narrow minds to persist in prejudice against conviction.—As the quarrels between lovers are the renewal of love—these differences were soon settled, agreeable to their mutual wishes.
— from Munster Village by Hamilton, Mary, Lady

By this course of reasoning, a State is defined an abstract essence which can comfortably exist in all its rights and privileges, in potentia , apart from all visible embodiment; a State which is the possibility of a State and not the actuality of one; a State which can be brought into the line of real vision only by some such contrivance as that employed by the German playwright, who, in a drama on the subject of the Creation, represented Adam crossing the stage going to be created.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 94, August, 1865 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

Two years later, when Lord Roberts’s army of ragged khaki poured into Pretoria after their two thousand miles’ march from the Cape, Captain Slocum, of the United States Infantry, said, “Tommy Atkins is certainly a wonder.”
— from Blue Shirt and Khaki: A Comparison by James F. J. (Francis Jewell) Archibald

It was by probity, industry, perseverance, a well-strung nerve, and an iron will, that they conquered the obstacles before them, and acquired that true greatness which has made their names preëminent among the famous of earth, and their example the inspiration of American youth.
— from The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 Volume 23, Number 4 by Various

It's all right to have them about yourself, I suppose, but to have them about other people is priggish, and quite useless, so far as I can see.
— from Nancy of Paradise Cottage by Shirley Watkins