The good is the beautiful, and the beautiful is the symmetrical, and there is no greater or fairer symmetry than that of body and soul, as the contrary is the greatest of deformities.
— from Timaeus by Plato

Afar, where clothed in green and gold Meadows and cornfields are displayed, Villages in the distance show And herds of oxen wandering low; Whilst nearer, sunk in deeper shade, A thick immense neglected grove Extended—haunt which Dryads love.
— from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] A Romance of Russian Life in Verse by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

I know very well, for what concerns myself, that from having been brought up in my childhood to a plain and straightforward way of dealing, and from having had an aversion to all manner of juggling and foul play in my childish sports and recreations (and, indeed, it is to be noted, that the plays of children are not performed in play, but are to be judged in them as their most serious actions), there is no game so small wherein from my own bosom naturally, and without study or endeavour, I have not an extreme aversion from deceit.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

I. Of spectral animals there is no great diversity in Cambria, unless one should class under this head sundry poetic creatures which more properly belong to the domain of magic, or to fairyland.
— from British Goblins: Welsh Folk-lore, Fairy Mythology, Legends and Traditions by Wirt Sikes

I never saw (although this is not Greek)
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

This corner, however, was, at least from the time of Hadrian, embraced within the Roman frontier–fortification; for from that time we find lower Moesia, which before Trajan had probably possessed no larger standing garrisons at all, furnished with the three legionary camps of Novae (near Svischtova), Durostorum (Silistria), and Troesmis (Iglitza, near Galatz), of which the last lies in front of that very angle of the Danube.
— from The Provinces of the Roman Empire, from Caesar to Diocletian. v. 1 by Theodor Mommsen

If it be so, and there is no good reason to doubt it, it seems that, from the Old Man, the eye can at one sweep behold all the divisions of the Kingdom, as well as “the Kingdom of Man.”
— from The Old Man; or, Ravings and Ramblings round Conistone by Alexander Craig Gibson

The lower and upper divisions of the Bunter sandstone consist of false-bedded red and variegated sandstones, and there is no great difficulty in explaining their formation in desert areas with tracts of water, but the great change which marks the appearance and disappearance of the middle division, the Bunter pebble beds, requires some explanation, for the contrast between the lithological characters of the rocks of this division and those of the rocks appertaining to the preceding and succeeding division is very marked.
— from The Principles of Stratigraphical Geology by J. E. (John Edward) Marr

The czar himself took shares and the Imperial navy guarded the Russias of North America.
— from The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark by Eva Emery Dye

In winter large numbers of plants are sold at auction rooms, but though they may appear cheap, this is not always so, as there is no guide to the length of time they have been out of the ground, and in a dry atmosphere many of the smaller roots may have perished.
— from Trees and Shrubs for English Gardens by E. T. (Ernest Thomas) Cook

“There they are!” said Marmaduke, sighting Steve and the ireful newspaper genius.
— from A Blundering Boy: A Humorous Story by Bruce Weston Munro

Of Mr. B's declarations, on page 91, to which we refer the reader, the Emancipator says, 'All this, if not "gratuitous folly," is at least, unfounded and reckless assertion, which we have scarcely ever seen equalled.'
— from Discussion on American Slavery by Robert J. (Robert Jefferson) Breckinridge