Character is impulse reined down into steady continuance.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

I remember one afternoon in spring, when, owing to the rain, they could not go out; but, by some amazing good fortune, they had all finished their lessons, and yet abstained from running down to tease their parents—a trick that annoyed me greatly, but which, on rainy days, I seldom could prevent their doing; because, below, they found novelty and amusement—especially when visitors were in the house; and their mother, though she bid me keep them in the schoolroom, would never chide them for leaving it, or trouble herself to send them back.
— from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

It is really disgraceful in so clever a man to render himself incapable by his own folly of performing his duties at a festival instituted in honor of God; when the Archbishop too and his whole court were present, and the church full of people, it was quite abominable.[Footnote: The father had written, "Haydn (organist of the church of the Holy Trinity) played the organ in the afternoon at the Litany, and the Te Deum laudamus, but in such a dreadful manner that we were quite startled, and thought he was about to undergo the fate of the deceased Adlgasser [who was seized with paralysis when playing the organ] It turned out, however, that he was only rather intoxicated, so his head and hands did not agree"]
— from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

He was refreshingly dressed in summer costume—his manner was delightfully self-possessed and quiet—he had a charming smile.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The results obtained in this first campaign of the Romans out of Italy may not quite have corresponded to the expectations at home, for the consul had no triumph; nevertheless, the energy which the Romans displayed in Sicily could not fail to make a great impression on the Sicilian Greeks.
— from The History of Rome, Book III From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States by Theodor Mommsen

Upon some minor articles of manufacture, where our people lie under heavy disadvantages in obtaining the raw material, and where their habits have been formed in their particular occupation, wholly under the shelter, and therefore upon the responsibility of the law, she has retained duties in some cases as high as thirty per cent ad valorem , but yet has reduced them to rates insignificant in comparison with those formerly charged.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 by Various

" "Red deer," I said coolly.
— from The Hidden Children by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

Nec se eo loco tenuit, sed cum Silvas aliquot ab se conscriptas legisset, audissetque Statianu characteri similes videri, iratus sibi, quod a Martiale fugiens alio declinasset a Virgilio, cum primum se recessit domum, in Silvas conjecit ignem."
— from The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 06 by John Dryden

Where, further up, the Arzon flows into the Loire is Vorey, lapped in a fold of the mountains, facing Gerbison, which is striated with rills descending in small cascades.
— from A Book of the Cevennes by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould