We cannot therefore act on any definite principles to secure happiness, but only on empirical counsels, e.g. of regimen, frugality, courtesy, reserve, etc., which experience teaches do, on the average, most promote well-being.
— from Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals by Immanuel Kant

On hot summer nights it is no rare experience when exploring the worst of the tenements in “the Bend” to find the hallways occupied by rows of “sitters,” tramps whom laziness or hard luck has prevented from earning enough by their day’s “labor” to pay the admission fee to a stale-beer dive, and who have their reasons for declining the hospitality of the police station lodging-rooms.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

They pleaded the established prescription of thirty or forty years; but their defence was overruled by a retrospective edict, which extended the claims of the church to the term of a century; an edict so pregnant with injustice and disorder, that, after serving this occasional purpose, it was prudently abolished in the same reign.
— 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

I have used the modern word lottery to express the word of the Roman emperors, which entitled to some prize the person who caught them, as they were thrown among the crowd.
— 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

[pg 428] “ The General Convention of the Universal Churches, in Memory of their dear departed Brother, the Rev. Elhanan Winchester , erected this Monumental Stone.
— from The Book of Religions Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments, or Opinions, of All the Principal Religious Sects in the World, Particularly of All Christian Denominations in Europe and America, to Which are Added Church and Missionary Statistics, Together With Biographical Sketches by John Hayward

Their repetition, evidently, was educating the people as to their implied meaning.
— from The Dawn of the XIXth Century in England: A social sketch of the times by John Ashton

That your Highness may judge what sort of person he is, I will repeat exactly without exaggeration the very words he used to me.
— from The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History by Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume

“For you are so richly endowed with expression that your problem is how to mask it.”
— from The Indian On The Trail From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 by Mary Hartwell Catherwood

Above all things, real education would encourage the utilization of the brain for purposes of thought and reflection, instead of trying to make it a warehouse for storing van-loads of useless knowledge.
— from The Curse of Education by Harold Edward Gorst

There were six cabinets, of which four had their entablatures supported by massive griffins or lions, and their panels inlaid with ebony and satin-wood, or carved with bas-reliefs, which, though certainly far from accurate in point of design, produced a very rich effect; whilst even the plainest of the cabinets were interesting for some curious specimen of turner's work or tracery.
— from Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

The word eleven , like its French equivalent onze , ange , or angel , points to the probability that for some reason eleven was essentially the number sacred to the elven , anges , or onzes .
— from Archaic England An Essay in Deciphering Prehistory from Megalithic Monuments, Earthworks, Customs, Coins, Place-names, and Faerie Superstitions by Harold Bayley

Everybody in the township went to the races; everybody was expected to go.
— from The Black Opal by Katharine Susannah Prichard