“The children did not love me at first; I was such a sickly, awkward kind of a fellow then—and I know I am ugly.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!”
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

SYN: Sharp, acid, sour, acidulous, keen, pungent, acerbous, severe, acrimonious, biting, bitter, harsh, rude, irascible.
— from A Complete Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms or, Synonyms and Words of Opposite Meaning by Samuel Fallows

The young mistress walked around the table, smiling and saying a kind word to each one, and seemed to enjoy the scene exceedingly.
— from Twelve Years a Slave Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana by Solomon Northup

The stakes are sometimes a kingdom or a kingdom's tribute, often a lady, or the combatants fought for "love" or the point of honor.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

And, meanwhile, Françoise would be turning on the spit one of those chickens, such as she alone knew how to roast, chickens which had wafted far abroad from Combray the sweet savour of her merits, and which, while she was serving them to us at table, would make the quality of kindness predominate for the moment in my private conception of her character; the aroma of that cooked flesh, which she knew how to make so unctuous and so tender, seeming to me no more than the proper perfume of one of her many virtues.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Your aunt will console herself; she, and she alone, knows just how much consolation she’ll require.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

In the sittings of many others of Hodgson's friends the control showed a similar abundant knowledge of their experiences with Hodgson living, and, most important of all, it seems to me, all of Hodgson's exceptionally marked habits of thought and expression.
— from The Unpopular Review Vol. I January-June 1914 by Various

This seems a spirited and kingly speech, yet really it is a most foolish one.
— from L. Annaeus Seneca on Benefits by Lucius Annaeus Seneca

It can scarcely be seriously maintained that while we can trace the growth of implements, such as spears and knives, from the simplest possible form upwards, such implements as speech and social laws have been ready made in a highly complex form.
— from The Dawn of History: An Introduction to Pre-Historic Study by C. F. (Charles Francis) Keary

The scoranze (Alb. seraga), a kind of sardine, is taken in great quantities in Lake Scutari; it is salted and smoked for home consumption and exportation.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg

A delightfully mossy bank by the side of a little mountain stream had enticed us to sit and sit, and keep on sitting, or rather sprawling; hour after hour we had sat there talking and smoking, until we decided that we had lazed long enough, and sauntered down to the so-called inn.
— from Victor Victorious by Cecil Starr Johns

At Christmas time we pile the board With flesh and fruit and vintage stored, And mid the laughter and the glow We tred a measure soft and slow, And kiss beneath the mistletoe At Christmas time.
— from Yule-Tide in Many Lands by Mary Poague Pringle

Laurie and his grandfather came over to see her off, and Mr. Brooke looked so strong and sensible and kind that the girls christened him "Mr. Greatheart" on the spot.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott