Now, if you hold it horizontally, and softly tap the side that is opposite to the hole, an immense number of perfect rings can be produced from one mouthful of smoke.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney

Poor Runt came back the next day in a piteous plight, keeping silence as to his share in the occurrences of the evening, and with a dismal story of having been drunk, of having been waylaid and bound, of having been left on the road and picked up by a Wicklow cart, which was coming in with provisions to Dublin, and found him helpless on the road.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

We may well begin { 138} to ask whether such things as practical reactions can be the final upshot and purpose of all our cognitive energy.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

Inwardly to expel wind, are simples or compounds: simples are herbs, roots, &c., as galanga, gentian, angelica, enula, calamus aromaticus, valerian, zeodoti, iris, condite ginger, aristolochy, cicliminus, China, dittander, pennyroyal, rue, calamint, bay-berries, and bay-leaves, betony, rosemary, hyssop, sabine, centaury, mint, camomile, staechas, agnus castus, broom-flowers, origan, orange-pills, &c.; spices, as saffron, cinnamon, bezoar stone, myrrh, mace, nutmegs, pepper, cloves, ginger, seeds of annis, fennel, amni, cari, nettle, rue, &c., juniper berries, grana paradisi; compounds, dianisum, diagalanga, diaciminum, diacalaminth, electuarium de baccis lauri, benedicta laxativa, pulvis ad status.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

But belief in things of faith is a belief in a pure practical point of view, i.e. a moral faith, which proves nothing for theoretical pure rational cognition, but only for that which is practical and directed to the fulfilment of its duties; it in no way extends speculation or the practical rules of prudence in accordance with the principle of self- 408 love.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant

How great soever the variety of municipal laws, it must be confessed, that their chief outlines pretty regularly concur; because the purposes, to which they tend, are everywhere exactly similar.
— from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume

We know the country and people through very scanty notices in the Chinese annals, by pale reflections cast by myths, legends and poems, and from the relics cast up by the spade and plough.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis

At one point was an isolated pyramidal rock, crowned by a great tree, which appeared to be separated by a cleft from the main crag.
— from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

But reason would overstep all its bounds if it undertook to explain how pure reason can be practical, which would be exactly the same problem as to explain how freedom is possible.
— from Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant

I have suggested a point near the Sobat for a mission, because at that point relations could be established with some of the largest tribes—the Shillooks, Dinkas and Nouers—and because it is the last point at which a colony could be planted north of the great swamp basin.
— from The American Missionary — Volume 35, No. 12, December, 1881 by Various

Spite of the exertions of one of the chiefs of the Lower Sioux, "Little Crow," who, the superintendent says, labored with him "night and day in organizing the party, riding continually between the lower and upper agencies," so that they "scarcely slept" till the war-party had set out on the track of the murderers; spite of the fact that the whole body of the Sioux, without exception, "received the intelligence with as much indignation and disapprobation as the whites themselves, and did their best to stand clear of any suspicion of or connection with the affair—spite of all this, they were in continual danger of being shot at sight by the terrified and unreasoning settlers.
— from A Century of Dishonor A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes by Helen Hunt Jackson

Apparently no one knew a means by which the elemental growth of the popular revolt could be restrained.
— from The Spy: The Story of a Superfluous Man by Maksim Gorky

But this comparison does not hold good; for the divine is to us not only a world-transcendent sovereignty but also a world-pervading power: to honour the former preponderatingly may be the only salvation for times and individuals in a state of prostration and collapse, and in this way life would be given a preponderatingly religious character; but this form of life can never 282 be accepted as the normal one and the one alone worth striving for.
— from Life's Basis and Life's Ideal: The Fundamentals of a New Philosophy of Life by Rudolf Eucken

He was of a lineage that went back to the Visigoths, of purest red Castilian blood, untainted by any strain of that dark-hued, unclean fluid alleged to flow in Hebrew veins.
— from The Historical Nights' Entertainment: Second Series by Rafael Sabatini