What question? A digression having a purpose.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

To proceed, I must tell you the landing place on the other side was miry and slippery, and the fisherman lost a great deal of time in going and coming; still he returned for another goat, and another, and another.” “Take it for granted he brought them all across,” said Don Quixote, “and don’t keep going and coming in this way, or thou wilt not make an end of bringing them over this twelvemonth.”
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Stanley (p. 57) is uncertain of the French et quasi autant de largeur moins de demye lieue , which is (translated freely) simply “something like almost a half-league wide.”
— from The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century by Antonio Pigafetta

"Ask that of God, my son," said Don Quixote; "and do thou lead on where thou wilt, for this time I leave our lodging to thy choice; but reach me here thy hand, and feel with thy finger, and find out how many of my teeth and grinders are missing from this right side of the upper jaw, for it is there I feel the pain."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Be very careful to keep your mind quiet; and do not think it too much to give an account of your recovery to, Madam, yours, &c. 'London, Sept. 7, 1782.' 'SAM.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

—There are some men who fare like the digger after hidden treasures: they quite accidentally discover the carefully-preserved
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The brain of a true Caledonian (if I am not mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

its causes, perfectly admitted quite a different, indeed, a directly opposite course of action; nay, that such a course would actually have taken place, if only he had been a different person .
— from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer

Nevertheless, as I sit here in your house, ask me some other question and do not seek to know my race and family, or you will recall memories that will yet more increase my sorrow.
— from The Odyssey Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original by Homer

Surely I could subsist on a quart a day?—surely the voyage could not last for so long a period as 320 days?
— from The Boy Tar by Mayne Reid

Yet it is more than probable that the teacher's disregard of, and therefore incessant interference with, the subconscious processes of Nature has quite as disastrous results in the teaching of composition, let us say, or drawing, as it would certainly have in the hypothetical case of the teaching of the child's mother tongue.
— from What Is and What Might Be A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular by Edmond Holmes

Fate, Fortune, Destiny, or whosoever is designing this actual romance will develop it in quite a different way, no doubt.
— from The Red-headed Man by Fergus Hume

The beach was crowded when they entered the water together a little later, and as Lola was the only one of the four who ever did any real swimming, she left the others without ceremony and struck out for the raft, which, as it was now high tide, was quite a distance from the shore.
— from Lola by Owen Davis

A boarding-school holiday, a watering-place, a large town bent on “getting up something” for charity, should have one such home behind it, where a natural-born leader will set the whole thing going, and the picturesque shores of Italy will give up their delights to some western town, some inland village, some quiet and decorous hamlet of New England, where all the inhabitants are dying of ennui .
— from Home Amusements by M. E. W. (Mary Elizabeth Wilson) Sherwood

Quanto al deceno capitulo que dice que han de facer e fazen un lugarteniente de aguacil para enviar de fuera, parece que se les debe escribir que en las cosas que buenamente escusar se
— from A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 1 by Henry Charles Lea

VII It was quite a different sort of house from Mr Brindley's.
— from The Grim Smile of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

Political parties were at that time much exasperated against each other, and Dr. Wilson of the College, to whom the oration was submitted, acting it was thought at the suggestion of Dr. John Mason, the eloquent divine, who was then Provost of the College, struck out the passages in question and directed that they should be omitted in the delivery.
— from A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin Verplanck Delivered before the New-York Historical Society, May 17th, 1870 by William Cullen Bryant

The following morning at 9 a.m. quite a decent breakfast was brought to us, for which, as usual, we had to pay; but still we got it, which was the main thing, and shortly afterwards were marched to a small station about half a mile away, from where we took train to Ingolstadt Fort station.
— from My German Prisons Being the Experiences of an Officer During Two and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War by Horace Gray Gilliland

Somehow I had fancied quite a different-looking man."
— from Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography by George William Erskine Russell