The idlers also, with the tribe Of those who to themselves prescribe Their ease and pleasure, in the end Came sneaking, lest they should offend.
— from The Fables of Phædrus Literally translated into English prose with notes by Phaedrus

There are, indeed, many and wonderful places in the earth, and it is itself neither of such a kind nor of such a magnitude as is supposed by those who are accustomed to speak of the earth, as I have been persuaded by a certain person."
— from Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates by Plato

The Sounding of the Call When Buck earned sixteen hundred dollars in five minutes for John Thornton, he made it possible for his master to pay off certain debts and to journey with his partners into the East after a fabled lost mine, the history of which was as old as the history of the country.
— from The Call of the Wild by Jack London

No facts have been preserved to sustain an account, or even a conjecture, of the numbers that perished in this extraordinary mortality.
— 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

Consequently, whatever part of the structure of the common progenitor, or of its early descendants, became variable; variations of this part would, it is highly probable, be taken advantage of by natural and sexual selection, in order to fit the several places in the economy of nature, and likewise to fit the two sexes of the same species to each other, or to fit the males to struggle with other males for the possession of the females.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

Has it been yet appreciated that a philosopher, in the event of his arriving at self-consciousness, must needs feel himself an incarnate " nitimur in vetitum "—and consequently guard himself against "his own sensations," against self-consciousness?
— from The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Ever since I began to live and to act, it seems always to have been my fate to play a part in the ending of other people’s dramas, as if, but for me, no one could either die or fall into despair!
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov

He spared no pains in the execution of this great work; and after his version was made, subjected it to a most careful revision, amounting nearly to a re-translation.
— from The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 5 (of 7) by Arthur Thomas Malkin

The record will show that Exhibit 361 was prepared in the exhibit section of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by Inspector Leo.
— from Warren Commission (02 of 26): Hearings Vol. II (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

From his studies among the classics, and from the prints in the early editions of Horace and Virgil, he had been led to imagine the genus poet always perambulated the earth attired in flowing singing robes, their forehead bound with a chaplet, and carrying with them a substantial looking lyre!
— from Allan Ramsay by William Henry Oliphant Smeaton

With all the odds in his favour ashore, and with the power of changing the odds in his favour afloat, he ought to have captured Macomb's position in the early morning and turned both his own and Macomb's artillery on Macdonough, who would then have been forced to leave his moorings for the open lake, where Downie would have had eight hours of daylight to fight him at long range.
— from The War With the United States : A Chronicle of 1812 by William Charles Henry Wood

There are certain other pathological fears, and certain peculiarities in the expression of ordinary fear, which might receive an explanatory light from ancestral conditions, even infra-human ones.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2) by William James

From there he went for a short time to Lisbon as professor of philosophy in the English College.
— from Science and Morals and Other Essays by Windle, Bertram Coghill Alan, Sir

"Yes," replied Hamerton; then, on the spur of the moment, he added: "I see you have adopted the parachute principle in the event of an accident?
— from The Sea-girt Fortress: A Story of Heligoland by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman

He could not tell what she would say or do; possibly in the end something which he would approve; but he knew that first of all she would ridicule him: with her lips certainly, very likely even in her thoughts.
— from Othmar by Ouida

Such a study affords large scope for introspection, but too few people incline to examine their own behavior in any mental attitude that approaches the scientific.
— from The Vitalized School by Francis B. (Francis Bail) Pearson

Three times Nell peeped in that evening, and found her tossing restlessly, wide-eyed.
— from The Young O'Briens: Being an Account of Their Sojourn in London by Margaret Westrup