The illiterate may reflect on the disposition of the learned, who, amidst all the advantages of study and reflection, are commonly still diffident in their determinations: and if any of the learned be inclined, from their natural temper, to haughtiness and obstinacy, a small tincture of Pyrrhonism might abate their pride, by showing them, that the few advantages, which they may have attained over their fellows, are but inconsiderable, if compared with the universal perplexity and confusion, which is inherent in human nature.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

I was covered with shame and regret, and could not sleep.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

They had come to Winesburg from some place in the South and ran a cider mill on the Trunion Pike.
— from Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life by Sherwood Anderson

When therefore the minds of all have been once laid open and declared, on the day following the several sentiments are revised and canvassed; and to both conjectures of time, due regard is had.
— from Tacitus on Germany by Cornelius Tacitus

Ex oculorum optutu, superciliorum aut remissione aut contractione, ex maestitia, ex hilaritate, ex risu, ex locutione, ex reticentia, ex contentione vocis, ex summissione, ex ceteris similibus facile iudicabimus, quid eorum apte fiat, quid ab officio naturaque discrepet.
— from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Out of such men as these a strong and resolute army could not be formed; and the Goths therefore entered Spain with little trouble; the cities willingly opened their gates, and the diseased civilization of Roman Spain yielded with hardly a blow.
— from The Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole

158 “In the Archipelago, and on the West Coast of the Peninsula, cock-fights are conducted in the manner known to the Malays as bĕr-tâji , the birds being armed with long artificial spurs, sharp as razors, and curved like a Malay woman’s eyebrow.
— from Malay Magic Being an introduction to the folklore and popular religion of the Malay Peninsula by Walter William Skeat

The jealousy and avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek a refuge at Constantinople; and, with some hopes, either of justice or favor, to throw herself at the feet of Pulcheria.
— 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

He belonged to a screw-gun battery, for I could hear the rattle of the straps and rings and chains and things on his saddle pad.
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

But thou thyself wouldst do, if thou couldst see / The end of all events as well as he. (?) With poetry, as with going to sea, we should push from the shore and reach a certain elevation before we unfurl all our sails.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

After you have removed the old battery, scrape all rust and corrosion from the inside of the battery box or compartment in which the battery is placed.
— from The Automobile Storage Battery: Its Care And Repair by Otto A. Witte

For one kind of earth crumbles easily, another is solid and rocky, and contains iron; and so of others.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

Nowhere, however, is the puma feared by mankind as is the jaguar; on the contrary, remarkable stories are recorded, and constantly being verified by experience, not only of the cowardice of the animal, but of its apparent desire to make friends with humanity, following lonely persons without harming them, apparently merely in satisfaction of an innocent
— from Zoölogy: The Science of Animal Life Popular Science Library, Volume XII (of 16), P. F. Collier & Son Company, 1922 by Ernest Ingersoll

Pete said all right and crawled into his tepee for his coat and hat—crawled right on out the back and into the brush while the deputy rolled a cigarette.
— from Somewhere in Red Gap by Harry Leon Wilson

The hoarse vibrations of the surrounding tempest were [pg 281] mingled with its shriller tones produced by its hissing sweep through the shattered spars and rigging, all combining, like the different instruments in a great orchestra, to render a grand minor symphony of Woe and Despair.
— from Victor Serenus: A Story of the Pauline Era by Henry Wood

We let them out of the pasture into an open field, and for a few minutes there was such a racing and chasing over that field as I never saw before.
— from Beautiful Joe: An Autobiography by Marshall Saunders

He threw his hat in the air and the peasants standing about raised a cheer.
— from The Hohenzollerns in America With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and Other Impossibilities by Stephen Leacock

Miss Cushman had begun her career as a singer, but, her voice failing, she had to be content to remain on the stage of the theatre; but she always retained a certain dramatic quality of voice, and, within a very limited register, she sang with great power and pathos.
— from The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I by William James Stillman