In making such a reflection we are not opposing physical considerations to moral, but moral to physical; we are seeking to make the voice of reason heard, which drives us back from the extravagance of sentimentalism on common sense.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

The war was for us still a “rich war,” as Nelson put it—there were still Spanish prizes to be picked up.
— from Life of Frederick Marryat by David Hannay

Yet these regions, deprived of springs and running waters, are not always sterile deserts, are not always desolate plains.
— from The Desert World by Arthur Mangin

On the contrary, it is, as a rule, [Pg 64] directly opposed to his own apparent interest, and it is achieved with difficulty by sacrifice and renunciation, which are never pleasant and often very painful.
— from Morals and the Evolution of Man by Max Simon Nordau

This tendency to optimism is, we think, more like that magic wand which the great idealist waved over a troubled sea, or like those sudden sunsets after a storm, which not only control the wave, but gild the leaden mass with crimson and unexpected gold, whose brightness may reach some storm-driven sail, giving it the light of hope, bringing the ship to a well-defined and hospitable shore, and regulating, with a new attraction, the lately distracted compass.
— from Manners and Social Usages by M. E. W. (Mary Elizabeth Wilson) Sherwood

"As the Breast-knot allows a good deal of ingenuity in the delicate choice of colours, and disposition of figure, I think it may be indulged; but very sparingly, and rather with a negligence, than the least affectation.—It seems there is a fashion even in the colours of ribands, and I have observed a beautiful purple to be lately the general Page 330 [330] mode; but it is not the beauty of the colour that recommends it so much, as the symbol it is said to bear: a set of fashionable people have thought fit to entitle themselves the Gallant Schemers, and this is the ensign of the order; this is hung out to distinguish the society, who publicly declare that gallantry is their business, and pleasure their only idol.—I thought myself obliged to make this known, that nobody, through ignorance, might be led astray.—She that invented it, is above regarding the discovery; such a liberty is but spirit and genius in quality, and only meets with censure from the vulgar.
— from Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century; Vol. 2 (of 2) Including the Charities, Depravities, Dresses, and Amusements etc. by James Peller Malcolm

We had big hopes of trout, but found the stream too shoal and rapid, with almost no pools, and we caught only a dozen small ones.
— from The Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace

The unnecessary induction of narcosis for such a purpose, doubtless, is most reprehensible; but if it were possible simply to produce sleep from which the patient should awake refreshed, without any narcotic effects, then, certainly, that sort of palliation must be good.
— from Neuralgia and the Diseases that Resemble it by Francis Edmund Anstie

It occurred as follows: One night, when he was praying in his cell, at St. Mary of the Angels, in the beginning of the year 1223, the tempter suggested to him not to watch and pray so much, but rather to adopt other modes of penance, because, from his age, more sleep and rest was absolutely necessary for him, and these watchings would be his death.
— from The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi by Candide Chalippe

We'll pretend that our black wool is as white as the drifted snow, and no one will run after us shouting, 'Blacksheep, blacksheep!'" V As the train flew along the Connecticut shore Archie realized with a new poignancy the tremendous change that had occurred in his life since he left New York, his birthplace and the home of his family for two hundred years.
— from Blacksheep! Blacksheep! by Meredith Nicholson