It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

And all this because the great, broadminded majority of the people is prudent enough to show deference only to well-ascertained and well-approved truths?
— from An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

Democratic politicians and office seekers say to reactionary Democratic voters that the Democratic party is reactionary enough to express reactionary views; and they say to progressive Democrats that the Democratic party is progressive enough to express progressive views.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

Schelling's answer, or suggestion of answer, is (and very valuable and important, as far as it goes,) that the same general and particular intelligence, passion, even the standards of right and wrong, which exist in a conscious and formulated state in man, exist in an unconscious state, or in perceptible analogies, throughout the entire universe of external Nature, in all its objects large or small, and all its movements and processes—thus making the impalpable human mind, and concrete nature, notwithstanding their duality and separation, convertible, and in centrality and essence one.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

But the process of reaching the absent from the present is peculiarly exposed to error; it is liable to be influenced by almost any number of unseen and unconsidered causes,—past experience, received dogmas, the stirring of self-interest, the arousing of passion, sheer mental laziness, a social environment steeped in biased traditions or animated by false expectations, and so on.
— from How We Think by John Dewey

The art of the past is powerless even to create similar art in the present, unless similar conditions recur independently.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

In Sinaketa, instead of the blue, open sea, breaking in a belt of white foam outside on the fringing reef and coming in limpid waves to the beach, there are the dull, muddy browns and greens of the Lagoon, playing into pure emerald tints where the clean sandy bottom begins.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

But while shams play an important part in political evolution, they are snares for the political philosopher who fails to see through them, who ascribes to the forms a meaning that they do not really possess.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Time, however, sets all things right, and the three masters are little by little gaining the position in public estimation to which they are entitled.
— from Masters of French Music by Arthur Hervey

"You do not reply," pursued Charles; "the proverb is plain enough, that 'Silence gives consent.'
— from The Vicomte de Bragelonne Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" by Alexandre Dumas

"A grand suggestion, and one which we will put in practice," exclaimed the leader, snatching at the chance of avoiding further danger.
— from With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters by F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton

"I wouldn't put it past 'em to take anything they thought they needed," declared Fred.
— from The Rover Boys on a Hunt; or, The Mysterious House in the Woods by Edward Stratemeyer

Often the part is pathetic, even tragic, while it is usually edifying and pietistic.
— from Women of India by Otto Rothfield

The Pines In popular estimation, the pines seem to belong to the North, not quite so exclusively as do the palms to the South.
— from Getting Acquainted with the Trees by J. Horace (John Horace) McFarland

Here we meet the now well-recognised principle in political economy, that generally wages, salaries, remunerations of all kinds, are in pretty exact relation to the value of the services performed—this value being of course determined, in a great degree, by the easiness or difficulty of the work, the commonness or rarity of the faculties and skill required for it, the risk of non-success in the profession, and so forth.
— from Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420 Volume 17, New Series, January 17, 1852 by Various

Mr. Gough was the pioneer in platform effectiveness, the first orator to study the alchemy of human emotions, that he might stir them first, and mix them as he judged wisely.
— from T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him by Eleanor McCutcheon Talmage