And, truly, in these same books, Scævola is not silent as to his reason for rejecting the poetic sort of gods,—to wit, "because they so disfigure the gods that they could not bear comparison even with good men, when they make one to commit theft, another adultery; or, again, to say or do something else basely and foolishly; as that three goddesses contested (with each other) the prize of beauty, and the two vanquished by Venus destroyed Troy; that Jupiter turned himself into a bull or swan that he might copulate with some one; that a goddess married a man, and Saturn devoured his children; that, in fine, there is nothing that could be imagined, either of the miraculous or vicious, which may not be found there, and yet is far removed from the nature of the gods."
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

The existence of great souls is not suspected.
— from On Love by Stendhal

Moreover, systematization is never so complete that it effaces all the earlier state of things.
— from The Danish History, Books I-IX by Grammaticus Saxo

As long as it is only indirectly assailed by the interpretation of its laws, and as long as its substance is not seriously altered, a change of opinion, an internal crisis, or a war, may restore all the vigor which it requires.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is not strange to you.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

As benefits forgot; Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend rememb'red not.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

What if I am fifty and she is not sixteen?
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There was no motion in the dumb dead air, Not any song of bird or sound of rill; Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre Is not so deadly still As that wide forest.
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

My skull is not so thick; but last recess I finish’d a whole pamphlet for the press; And if by some seditious scribbler maul’d, 75 The pen of CHALMERS to my aid I call’d, With PRETTY would I write, tho’ judg’d by you; If all that authors think themselves be true.
— from The Rolliad, in Two Parts Probationary Odes for the Laureatship & Political Eclogues by Joseph Richardson

As his opinions and mine on the Greeks are nearly similar, I need say little on that subject.
— from Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 With His Letters and Journals by Thomas Moore

But an official routine soon sorts, separates, pairs, locates; speaks in Norwegian, speaks in Neapolitan.
— from Flamsted quarries by Mary E. (Mary Ella) Waller

Here he could make any complaints which he had to offer and be sure of a sympathetic if not satisfactory answer.
— from Old Fort Snelling, 1819-1858 by Marcus Lee Hansen

One is—on a supposition that the soul is not satisfied with what it has—to cause the soul to range and hunt through the world for something that may fill up that vacancy that yet the soul finds in itself, and would have supplied.
— from Works of John Bunyan — Complete by John Bunyan

I'll stay in the Upper School if nobody speaks to me till next midsummer, and if I have to stop up half the night slogging away at my work!"
— from The Youngest Girl in the Fifth: A School Story by Angela Brazil