I am sick of these two mules; I remember seeing a child who was being educated for finance; they never let him alone, but were always insisting on the profession he was to follow; they made him read this fable, learn it, say it, repeat it again and again without finding in it the slightest argument against his future calling.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Six guilty days my wretched mates employ In impious feasting, and unhallowed joy; The seventh arose, and now the sire of gods Rein'd the rough storms; and calm'd the tossing floods: With speed the bark
— from The Odyssey by Homer

‘You have the form and face of an adult’ he said, ‘but as regards soul, and character, and perhaps even intelligence, you are a child in the completest sense of the word, and always will be, if you live to be sixty.’
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Our greatest agitations have ridiculous springs and causes: what ruin did our last Duke of Burgundy run into about a cartload of sheepskins!
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

] Note 252 ( return ) [ See a curious passage on the destruction of the Hindoo idols, Memoirs, p. 15.—M.]
— 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

Note 584 ( return ) [ See AUGUSTUS, c. xcviii.]
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

Now I like the colored people, and sympathize with all their reasonable aspirations; but you and I both know, John, that in this country the Negro must remain subordinate, and can never expect to be the equal of white men.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

She her fair young head can rest Soothed and childlike on his breast, And in trustful innocence Draw new strength and courage thence; He, the proud man, feels within
— from Narrative and Legendary Poems, Complete Volume I of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier

The parents were ready subjects, and cast back from the theories of to-day a delusive light on the practices of the past.
— from Double Harness by Anthony Hope

It goes on to show how these hopes have been disappointed, and how that “increasing weakness in the State itself on the one side, and more than corresponding growth of real strength and confidence among the native tribes on the other have produced their natural and inevitable consequence . . .
— from Cetywayo and his White Neighbours Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

A trifle over the average height and rather slender, and clad in complete mail except for the bascinet which he carried in his hand, there was something in his appearance and bearing that impressed even the warlike Richard.
— from Beatrix of Clare by John Reed Scott

Of course I followed: who could resist such a challenge?
— from Olla Podrida by Frederick Marryat

He was the son of a Roman soldier, a Christian, stationed in Palestine, which was a Roman colony.
— from Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light by Vera C. (Vera Charlesworth) Barclay

The findings of the court are refreshingly simple, and characterized by that broad commonsense view that is becoming increasingly more common among modern jurists.
— from The Propaganda for Reform in Proprietary Medicines, Vol. 1 of 2 by Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (American Medical Association)

We went to the nearest railway station and came to town.
— from The Scarlet Bat: A Detective Story by Fergus Hume