She was then merely a quiet, modest, not plain-looking girl, but she is now absolutely pretty.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

A verb agrees with its subject in number and person: as, praedia mea tū possidēs, ego aliēnā misericordiā vīvō , RA.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane

Early science is not a process of discovery in the modern sense; but rather a process of correcting by observation, and to a certain extent only, the first impressions of nature, which mankind, when they began to think, had received from poetry or language or unintelligent sense.
— from Timaeus by Plato

Svaropur is not a place where people are in want.—It has rice, peas, oil, molasses from its fields, vegetables in the garden, and fish from the tanks;—whose heart is not torn when obliged to leave such a place?
— from Nil Darpan; or, The Indigo Planting Mirror, A Drama. Translated from the Bengali by a Native. by Dinabandhu Mitra

A verb must agree with its subject in number and person.
— from An Advanced English Grammar with Exercises by George Lyman Kittredge

Its success may be due largely to the fact that, among thousands of religious works, it was one of the few which saw in nature a profound revelation, and which treated purely religious subjects in a reverent, kindly, tolerant way, without ecclesiastical bias.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

Show by example how a general statement is not as persuasive as a concrete example illustrating the point being discussed.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

And in the glow-worm—since their light is usually most brilliant in the female; in some species, if not all, present only in the season when the sexes are destined to meet; and strikingly more vivid at the very moment when the meeting takes place
— from An Introduction to Entomology: Vol. 2 or Elements of the Natural History of the Insects by William Kirby

England then ought at all hazards to contend against this devouring monster; she should assail it on all sides, and at once subdue it negatively and positively , that is to say, by the reduction of her expenditure and the increase of her capital.
— from Memoirs of the life, exile, and conversations of the Emperor Napoleon. (Vol. III) by Las Cases, Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné, comte de

I had hoped that Charles might have been happy with the object of his first affections; but that I see is not at present likely: fear, therefore, no persecution on that subject, either from me, or his mother and sister."
— from Mystery and Confidence: A Tale. Vol. 1 by Elizabeth Sibthorpe Pinchard

According to his account, and to the picture which I have taken from him, the Salamander is not a prepossessing-looking animal:—“The Salamander is also foure-footed like a Lyzard, and all the body over it is set with spots of blacke and yellow, yet is the sight of it abhominable, and fearefull to man.
— from Curious Creatures in Zoology by John Ashton

In the first sense, to be under the state, but not the state itself, nor any part of it , that is, to be nothing at all in the commonwealth, is a situation perfectly intelligible,—but to those who fill that situation, not very pleasant, when it is understood.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

We seek to strangle it to death, and each fresh attempt not only shows our murderous design, but proves that the skeleton is not a pulseless thing but is endowed with immortal life.
— from A Persian Pearl, and Other Essays by Clarence Darrow