Even such general complaints of the scarcity of money do not always prove that the usual number of gold and silver pieces are not circulating in the country, but that many people want those pieces who have nothing to give for them.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

I have always found it comparatively easy to see visions while at ancient monuments like New Grange and Dowth, because I think such places are naturally charged with psychical forces, and were for that reason made use of long ago as sacred places.
— from The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. (Walter Yeeling) Evans-Wentz

For the question is not of promises mutuall, where there is no security of performance on either side; as when there is no Civill Power erected over the parties promising; for such promises are no Covenants: But either where one of the parties has performed already; or where there is a Power to make him performe; there is the question whether it be against reason, that is, against the benefit of the other to performe, or not.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

For the Rays to speak properly are not coloured.
— from Opticks Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Isaac Newton

The opinion that the epistle was addressed by the Laodiceans to St Paul, and not conversely, found much support in the age of the Greek commentators.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A revised text with introductions, notes and dissertations by J. B. (Joseph Barber) Lightfoot

And whereas it is controverted, whether they can bewitch cattle to death, ride in the air upon a cowl-staff out of a chimney-top, transform themselves into cats, dogs, &c., translate bodies from place to place, meet in companies, and dance, as they do, or have carnal copulation with the devil, they ascribe all to this redundant melancholy, which domineers in them, to [1307] somniferous potions, and natural causes, the devil's policy.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Sometimes even incestuous unions, which in normal times are thought abominable and are severely punished, are now contracted openly and with impunity.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

and said no more, but repeated those words continually, with a voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace; and nobody could ever find him to stop or rest, or take any sustenance, at least that ever I could hear of.
— from A Journal of the Plague Year Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London by Daniel Defoe

“We might begin to try to FEEL good,” said Phyllis, “and not call names.”
— from The Railway Children by E. (Edith) Nesbit

No ancient British or Gaulish coins have ever been found in similar positions, and no Christian coins, which, had their presence been purely accidental, would probably have been the case.
— from Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses by James Fergusson

A physician cannot practise without it; he must have leave even to refuse to attend to night calls; he cannot prescribe anæsthetics, narcotics, or poisons without special permission; and no chemist would make up a prescription containing any of these drugs unless the doctor’s name were on his special list.
— from Mysteries of Police and Crime, Vol. 1 (of 3) by Arthur Griffiths

A sudden invasion of Bohemia by the Silesians produced a new cause of distrust; for the nobles were suspected of having been very remiss in their resistance of the invaders.
— from Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 With a short summary of later events by C. Edmund (Charles Edmund) Maurice

We still pursue a northerly course.
— from Foot-prints of Travel; Or, Journeyings in Many Lands by Maturin Murray Ballou

The Delta , which has advocated Secession these ten years, makes it a signal for the war-whoop:— "War is a great calamity; but, with all its horrors, it is a blessing to the deep, dark, and damning infamy of such a submission, such surrenders, as the southern people are now called upon to make to a foreign invader.
— from The Secret Service, the Field, the Dungeon, and the Escape by Albert D. (Albert Deane) Richardson

She put a new candle in her lantern; she changed her shawl for a maud, and leaving the door on latch, she sallied out.
— from Round the Sofa; vol. 2 by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The situation of France has amply demonstrated the folly of attempting to make a whole people reasoners and politicians—there seems to be no medium; and as it is impossible to make a nation of sages, you let loose a horde of savages: for the philosophy which teaches a contempt for accustomed restraints, is not difficult to propagate; but that superior kind, which enables men to supply them, by subduing the passions that render restraints necessary, is of slow progress, and never can be general.
— from A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Part III., 1794 Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners by Charlotte Biggs

Divorce is permitted, and, if a man divorces his wife, he usually gives her some paddy, a new cloth, and a rupee.
— from Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vol. 1 of 7 by Edgar Thurston