There will always be a great difference between subduing a multitude and ruling a society.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The sun was dipping downward now toward the ocean's rim, and sea and sky were a blaze of glorious light; while on that dazzling background sail and mast and roof and steeple were painted black with edges of yellow flame.
— from The Winning of Barbara Worth by Harold Bell Wright

To see a man as refined and sensitive as he was, endowed with the hereditary instincts that make affluence a necessity of existence to a gentleman, settling down into the conditions and abode of the smallest of small farmers, and doing it as cheerfully as if he were perfectly contented with the prospect, was something beyond Sir Simon’s comprehension.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 21, April, 1875, to September, 1875 A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science by Various

I could hear buffaloes snorting and moving all round, and see the red-beaked tic birds flying up off their backs, making a kind of hiss as they did so, something like that of the English missel-thrush, but I could not see a single buffalo.
— from Maiwa's Revenge; Or, The War of the Little Hand by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

First, a number of tiny, purposeless beings come into the world, spreading about much at random, and seeming to have no other object except to eat.
— from The Common Objects of the Country by J. G. (John George) Wood

And since philosophy coincides with history, and religion and the history of religion are the same, and myth and religion are strictly speaking indistinguishable, we can see very well the vanity of the attempt that is being made beneath our eyes to preserve a religion or mythological truth side by side with a history of religions, which on the contrary is supposed to be practised with complete mental freedom and with an entirely critical method.
— from Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept by Benedetto Croce

And for him too the messengers were waiting; for him too were garments ready woven of the light; around him were songs, and music, and rejoicing; and so they bare him into the presence of the King.
— from The Rocky Island and Other Similitudes by Samuel Wilberforce

In these thirty lines we have the preluding mutterings of the storm which was to sweep away mask and revel and song, to inhibit the drama, and suppress poetry.
— from Milton by Mark Pattison

Yet did he oft, though in her arms he lay, And tasted to the height immortal youth, Sigh for young Iole, who, soft as May, And rich as Summer, yielded up her truth; There by Euripus, ever fickle stream, He won a world in her immortal arms, And found his prized honour but a dream Lost in the Ocean of her gentle charms." Thurlow.
— from Heathen mythology, Illustrated by extracts from the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern by Various

Although her courage did not falter, she appeared meek and repentant, and spoke with anxiety of her future state, in doubt whether she would obtain pardon for her sins.
— from Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold by Horace Bleackley