I had to be continually on my guard, and when she asked me if she was right, I hastened to assure her that she was right and that I had a profound respect for her.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

After standing a moment in silence, he said: “From your words I may consequently conclude that a divorce may be obtained?
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Such a man indeed shakes off with a shrug many a worm which would have buried itself in another; it is only in characters like these that we see the possibility (supposing, of course, that there is such a possibility in the world) of the real " love of one's enemies."
— from The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“But I still don’t see how he managed to prove his alibi, and yet go to the chemist’s shop?” Poirot stared at me in surprise.
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

“There’s only one thing I hate, that at such a moment I should have a reptile like you beside me.” “Oh, that doesn’t matter.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A. the stranger answered me in such words; ‘Young man... This embedded single quote was apparently abandoned by the editor; each double quote for the remainder of the Fable should be accompanied by a single quote.
— from The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books I-VII by Ovid

He is a reduced lieutenant of horse," proceeds the Sheriff, "on the half-pay list of the late corps of Queen's Rangers; aged 38 years or thereabouts; five feet three inches high; fair complexion; light hair; red beard; much marked with the small-pox; the middle finger of one of his hands remarkable for an overgrown nail; round shouldered; stoops a little in walking; and although a native of the Highlands of Scotland, affects much in speaking the Irish dialect.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

The pain, which we receive from its tendency to the prejudice of society, is over-powered by a stronger and more immediate sympathy.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

This man, who was slightly intoxicated, told the strangest and most incredible stories.
— from The Honor of the Name by Emile Gaboriau

I did not speculate about the great fleecy clouds that moved like galleons in the ethereal sea above me; I simply felt their celestial beauty, the radiancy of their unchecked movement, the freedom and splendour of the inexhaustible play of life of which they were part.
— from Under the Trees and Elsewhere by Hamilton Wright Mabie

He stared at me in silence, his gray eyes expanding like those of an eagle, then calmly, mechanically he got down and began to unhitch the team.
— from A Son of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland

The only way in which it could be done was, in his opinion, to obtain shelter and concealment for, say a month, in some family in the immediate neighbourhood; and then , when the scent had grown cold and the zeal of the pursuers had died away, a dark night and some assistance might enable one to get safely off the coast.
— from The Rover's Secret: A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba by Harry Collingwood

Standing a moment in silence, he exclaimed in a loud voice: “May God bless the Sisters of Charity,” and repeated it emphatically, adding: “I am a Protestant, but may God bless the Sisters of Charity.”
— from Angels of the Battlefield A History of the Labors of the Catholic Sisterhoods in the Late Civil War by George Barton

During the Irish Trigonometrical Survey, a mountain in Scotland was observed, with an angular instrument from a station in Ireland, at the distance of 108 miles.
— from Passages from the Life of a Philosopher by Charles Babbage

To a mind already sceptical about masters, it seemed that the secret (apart from the tutor’s noble simplicity and rare elevation of character) was a knack of translating St. John and Aristotle alike into a terminology which we then believed to be Hegelian.
— from Adventures Among Books by Andrew Lang

The woman standing staring at me, I sitting on a three-legged stool, with my elbows on my knees looking steadfastly at her.
— from Recollections of Old Liverpool by James Stonehouse

It was not without some bitter debate among themselves that they took this step, for there was still a minority, including St. March and the priest Padre Consolation, who wished to continue the resistance.
— from A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809 From the Battle of Corunna to the End of the Talavera Campaign by Charles Oman

A dozen or more boys rushed into the room, Tim Pickard at their head, and stopped a moment in surprise as they gazed at the two boys.
— from Ward Hill, the Senior by Everett T. (Everett Titsworth) Tomlinson