Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there we could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight.
— from Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Science thus remains in a perpetual flux, unable to reach finality; fit indeed to formulate the laws of an already existing and functioning cosmos, but powerless to detect the Law Framer and Sole Operator.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Forgiveness is better than revenge; for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge the sign of a savage nature.
— 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.

This barricade was furious; it hurled to the clouds an inexpressible clamor; at certain moments, when provoking the army, it was covered with throngs and tempest; a tumultuous crowd of flaming heads crowned it; a swarm filled it; it had a thorny crest of guns, of sabres, of cudgels, of axes, of pikes and of bayonets; a vast red flag flapped in the wind; shouts of command, songs of attack, the roll of drums, the sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the starving were to be heard there.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

But late she flourish'd, rooted fast, Fair in the summer morn, Now feebly bends she in the blast, Unshelter'd and forlorn.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

And so, my Sancho, get you back to your house and explain my intentions to your Teresa, and if she likes and you like to be on reward with me, bene quidem; if not, we remain friends; for if the pigeon-house does not lack food, it will not lack pigeons; and bear in mind, my son, that a good hope is better than a bad holding, and a good grievance better than a bad compensation.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Yes, Emily—I am ruined—irreparably ruined—I am involved in debts, which I can never discharge!' Valancourt's look, which was wild, as he spoke this, soon settled into an expression of gloomy despair; and Emily, while she was compelled to admire his sincerity, saw, with unutterable anguish, new reasons for fear in the suddenness of his feelings and the extent of the misery, in which they might involve him.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Their comfortable dwellings in the once fashionable streets along the East River front fell into the hands of real-estate agents and boarding-house keepers; and here, says the report to the Legislature of 1857, when the evils engendered had excited just alarm, “in its beginning, the tenant-house became a real blessing to that class of industrious poor whose small earnings limited their expenses, and whose employment in workshops, stores, or about the warehouses and thoroughfares, render a near residence of much importance.”
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

Thus religion, far from ignoring the real society and making abstraction of it, is in its image; it reflects all its aspects, even the most vulgar and the most repulsive.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

The gas-lamps shone in two straight lines, which ran on endlessly, and long red flames flickered in the depths of the water.
— from Sentimental Education; Or, The History of a Young Man. Volume 1 by Gustave Flaubert

Although sea water has probably been gradually growing in saltness ever since rivers first flowed into the great sea, it is even now by no means as salt as it might be.
— from The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, January 1884 A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture. Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. by Chautauqua Institution

He wore, according to a fashion even then becoming antiquated, a three-cornered hat, and carried a silver-headed cane the use of which seemed to be rather for flourishing in the air than for assisting the progress of his legs.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

He repeated this is a falling decadence, as though it best expressed his reason for finishing in the ruck.
— from Thoroughbreds by William Alexander Fraser

There is no room for faith in the swelled head of young Italy, but the waiter was a middle-aged man.
— from Olive in Italy by Moray Dalton

Auvergne is Auvergne, Languedoc is only Languedoc; but Touraine is France; the most national river for Frenchmen is the Loire, which waters Touraine.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

As for Tyler, his weapon spoke out almost instantly, and one of the dusky figures which was loaded with a bundle of reeds fell forward into the jungle, while those who were near at hand ran to a place of shelter with a howl of dismay.
— from With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters by F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton

The river Fedotika falls into the Southern side of [Pg 322] the Kamtchatka river about an hundred and eighty versts below Upper Kamtchatkoi Ostrog.
— from Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America To which are added, the conquest of Siberia, and the history of the transactions and commerce between Russia and China by William Coxe

Suddenly the expansive and genial smile faded on 'Erb's happy face, as he felt himself seized by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his trousers, and raised four feet in the air....
— from The Wages of Virtue by Percival Christopher Wren