I'm apt to forget my resolutions, but if I had something always about me to remind me, I guess I should do better.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

“Yours wholly and most affectionately “Marie de Montbazon. “P.S.--I sign my full name, for I should be vain if I could suppose that after five years of absence you would remember my initials.”
— from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

ROSALIE PRUDENT There was a real mystery in this affair which neither the jury, nor the president, nor the public prosecutor himself could understand.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

"How—subjects?"... "Why, subjects that you can't talk about in such a position without losing your dignity; it's utterly impossible; it would make it ridiculous, and this is not a ridiculous matter, it is important."
— from White Nights and Other Stories The Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Volume X by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

And if we scrutinise closely the common moral notion of Retributive Justice, it appears, strictly taken, to imply the metaphysical doctrine of Free Will; since, according to this conception, the reasonableness of rewarding merit is considered solely in relation to the past, without regard to the future bad consequences to be expected from leaving merit without encouragement: and if every excellence in any one’s actions or productions seems referable ultimately to causes other than himself, the individual’s claim to requital, from this point of view, appears to vanish.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

For this reason many in the Middle and Lower classes, and all without exception in the Polygonal and Circular orders, prefer a third method, the description of which shall be reserved for the next section.
— from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) by Edwin Abbott Abbott

She is not going to sacrifice her Indian Empire for the poor Philippine Islands—if she had entertained such an intention she would not have restored Manila in 1763, but would have kept some point in the Philippines, whence she might gradually expand.
— from The Philippines a Century Hence by José Rizal

In this respect, magic is exactly on the same footing with the sciences, of which it is the bastard sister.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

Maron, a saint or savage of the fifth century, displayed his religious madness in Syria; the rival cities of Apamea and Emesa disputed his relics, a stately church was erected on his tomb, and six hundred of his disciples united their solitary cells on the banks of the Orontes.
— 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

the Ricarries we put off dureing the time we were near their village—2 were Sent by a man to follow us, and overtook us this evening, we Still procisted in a refusial-The Dress of the Ricara men is Simpally a pr. of Mockersons & Legins, a flap, and a Buffalow Robe—Their Hair is long and lais loose their arms & ears are decerated with trinkets The womin Dress Mockersons & Legins & Skirt of the Skin of the Cabre or Antelope, long fringed & roab to the fringes & with Sleaves, verry white, and Roabes—all were Dressed to be without hare in the Summer
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

© Comet Rice Mills, Inc.; 9Jul63; MP13355.
— from Motion Pictures 1960-1969: Catalog of Copyright Entries by Library of Congress. Copyright Office

The Budapest version of the Rakoczy march is a revelation.
— from Franz Liszt by James Huneker

This group of rocks, the last we have to examine, is, as far as respects geographical extent and usefulness to the human race, more important than any of the preceding ones.
— from Modern Painters, Volume 4 (of 5) by John Ruskin

Up to 500 metres the decrease of temperature is more rapid than the adiabatic rate, due to the rapid moving in of colder air above, whereby air rising from the ground is cooled by contact as well as by its expansion, and also because the air is heated more than usual by contact with the ground, which under these conditions is abnormally warmer.
— from Sounding the Ocean of Air Being Six Lectures Delivered Before the Lowell Institute of Boston, in December 1898 by Abbott Lawrence Rotch

“I rather meant it,” said Cecilia, “for your daughter; but if it is of use to any body, my purpose is sufficiently answered.”
— from Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 2 by Fanny Burney

“Read, Mualox: I cannot.”
— from The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico by Lew Wallace

For the merely and exclusively rational man is an aberration and nothing but an aberration.
— from Tragic Sense Of Life by Miguel de Unamuno

[69] The enemy next endeavoured to entrench and maintain himself upon a line running from Wirballen to Lyck; but on October 8 his flanks were enveloped after a fierce struggle, and the Russians marched into Lyck.
— from The Campaign in Russian Poland by Percy Cross Standing

Then without a moment’s delay “out tomahawks” was the order and, led by Haimona himself, the new-comers rushed madly into the fray.
— from Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion by G. Hamilton-Browne

But when passing ‘Ballads and Sonnets’ through the press in 1881, at a time when he was out of health, Rossetti called to mind certain remarks upon a supposed lack of clarity in his work which had fallen not only from some critics but from certain friends; and in an evil moment it occurred to him that it would be a gain to ‘Rose Mary’ if the three parts were knit together by lyrics, and he set to work to write the ‘Beryl Songs’ which now appear in the ballad.
— from Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite movement by Esther (of Hampstead) Wood