] As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were completed in a few years, or, according to another account, in a few months; 64 but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that under the succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from impending ruin.
— 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

But what he probably meant was, that harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of music; for if the higher and lower notes still disagreed, there could be no harmony,—clearly not.
— from Symposium by Plato

We refuse to be praised: we do what serves our purpose, what gives us pleasure, or what we are obliged to do.
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

If they be so exact, as by him it seems they were, and those mixtures so perfect, why doth Fernelius alter the one, and why is the other obsolete?
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

I have pretty well done with Mr. ——.
— from The Letters of Jane Austen Selected from the compilation of her great nephew, Edward, Lord Bradbourne by Jane Austen

When the armies met, an earthquake took place which destroyed cities, changed the courses of rivers, and cast down the crests of precipices; but in spite of its violence, no one of the combatants perceived it.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

If, however, we know of a very large number of cases in which A is followed by B, and few or none in which the sequence fails, we shall in PRACTICE be justified in saying "A causes B," provided we do not attach to the notion of cause any of the metaphysical superstitions that have gathered about the word.
— from The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell

“I am sorry for that, for you can’t possibly go any further; and besides, I know you, and even if you could satisfy your passion without danger to her, I would not give her up to you, you would spoil her.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

If you are feeding me now for work performed, why did you not feed me then when I needed it?
— from Martin Eden by Jack London

Next to this comes the gulf 4304 into which the river Ascanius flows, the town of Bryllion 4305 , and the rivers Hylas and Cios, with a town of the same name as the last-mentioned river; it was founded by the Milesians at a place which was called Ascania of Phrygia, as an entrepôt for the trade of the Phrygians who dwelt in the vicinity.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

—“Altogether a fresh, stimulating, wholesome story, and one which should only be banned by parents who do not wish their fledglings to succumb to the fascinating lure of the wilds.” Academy.
— from Lord Stranleigh Abroad by Robert Barr

Assuredly a people who devote so little attention to the study of food, and all matters connected with it, must inevitably remain barbaric, however skilfully they may feign a superficial refinement.
— from The Mirror of Kong Ho by Ernest Bramah

At last, thanks to the steward, the amount and the terms of the rent were fixed, and the peasants went down the hill towards their villages, talking noisily, while Nekhludoff and the steward went into the office to make up the agreement.
— from Resurrection by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who displayed the fruits of rapine in monuments of ostentation.
— from History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3 by Edward Gibbon

Mr. Pašić, who does not believe in hasty legislation, pointed out that the Austrians had in forty years done really very little in Bosnia.
— from The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 by Henry Baerlein

And what it blazons to man is the ... imposture of all philosophy which does not see in such events the consummate factor of conscious experience.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James

When they had gone to dinner, H. O. went in to see if some pies were done that he had made out of a bit of putty the man gave him.
— from Oswald Bastable and Others by E. (Edith) Nesbit

“Still, I’ve felt that we drift along from amusement to amusement in a purposeless way, doing nothing that’s worth while.
— from Prescott of Saskatchewan by Harold Bindloss

Yet I cannot end this Preface, without desiring that such as shall be employ’d in refining and ascertaining our English Tongue , may entertain better Thoughts both of the Saxon Tongue , and of the Study of Antiquities.
— from An apology for the study of northern antiquities by Elizabeth Elstob

More sharply now, and more unnaturally, one sees the flushed faces and those pallid with death, the eyes which fade in agony or burn with fever, the patched-up white-bound bodies, the monstrous bandages.
— from Under Fire: The Story of a Squad by Henri Barbusse