This subtile policy is perhaps a refinement of the Arabian writers; and the situation of Charles will suggest a more narrow and selfish motive of procrastination—the secret desire of humbling the pride and wasting the provinces of the rebel duke of Aquitain.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

The scene in Paradise Lost , where Eve comes weeping to Adam, seeking peace and pardon, is probably a reflection of a scene in Milton's own household.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

This unity presupposes an idea—the idea of the form of a whole (of cognition), preceding the determinate cognition of the parts, and containing the conditions which determine a priori to every part its place and relation to the other parts of the whole system.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

Present possession is plainly a relation betwixt a person and an object; but is not sufficient to counter-ballance the relation of first possession, unless the former be long and uninterrupted: In which case the relation is encreased on the side of the present possession, by the extent of time, and dlminished on that of first possession, by the distance, This change in the relation produces a consequent change in the property.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

These Rights Are Indivisible These are the Rights, which make the Essence of Soveraignty; and which are the markes, whereby a man may discern in what Man, or Assembly of men, the Soveraign Power is placed, and resideth.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

* * * This, the authorized version, is printed in purple and red ink, and ornamented with Arabesque Initial Ornaments.
— from The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana Translated From the Sanscrit in Seven Parts With Preface, Introduction and Concluding Remarks by Vatsyayana

Some other choice food to serve as pokala (offerings) is also put in the gebobo, to be offered to overseas partners; on it, the rest of the trade, called pari , is piled, and right on top of all are the personal belongings of the usagelu and the toliwaga in their respective baskets, shaped like travelling bags.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

The gift of reading character is partly instinctive, partly a result of experience; it may amount to foresight and is directed not upon consciousness but upon past or eventual action.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

After the execution of his sentence, the lights were rekindled, Mahmud fell prostrate in prayer, and rising from the ground, demanded some homely fare, which he devoured with the voraciousness of hunger.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

she is not dwelling in the outer court, unconscious of her function of priestess, its privileges and responsibilities?
— from Somehow Good by William De Morgan

Happily, by Tuesday, this people is glutted, sleeps off its pleasure, is penniless, and returns to its labor, to dry bread, stimulated by a need of material procreation, which has become a habit to it.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

Nor does any man take pleasure in preserving and reading over his own Baby Book.
— from The Seven Ages of Man by Ralph Bergengren

A game in which a pin is put at random in a school-book, between the leaves of which little pictures are placed.
— from The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland (Vol 1 of 2) With Tunes, Singing-Rhymes and Methods of Playing etc. by Alice Bertha Gomme

well I did so, for we passed in peace and retirement that period which was so fatal to our aristocracy; and when the storm was over, "Now," said she, "let us go to Paris."
— from The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851 by Various

I laid one cheek pensively in the palm of my idle hand and with the other, which held my busy pencil, I played a random tattoo on my desk.
— from The Doctor's Daughter by Vera

When the Judge says, in speaking on this subject, that I make speeches of one sort for the people of the northern end of the State, and of a different sort for the southern people, he assumes that I do not understand that my speeches will be put in print and read north and south.
— from The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln — Volume 4: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates by Abraham Lincoln

These avenues of sphinxes, in profound repose and with a grave and serious aspect, are usually entered through a lofty gateway or pylon, before which are seated gigantic figures of gods, or stand obelisks of granite, placed in pairs, and richly and elaborately sculptured with hieroglyphics.
— from The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage by J. H. (Joseph Holt) Ingraham

Those enthusiasts who have thought otherwise, and who have been on the point of perfecting an apparatus which will readily and cheaply produce liquid air after the first portion is produced, are really but following the old perpetual-motion-machine will-o'-the-wisp.
— from A History of Science — Volume 5 by Edward Huntington Williams