For as doctors are more afraid of fevers that are generated from uncertain causes, and from a complication of ailments, than of those that have a clear and adequate cause, so the small and continual and daily matters of offence between husband and wife, that the world knows nothing about, set the household most at variance, and do it the greatest injury.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

Jack that instant applied for leave; and, as it was refused him on the eve of a general action, my gentleman took it, and never fired a pistol again: except against an officer who questioned his courage, and whom he winged in such a cool and determined manner, as showed all the world that it was from prudence and a desire of enjoying his money, not from cowardice, that he quitted the profession of arms.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

They looked on caverns dark and deep, On bower and glen and mountain steep, And saw the opening lotus stud With roseate cup the crystal flood, While crane and swan and coot and drake Made pleasant music on the lake, And from the reedy bank was heard The note of many a happy bird.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki

"E'bastevolmente agli amatori dell' Architettura, e dell' Antichita, l'opera del Signor Adams, che a donato molto a que' superbi vestigi coll'abituale eleganza del suo toccalapis
— 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

From the broad bare top of the hills down to the valley stretches, almost continuously, a deep mass of trees that looks in the distance like a wall of dusky verdure.
— from The Netherworld of Mendip Explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and elsewhere by Ernest A. (Ernest Albert) Baker

I regret extremely that my son should have behaved in such a cowardly and dastardly manner—it has hurt and surprised me more than I can say—but, were that all, it were surely better to bury the whole affair as soon as may be.
— from The Wooden Horse by Hugh Walpole

But I soon observed, to my inexpressible concern, that while Gratitude and Admiration were busy in exciting the various ranks of the vast assembly, to accomplish this favourite design, they were followed by two earthy fiends of a dark and malignant influence: these were Detraction and Indifference, who shed such a chill and depressive mist around them, that all the ardour of the Assembly seemed to sink.
— from The Eulogies of Howard: A Vision by William Hayley

[161] To the reports of the French and Spanish ambassadors (compare Ambassades de M ss .
— from A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) by Leopold von Ranke

But what I wish to point out is that while a poet can write verses so splendid in sound and colour as those that I have quoted, even such a composition as "Dolores" must be preserved, with all its good and bad, among the treasures of English verse.
— from Pre-Raphaelite and other Poets by Lafcadio Hearn

Spiders and caterpillars also display marvellous dexterity in the repair of their webs if they have been damaged, and this requires powers perfectly distinct from those requisite for the construction of a new one.
— from Unconscious Memory by Samuel Butler