Would they wrest his hard-earned reward from him, to bestow it on one, who, never having mingled in public life, would come a tyro to the craft, in which he was an adept.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Tyrants and seducers and the ruling classes are responsible—they must be wiped out": this is Rousseau's logic (compare with Pascals logic, which concludes by an appeal to original sin).
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book I and II by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

For we commonly use the term ‘moral obligation’ as equivalent to ‘duty’ and expressing what is implied in the verb ‘ought,’ thus suggesting an analogy between this notion and that of legal obligation; and in the case of positive law we cannot refuse to recognise the connexion of ‘obligation’ and ‘punishment’: a law cannot be properly said to be actually established in a society if it is habitually violated with impunity.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

We were carrying prisoners loaded with chains, among whom were a sergeant and a corporal, both Europeans.
— from Rizal's own story of his life by José Rizal

In memorial of this supposed fact, on the first day of the celebration, when funeral rites were performed, lettuces were carried in the procession, newly planted in shells of earth.
— from The Symbolism of Freemasonry Illustrating and Explaining Its Science and Philosophy, Its Legends, Myths and Symbols by Albert Gallatin Mackey

We must, therefore, acknowledge that the relations of equity were antecedent to the positive laws which corroborated them.”
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Dantès reviewed his past life with composure, and, looking forward with terror to his future existence, chose that middle line that seemed to afford him a refuge.
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature like me?”
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

" Passepartout listened, with closed fists.
— from Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Groundsel, Hops, Peach leaves, Wormwood, Centaury, Mallows, Senna.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

Frank, whose presence of mind never forsakes him, saw what the nature of our danger was; and, shaking off poor Laura, who clung round him, begging of him for God's sake to save her precious life, he flew to the helm, turned the head of the boat in its proper direction, and called with that imperious kind of voice which on such occasions enforces obedience, for somebody to come to the helm.
— from Anna St. Ives by Thomas Holcroft

A prisoner loaded with chains is compelled to remain in prison, but he is not a free agent, he is not able to resist the desire to emancipate himself; his chains prevent him from acting, but they do not prevent him from willing; he would save himself if they would loose his fetters, but he would not save himself as a free agent, fear or the idea of punishment would be sufficient motives for his action.
— from The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 1 by Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'

Can you conceive anything more pitiful than that poor little wild creature of the open, begging and begging for a tub to fall over it and shut out all the light and air ?
— from A Sheaf by John Galsworthy

By a Ball's-Bluff Prisoner, Lieutenant William C. Harris, of Colonel Baker's California Regiment.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 57, July, 1862 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

By the side of Lady Clare he looked as a stout, good-looking peasant lad with coltish manners might have looked by the side of the daughter of a hundred earls.
— from Boyhood in Norway: Stories of Boy-Life in the Land of the Midnight Sun by Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

Here, see!” Jacquet placed upon the writing a piece of paper cut out in regular squares, like the paper laces which confectioners wrap round their sugarplums; and Jules then read with perfect ease the words that were visible in the interstices.
— from Ferragus, Chief of the Dévorants by Honoré de Balzac

"'According to our doctrine,' he replied, 'men and women are equal in the sight of Brahm, and without the female power no great progress can be made; but here among those who are struggling after the higher life, the priest and priestess live without carnal love, and for this cause it is essential to test all who are admitted to the white-robed order.
— from The Chariot of the Flesh by Hedley Peek

The character and uses of the remaining public lands differ widely from those of the public lands which Congress had especially in view when these laws were passed.
— from State of the Union Addresses by Theodore Roosevelt