It would have been open, for instance, to urge that Puerto Rico, being between five and six hundred miles from the eastern end of Cuba and nearly double that distance from the two ports of the island most important to Spain,—Havana on the north and Cienfuegos on the south,—would be invaluable to the mother country as an intermediate naval station and as a base of supplies and reinforcements for both her fleet and army; that, if left in her undisturbed possession, it would enable her, practically, to enjoy the same advantage of nearness to the great scene of operations that the United States had in virtue of our geographical situation; and that, therefore, the first objective of the war should be the eastern island, and its reduction the first object.
— from Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay, in view of our long and undisputed occupation of the territory in question, declined to allow the reference of the Alaskan boundary to a regular arbitration at the Hague, but instead, Secretary Hay proposed the creation of a judicial tribunal composed of an equal number of members from each country, feeling confident that our claim would be successfully established by such a body.
— from Fifty Years of Public Service Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois by Shelby M. (Shelby Moore) Cullom

Joan of Arc has been not only shut out from the temple of Fame erected in her own country, but her name has been polluted by the impurities so vilely cast on it by Voltaire: while French literature has only its infamous Pucelle , the German stage has its Virgin of Orleans.
— from The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 7 (of 7) by Arthur Thomas Malkin

That her son, for whom she had in view one of the first matches in the kingdom, should dare to choose for himself; and, above all, to choose one whom she considered as much his inferior in birth as she was in fortune, was a circumstance quite insupportable to her feelings.
— from Marriage by Susan Ferrier

And, Sir, he is valetudinarian, one of those who are always mending themselves.
— from Life of Johnson, Volume 3 1776-1780 by James Boswell