“I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful wonder to you and myself.
— from Emma by Jane Austen

Scientific men institute observations not merely to test an idea (or suggested explanatory meaning), but also to locate the nature of a problem and thereby guide the formation of a hypothesis.
— from How We Think by John Dewey

The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky over this particular piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant and soft than it was over the moor.
— from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This, indeed, is a serious charge, and to some extent must be admitted to be true.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs, and lace dresses, and embroidered ones, and hats with great, soft ostrich feathers, and ermine coats and muffs, and boxes of tiny gloves and handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that the polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other that the odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes must be at least some foreign princess—perhaps the little daughter of an Indian rajah.
— from A Little Princess Being the whole story of Sara Crewe now told for the first time by Frances Hodgson Burnett

With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle ages.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

He was wearing a brownish reefer jacket, rather shabby, evidently made by a good tailor though, and of a fashion at least three years old, that had been discarded by smart and well-to-do people for the last two years.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If Nature therefore have made men equall, that equalitie is to be acknowledged; or if Nature have made men unequall; yet because men that think themselves equall, will not enter into conditions of Peace, but upon Equall termes, such equalitie must be admitted.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

"As many similar examples might be adduced, both among ourselves and foreigners, who can feel any patience with those that reproach Aphrodite with hindering friendship when she associates herself with Love as a partner?
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

251 With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle ages.
— from History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1 by Edward Gibbon

Here she remains fifty days, and sometimes even more, before, and forty days after, the birth of [Pg 110] her child, tenderly cared for by every member of the family, for to neglect her at such a time is to forfeit the blessings of the seven high angels who are about the throne of Ahura-Mazda.
— from Life and Travel in India Being Recollections of a Journey Before the Days of Railroads by Anna Harriette Leonowens

Edward III supplemented existing measures by an urgent local edict for London and Middlesex.
— from The Mediæval Hospitals of England by Rotha Mary Clay

Illuminated MSS., sepulchral effigies, monumental brasses, ancient statuary, mediæval wills, inventories, and the contents of the chief museums, are the authorities upon which the author has relied in his attempts to get at the actual facts about this interesting subject.
— from The Mediæval Hospitals of England by Rotha Mary Clay

Public parks and improvements, intended for the common use, are after all only safe in the hands of the public itself; and associated effort toward social progress, although much more awkward and stumbling than that same effort managed by a capable individual, does yet enlist deeper forces and evoke higher social capacities.
— from Democracy and Social Ethics by Jane Addams

I wuz glad enough to see him, and I inquired after the relations with considerable interest, and some affection (not such an awful sight, never [Pg 10] havin' seen 'em much, but a little, jest about enough).
— from Samantha at the World's Fair by Marietta Holley

In the birth of a legitimate heir to the sovereign every man beholds a pledge of prosperity and tranquillity.
— from Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 3 Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen by Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette) Campan

This intense degree of spiritual energy may be achieved with the force and suddenness of a special creation.
— from The Life Radiant by Lilian Whiting