Everywhere confusion reigned and death in all its shapes; and in particular they attacked a boys' school, the largest that there was in the place, into which the children had just gone, and massacred them all.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

I’ll do both, as soon as I possibly can.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

But in the interval the rogue had learned to imitate you, and his position was therefore secure, as I presume that nobody in the office had ever set eyes upon you.”
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

The usual way of stating this fact is that the more specialized the reaction, the less is the skill acquired in practicing and perfecting it transferable to other modes of behavior.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey

A man was introduced to us as an expert mimic of the note of the paroquet, peacock, jungle-fowl and other forest birds; and a small party improvised, in front of the bungalow, a bird trap cleverly constructed out of stones, an iron plate from the camp kitchen, bamboo, and rope made on the spot from the bark of Ficus Tsiela .
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 7 of 7 by Edgar Thurston

Note 101 ( return ) [ Audebant se quondam fatres Latio dicere, et sanguine ab Iliaco populos computare, (Sidon.
— 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'm hanged if I'll stand your airs of superiority and infernal pity and patronage.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

[Footnote] As to the interpretation of the muscle, I, myself, am inclined to believe that it is simply a part of the levator ani, and for these reasons--1st, it arises from the pubic symphysis, and is inserted into the perinaeal median line with the levator ani; 2nd, the fibres of both muscles overlie the forepart of the prostate, and present the same arrangement in parallel order; 3rd, the one is not naturally separable from the other.
— from Surgical Anatomy by Joseph Maclise

When I think to grow greater, ‘tis but very moderately, and by a compelled and timorous advancement, such as is proper for me in resolution, in prudence, in health, in beauty, and even in riches too; but this supreme reputation, this mighty authority, oppress my imagination; and, quite contrary to that other,—[Julius Caesar.]—I should, peradventure, rather choose to be the second or third in Perigord than the first at Paris at least, without lying, rather the third at Paris than the first.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

The liberal man will receive only from proper sources and in proper quantities.
— from Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics by Alexander Bain

The companion requires from the liberality of his chief, the warlike steed, the bloody and conquering spear: and in place of pay, he expects to be supplied with a table, homely indeed, but plentiful.
— from The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus by Cornelius Tacitus

"Conceit; the Yankee fancies himself such an important person, that the commercial world will stand still unless he flies back to its help after ten minutes' gobbling, with his month full of pork and pickled peaches.
— from Two Years Ago, Volume I by Charles Kingsley

Such, at forty years of age on the breaking out of the Revolution, was this man, strong as iron, pure as gold.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

[Pg 111] the switch as it passed.
— from Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout A Story of the United States in the Times That Tried Men's Souls by Alfred Bishop Mason

In 1562 he won the battle of Dreux against Condé and Coligny, and he routed them again in 1567 at Saint-Denis, though at the sacrifice of his own life; for he was severely wounded, and died shortly afterwards in Paris.
— from Chantilly in History and Art by Luise Richter

How amusing it is now and indeed how almost incomprehensible to learn that Mrs. Humphry Ward's husband, a well-known English critic, suggested shortly after its publication that her novel had {7} "shaken the very pillars of Christianity."
— from Religion And Health by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

This was the moment, he said, before Miss Montenero should appear in public, and get into the whirl of the great world, before engagements should multiply and press upon her, as inevitably they would as soon as she had made her début—this was the moment, and the only moment probably she would ever have to herself, to see all that was worth a stranger’s notice in London.
— from Tales and Novels — Volume 09 by Maria Edgeworth

And why, in the Simon case, had they given to the world the extraordinary and deplorable spectacle of a people paralysed in its sensibility and intelligence, determined neither to see nor to understand, but bent on enveloping itself in all possible darkness, in order that it might be unable to see, and free to clamour for death amid the black night of its superstitions and its prejudices?
— from Truth [Vérité] by Émile Zola