“All these restrictions are now removed, and you need not ask the cardinal’s permission to receive visits from your friends.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

I now speak of women who are restrained by principle or prejudice; such women though they would shrink from an intrigue with real abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage of gallantry, that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands; or, days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed by congenial souls, till the health is undermined and the spirits broken by discontent.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

As to you, prince, are you not ashamed?—I repeat, are you not ashamed, to mix with such riff-raff?
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Your books will give you knowledge, and make you respected; and your needle will find you useful employment when you do not care to read.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

The kings of France have not been possessed of absolute power for above two reigns; and yet nothing will appear more extravagant to Frenchmen than to talk of their liberties.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

The shrubs on the Vicarage lawn rustled uncomfortably in the frosty breeze; she could not feel by any stretch of imagination, dressed to her highest as she was, that the house was the residence of near relations; and yet nothing essential, in nature or emotion, divided her from them: in pains, pleasures, thoughts, birth, death, and after-death, they were the same.
— from Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy

Others may easily proceed farther on the same road, and yet no one find it very easy to get to the end.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Here shall you, and my Pamela, go together in your chariot, if you please; and she will then appear as one of your retinue; and your nephew and I will sometimes ride, and sometimes go into my chariot, to your woman.
— from Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson

How long, delighted, The stranger fain would linger on his way; Thine is a scene alike where souls united Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray; And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, Where Nature, not too sombre nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.
— from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron

3, 1, oh no, rest assured you never can praise him too emphatically nor too often .
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane

Oh not in Independence Hall Will ye proclaim your will; Nor read aloud your negro call, As yet, on Bunker Hill.
— from The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various

‘I shall never remember all your names!’
— from The Youngest Girl in the School by Evelyn Sharp

"I will entreat in such fashion as to save you," she replied; "are you not my husband in God's sight?"
— from The War of Women, Volume 2 by Alexandre Dumas

Then, reproachfully, "And you never showed it to me."
— from Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews by Jack London

I know she trades off what we send her to the store for rum, and you never get no thanks.
— from The Minister's Wooing by Harriet Beecher Stowe

My cousin is a very careful rider, and you need not be at all nervous of being led into awkward places.
— from Etheldreda the Ready: A School Story by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs.

William answered, "There is a poor man at the door, give him the penny;" which being done, he proceeded and said, "I'll tell you, cousin, what I am, not only thinking upon, but I am sure of, if I be not under a delusion.——The malignants will be your death, and this gravel will be mine; but you will have the advantage of me, for you will die honourably before many witnesses, with a rope about your neck; and I will die whining upon a pickle straw, and will endure more pain before I rise from your table, than all the pain you will have in your death."
— from Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) A Brief Historical Account of the Lives, Characters, and Memorable Transactions of the Most Eminent Scots Worthies by John Howie

Mary felt vastly relieved; and yet not altogether easy.
— from Simon by J. Storer (Joseph Storer) Clouston

An' as sure I'm rebel as you' name is Trudel If it's not some improvement in movement nex' year." Joe "O, I know very well, ma cheval is poor breed, But for trav' lak de dev' he is very fine steed; It is true he is slim, but jus' look at his limb— He is build lak de fly-machine—all for de speed!
— from By Trench and Trail in Song and Story by Angus Mackay

“Hearken,” I said to the charioteer as they came, “run as you never ran before, and bring up the guard behind!”
— from Moon of Israel: A Tale of the Exodus by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard