And let a man not forget to pay the yearly tribute of respect to the dead, honouring them chiefly by omitting nothing that conduces to a perpetual remembrance of them, and giving a reasonable portion of his fortune to the dead.
— from Laws by Plato

They stared on the next occasion of meeting, when Bloundell spoke in contemptuous terms of old Pen; said everybody knew old Pen, regular old trencherman at Gaunt House, notorious old bore, regular old fogy.
— from The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray

The Chorus was then in tragedy, and indeed in the higher comedy, what Schlegel well calls ‘the ideal spectator,’—a personified reflection on the action going on, the incorporation into the representation itself of the sentiments of the poet, as the spokesman of the whole human race.
— from Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 by Charles Kingsley

A note was sent to him accompanied by a parcel, which, when opened, proved to contain a gilded plaster replica of the Ascot Gold Cup.
— from Mark Twain: A Biography. Volume III, Part 2: 1907-1910 by Albert Bigelow Paine

Previous to his Clinton Hall appearance the city was flooded with funny placards reading— Owing to a great storm, only a small audience braved the elements, and the Clinton Hall lecture was not a financial success.
— from The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition) by Artemus Ward

“The alterations required to reduce the African oryx to the standard of this model, are slight and simple, nor can it be doubted that they have been gradually introduced by successive copyists; the idea of the single horn having been derived in the first instance from profile representations of that animal given in bas-relief on the sculptured monuments of ancient Egypt and Nubia....
— from Mythical Monsters by Charles Gould

In the spring, which is the breeding season, the male leaves the female at home, and sets off on a tour of pleasure, rambling often to a great distance, recreating himself in every clear and quiet expanse of water on his way, and climbing the banks occasionally to feast upon the tender sprouts of the young willows.
— from The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West by Washington Irving

But all this amounts to a very poor representation of the Asiatic Greek civilization of 600 B.C.
— from The Ancient East by D. G. (David George) Hogarth

Similarly, we have often seen lawyers, whose profession requires of them a good deal of combativeness, shrewdness, a certain degree of skepticism, and a large amount of hard-headed determination to win, no matter what the cost, handicapped by extreme sensitiveness, sympathy, generosity, non-resistance, credulity, humility, and self-consciousness.
— from Analyzing Character The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social Life by Arthur Newcomb

The arguments advanced in this tract are practically repetitions of those already given in previous pieces.
— from The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. - Volume 07 Historical and Political Tracts-Irish by Jonathan Swift

Take the Purdy road out there, and go straight ahead to the east, and when you think you have gone about fifteen miles, ask for the house of Lim Jucklin.
— from The Jucklins: A Novel by Opie Percival Read