Outside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light through the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame; but it is pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space in our foggy London have been and still are the homes of a culture the more spotlessly free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered everything like display an impersonal question, and all the grand shows of the world simply a spectacle which rouses petty rivalry or vain effort after possession.
— from Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

"Hæc quæcumque vides veteri prostrata ruina Obruta verberis, ederis, dumisque jacebant."
— from Walks in Rome by Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert) Hare

27 There can be very little doubt that the first teaching of Apostles and early catechists must have taken the form of personal recollections of various episodes of Christian history and reports of discourses and parables, with an account of the circumstances under which they were delivered.
— from The Gospel According To Peter: A Study by Walter Richard Cassels

That is what I received in response to my request for a few personal reminiscences of Victor Emmanuel, Garibaldi, and Mazzini.
— from Comedies and Errors by Henry Harland

After decades of effort, in which surges of growth alternated with long stretches of consolidation, often shadowed by setbacks, the Bahá’í community today comprises several million people representative of virtually every ethnic, cultural, social and religious background on earth, administering their collective affairs without the intervention of a clergy, through democratically elected institutions.
— from One Common Faith by Bahá'í International Community

BUCCANEER, a name given to certain piratical rovers of various European nations, who formerly infested the Spanish coasts in America, and, under pretence of traffic with the inhabitants, frequently seized their treasure, plundered their houses, and committed many other depredations.
— from An Universal Dictionary of the Marine Or, a Copious Explanation of the Technical Terms and Phrases Employed in the Construction, Equipment, Furniture, Machinery, Movements, and Military Operations of a Ship. Illustrated With Variety of Original Designs of Shipping, in Different Situations; Together With Separate Views of Their Masts, Sails, Yards, and Rigging. to Which Is Annexed, a Translation of the French Sea-terms and Phrases, Collected from the Works of Mess. Du Hamel, Aubin, Saverien, &c. by William Falconer

In the eighteenth century the persistent raillery of Voltaire ended in producing in England a certain waking up.
— from William Shakespeare by Victor Hugo