Dealing with these secretive people is like traveling on a stage coach on a dark night.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

More than once I've sworn off coming for that reason, and then he would write me such penitent, imploring letters that I just had to.
— from The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle

Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui, / Ultra quod satis est virtutem si petat ipsam —Let the wise man bear the name of fool, and the just of unjust, if he pursue Virtue herself beyond the proper bounds.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

One whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, i.e. whose shot pouch is longer that the barrel of his piece.
— from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose

The history of Sea Power is largely, though by no means solely, a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Eratosthenes says, “That to repel strangers is a practice common to all barbarians, but that this charge against the Egyptians is derived from fabulous stories related of (one) Busiris and his people in the Busirite Nome, as some persons in later times were disposed to charge the inhabitants of this place with inhospitality, although in truth there was neither king nor tyrant of the name of Busiris: that besides there was a common saying, ‘The way to Egypt is long and vexatious,’ 836 which originated in the want of harbours, and in the state of the harbour at Pharos, which was not of free access, but watched and guarded by herdsmen, who were robbers, and attacked those who attempted to sail into it.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

And while the documents moldered or were shifted about, while the stamped papers increased like the plasters of an ignorant physician on the body of a hypochondriac, Basilio became informed of all the details of what had happened in Tiani, of the death of Juli and the disappearance of Tandang Selo.
— from The Reign of Greed by José Rizal

“The spectacle of the world,” said Pythagoras, “is like the Olympic games; some are buying and selling and think only of their gains; others take an active part and strive for glory; others, and these not the worst, are content to be lookers-on.”
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ad′lington, a straggling place in Lancashire to the south-east of Chorley, engaged in the cotton manufacture.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. A to Amide Vol. 1 Part 1 by Various

Like any other natural science, psychology is limited to description and causal explanation of the phenomena of its special field, which in this case is states of consciousness.
— from Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries by Rufus M. (Rufus Matthew) Jones

Making my son Parwīz its leader, the leading nobles who were at the capital were appointed to this duty.
— from The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri: or, Memoirs of Jahangir (Volume 1 of 2) by Emperor of Hindustan Jahangir