With clenched hands, and teeth ground together so firm and tight that no locking of the jaws could have fixed and riveted them more securely, Ralph stood, for some minutes, in the attitude in which he had last addressed his nephew: breathing heavily, but as rigid and motionless in other respects as if he had been a brazen statue.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

I have had burdens to bear that would have broken an elephant’s back; the devil knows what I have suffered—no one could have suffered more, I think, and where are the traces?
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

That human life must be a kind of mistake is sufficiently clear from the fact that man is a compound of needs, which are difficult to satisfy; moreover, if they are satisfied, all he is granted is a state of painlessness, in which he can only give himself up to boredom.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

If a Jew will not seal his mind against the statements made in these articles, he will find in his own knowledge sufficient corroboration of their principal features, and he will be in a better position to assist in the solution of the Jewish Question.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous

The word cinaedus, translated “wanton,” might have been rendered by a word in vulgar use, the coarsest in the English language, and there is probably still more in the allusion too indelicate to be dwelt upon.]
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

Exclusive of the Lake basin and of 300,000 square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a part of it, this basin contains about 1,250,000 square miles.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

Soon, however, there was a small cluster of more important listeners, who were either deposited from the passers-by, or had sauntered to the spot expressly to see if there were anything going on at the Green Dragon; and Mr. Bambridge was finding it worth his while to say many impressive things about the fine studs he had been seeing and the purchases he had made on a journey in the north from which he had just returned.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

In past ages, indeed, this was actually done: in primitive conditions of society, and even now among certain savage peoples, the sick man is treated as a criminal and as a danger to the community, and it is believed that he is the resting-place of certain demoniacal beings who have entered into his body as the result of some offence he has committed—those ages and peoples hold that the sick are the guilty!
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Miss Williams found me, next morning, full of anxious tumult, which did not abate when she told me that my Lord Quiverwit, having professed honourable intentions, had been introduced to my lovely mistress by her brother, who had, at the same time, from the information of Melinda, spoken of me as an Irish fortune-hunter, without either birth or estate; who supported myself in the appearance of a gentleman by sharping and other infamous practices; and who was of such an obscure origin, that I did not even know my own extraction.
— from The Adventures of Roderick Random by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I attach so much importance to all that I have just been saying, that I am tormented by the fear of having impaired my meaning in seeking to render it more clear.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville

9 For they who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful passions, which sink men in the abyss of destruction and perdition.
— from A Translation of the New Testament from the original Greek Humbly Attempted with a View to Assist the Unlearned with Clearer and More Explicit Views of the Mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures of Truth by Thomas Haweis

At last, Kritias informed Lysander, that while Athens was governed by a democracy, the Lacedaemonian empire in Greece could never be safe; and if the Athenians were ever so much inclined to an oligarchical form of government, Alkibiades, if he lived, would not long suffer them to submit to it.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

St. Matthew and St. Luke give separate accounts of the infancy of our Lord, but they then join with St. Mark in their account of St. John the Baptist, the baptism and temptation of Christ, and the beginning of His ministry.
— from The Books of the New Testament by Leighton Pullan

"She--Hilda--must not see me in this absurd, disgraceful guise.
— from The Scarlet Banner by Felix Dahn

There is, however, some merit in the aggregate of those conceptions; but energy of character, and an unbending perseverance, for which we are not generally distinguished, would be requisite to produce any good result.
— from Memoirs of the life, exile, and conversations of the Emperor Napoleon. (Vol. III) by Las Cases, Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné, comte de

In all this time I had learned a great deal about music from the intellectual and emotional sides, music in the abstract and so on.
— from Vocal Mastery Talks with Master Singers and Teachers, Comprising Interviews with Caruso, Farrar, Maurel, Lehmann, and Others by Harriette Brower

Mr. Worsaae, the eminent Danish author, or his English translator, are exactly in the position to render this further service to antiquarian literature; and, as relating to the subject of Roman Britain, the question is of so much interest that a little trouble would not, probably, be deemed uselessly expended in the inquiry.
— from Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 134, May 22, 1852 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

A Week after I proposed it to about forty of those, whom I believed to be strong in Faith: And to the next Morning to about sixty more, intreating them all, to speak their Minds freely.
— from London by Walter Besant

Sister Morin, in the Annals of the Hôtel-Dieu, writes of these early times: "Nothing was put under key in these days, neither the houses, chests, or cellars; everything was left open without anyone repenting of their trustfulness.
— from Montreal, 1535-1914. Vol. 1. Under the French Régime, 1535-1760 by William H. (William Henry) Atherton