So that I may say their ignorance is a cause of their superstition, a symptom, and madness itself: Supplicii causa est, sappliciumque sui.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Why should it seem a strange affair, Moreover, in a country where A single rat contrives to eat A hundred pounds of iron meat, That owls should be of strength to lift ye A booby boy that weighs but fifty?'
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine

In this place I say no more, but that though it were granted, the Pope could not possibly teach any error at all, yet doth not this entitle him to any Jurisdiction in the Dominions of another Prince, unlesse we shall also say, a man is obliged in conscience to set on work upon all occasions the best workman, even then also when he hath formerly promised his work to another.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

"I am sorry," Anne said, and meant it.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey

Being held a foe, he may not have access To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear, And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new beloved anywhere; But passion lends them power, time means, to meet, Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.
— from The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

But on the instant Prospero charmed him so that he stood there like a statue, still as stone; and Miranda in terror prayed her father to have mercy on her lover.
— from Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks: Being held a foe, he may not have access To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear; And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new beloved anywhere.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

“My grandsire,” said Hubert, “drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life—and neither will I. If this yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the bucklers—or rather, I yield to the devil that is in his jerkin, and not to any human skill; a man can but do his best, and I will not shoot where I am sure to miss.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

Magical rites must be performed over the sea-going canoe when it is built, in order to make it swift, steady and safe; also magic is done over a canoe to make it lucky in the Kula.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

The meeting brought a bookmaker or two from Sydney sometimes, and sometimes a man in the town made a book on the event.
— from The Black Opal by Katharine Susannah Prichard

We feel sad at seeing a man in grief, although the source of his sorrow is unknown to us; and we are inclined to be joyous when surrounded by the votaries of mirth.
— from History of English Humour, Vol. 1 With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour by A. G. K. (Alfred Guy Kingan) L'Estrange

“This branch of scientific investigation has already been carried so far with us, and the results of the experiments are so constant and uniform, that when it is asserted, for example, that such and such a metal is present in a state of vapor in the sun’s atmosphere, it is estimated that the chances in favor of the correctness of the assertion are as 300,000,000 to 1.”
— from Daybreak; A Romance of an Old World by James Cowan

My boy’s house was made unsafe for him, it was made miserable to him, he was involved in every kind of danger and scandal, and she asks me if there was more?”
— from The Sorceress (complete) by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

No censor could possibly object to such a speech as "Might I speak to you for a moment, miss"; yet that apparently innocent phrase has often been made offensively improper on the stage by popular low comedians, with the effect of changing the whole character and meaning of the play as understood by the official Examiner.
— from The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet by Bernard Shaw

They had flown off in frightened disorder, of course, but had got into [151] the regular harrow-shape order when the leader heard the cry, and I shall never forget how bravely he left his place at the head of the flock and hurried back screaming and struck at me in trying to save his companion.
— from The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir

The discomfited besiegers abandoned the mine where they had met with such able countermining, and sunk another shaft, at midnight, in secret, at a long distance from the Tongres gate.
— from The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 30: 1579-80 by John Lothrop Motley

“If you choose to think so,” I say, for it is perfectly competent to argue that the influence to which Mary Lansing yielded was merely an hysterical attack, not wholly strange at such a moment in the case of a woman devoted to her first husband, and reluctantly consenting to second nuptials.
— from At Pinney's Ranch 1898 by Edward Bellamy

He poohed at my scruples, saddled a small brown horse that had a character for sobriety and slowness, and mounting it himself, rode after the uncaged animals in their first rush to the water.
— from The Diggings, the Bush, and Melbourne or, Reminiscences of Three Years' Wanderings in Victoria by James Armour

In order to establish a local Rāmchandi, a handful of earth must be brought from her shrine at Sarsara and made into a representation of the goddess.
— from The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3 by R. V. (Robert Vane) Russell