Europe was not equally tranquil: France and the emperor had mutually declared war, the King of Sardinia had entered into the quarrel, and a French army had filed off into Piedmont to awe the Milanese.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Tell it as thou wilt," replied Don Quixote; "and as fate will have it that I cannot help listening to thee, go on."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Adj. instantaneous, momentary, sudden, immediate, instant, abrupt, discontinuous, precipitous, precipitant, precipitate; subitaneous[obs3], hasty; quick as thought, quick as lightning, quick as a flash; rapid as electricity.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

His word the silver-footed queen attends, And from Olympus' snowy tops descends. Arrived, she heard the voice of loud lament, And echoing groans
— from The Iliad by Homer

[9] “es como la luz,” he is as quick as a flash (of light).
— from Heath's Modern Language Series: The Spanish American Reader by Ernesto Nelson

Quick as a flash, Pinocchio disappeared into the Marionette Theater.
— from The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

The old blunder, however, concerning the irregularity and wildness of Shakespeare, in which the German did but echo the French, who again were but the echoes of our own critics, was still in vogue, and Shakespeare was quoted as authority for the most anti-Shakespearean drama.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

115 totis Quinquatribus , i.e. during all the five days of the Quinquatria, an annual feast of Minerva, March 19-23: it was always a holiday time at schools, and the school year began at the close of it.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce

Quick as a flash she said, "My think is white, Viney's think is black."
— from The Story of My Life With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy by Helen Keller

At the first quarter they strike up a verse of the stirring "Watch on the Rhine;" at the half-hour the familiar notes of "God save the Queen" fall upon the listener's ear; at the third quarter an air from the well-known opera of the "Marriage of Figaro," enlivens the palace; while the hour is hailed with the bridal chorus from Wagner's "Lohengrin."
— from Little Folks (September 1884) A Magazine for the Young by Various

Quick as a flash little William turned,—"Why, father, he does look like my brother George!
— from The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark by Eva Emery Dye

Four quarts at a feed twice a day is sufficient for the average sized calf for the first month, then increase it accordingly.
— from One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered by Edward J. (Edward James) Wickson

the Serenades, the Songs, the Sighs, the Vows, the Presents, the Quarrels, and all for a Look or a Smile, which you have been hitherto so covetous of, that Petro swears our Lovers begin to suspect us for some honest Jilts; which by some is accounted much the leuder scandal of the two:—therefore I think, faith, we must e’en be kind a little to redeem our Reputations.
— from The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume II by Aphra Behn

'Oh, is the washing-up finished?' asked Monkey innocently, quick as a flash.
— from A Prisoner in Fairyland (The Book That 'Uncle Paul' Wrote) by Algernon Blackwood

Many quarrels came from this rivalry, but quarrels arose also from other causes.
— from Introductory American History by Henry Eldridge Bourne

But Sir Richard feels bound to confess that there is another and quite a different aspect of the question; and accordingly frames the following set-off to his former lines: 'ANOTHER OF SEA FARDINGERS DISCRIBING EVILL FORTUNES.'
— from Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 2 (of 2) by Walter H. (Walter Hawken) Tregellas

It was written in the above year by a merchant named Henry Hawks, and contains only the following information: “A good owner of mines must have much quicksilver; and as for this charge of quicksilver, it is a new invention, which they find more profitable than to fine their ore with lead.”
— from A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 1 (of 2) by Johann Beckmann

The battery had wheeled into position on a bare summit to the left, where it brought up all standing; then, quick as a flash, the cannoneers leaped from the chests and unhooked the limbers, and the drivers, leaving the gun in position, drove fifteen yards to the rear, where they wheeled again so as to bring team and limber face to the enemy and there remained, motionless as statues.
— from The Downfall by Émile Zola