Their early history, no doubt, was not the same in all, yet in each mythology there were figures and stories which occurred also in others, whether in consequence of parallel growth out of similar circumstances in each land, or from a process of borrowing at a later time, or from both, we need not try to decide.
— from History of Religion A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems by Allan Menzies

But, besides that the subjection of ecclesiastical to civil tribunals, and possibly other causes, had rendered the superior clergy in England less obnoxious than in Germany, there was this important difference between the two countries, that several bishops from zealous conviction, many more from pliability to self-interest, had gone along with the new-modelling of the English church by Henry and Edward; so that it was perfectly easy to keep up that form of government, in the regular succession which had usually been deemed essential; though the foreign reformers had neither the wish, nor possibly the means, to preserve it.
— from Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 1 of 3 by Henry Hallam

As John Clark died in 1661, it is remarkable to see the last fashion in the way of skull-sawing contrivances in his hands,—to say nothing of the claw on the handle, and a Hey's saw, so called in England, lying on the table by him, and painted there more than a hundred years before Hey was born.
— from The Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes: An Index of the Project Gutenberg Editions by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Now since covetousness is excessive love of possessing riches, it exceeds in two things.
— from Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint

"I saw cheapness in every line of her dress."
— from The Black Patch by Fergus Hume