"One incontestible certainty has been proved to me both in the wonderful guidance of my life as also in my profession, which I now hold for more than sixteen years, that of myself I can do nothing, not even the slightest thing, and imbued with the conviction of my powerlessness and utter helplessness, of my own poverty and wretchedness, I have learnt to make use of the sweetest privilege of our life, namely, the subjection of my own will to the will of my Saviour, Jesus Christ."
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

Only perhaps in Sophocles is there a perfect harmony of the two; in him alone do we find a grace of language like the beauty of a Greek statue, in which there is nothing to add or to take away; at least this is true of single plays or of large portions of them.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

In the darkness, its front seems some pale orb of light, The chamois with fear flashes on in its flight, The eagle afar is driven; The deluge but roars in despair to its feet, And scarce dare the eye its aspect to meet, So near doth it rise to heaven.
— from Poems by Victor Hugo

As regards the letter W and some small parts of other letters which have not yet appeared in the NED , a reference has been given to its abridgement ( The Concise Oxford Dictionary ).
— from A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary For the Use of Students by J. R. Clark (John R. Clark) Hall

So. [ Pushes Oswald out. ] LEAR.
— from The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare

This fresh break between the sweet past of our love and the short future that remains to us in this life, makes the present very painful.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo Edited with a Biography of Juliette Drouet by Louis Guimbaud

The Town was very far from being satisfied with this reason, and most people judged the true cause to be, either That he was quite spent, and wanted matter to continue his undertaking any longer; or That he laid it down as a sort of submission to, and composition with, the Government for some past offences; or, lastly, That he had a mind to vary his Shape, and appear again in some new light.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Here and there they wish even to make women into free spirits and literary workers: as though a woman without piety would not be something perfectly obnoxious or ludicrous to a profound and godless man;—almost everywhere her nerves are being ruined by the most morbid and dangerous kind of music (our latest German music), and she is daily being made more hysterical and more incapable of fulfilling her first and last function, that of bearing robust children.
— from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

She passed out of life, it seems, painlessly and instantly, but it is worse for those who are left."
— from The Curse of Carne's Hold: A Tale of Adventure by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

They will be serviceable in taking off the surplus produce of our lands, and supplying us with necessaries during the infant state of our manufactures.
— from Patrick Henry by Moses Coit Tyler

Ba´al , or Bel , a Semitic word, which primarily signified lord or proprietor, and was afterwards applied to many different divinities, or, with qualifying epithets, to the same divinity regarded in different aspects, describing him as an occupier of some physical object or locality, or as a possessor of some attribute.
— from The New Gresham Encyclopedia. Atrebates to Bedlis Vol. 1 Part 3 by Various

Even this slave's-patch of private interest given to only a fraction of the colonists put some life into Virginia; but two thirds of the people were retained in the old intolerable bondage, and not even the most favored secured personal ownership of land.
— from The Beginners of a Nation A History of the Source and Rise of the Earliest English Settlements in America, with Special Reference to the Life and Character of the People by Edward Eggleston

She preys on other lives.
— from The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales Including Stories by Feodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky, Jörgen Wilhelm Bergsöe and Bernhard Severin Ingemann by Various

Near it were scattered pieces of old lace, antiquated jewelry, tarnished silverware,—the various mute souvenirs of the joys and sorrows of a long and active life.
— from The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. (Charles Waddell) Chesnutt

A mere desire for happiness is not the right motive; for, notwithstanding a man, when reasoning on the subject, may be able to see that, unless he is employed in doing something useful to his fellows, he cannot be even contented, yet when he follows out the impulses of his nature, if not compelled to work, he will seek for relief from the uneasiness he feels in almost any thing else: especially is he inclined to run into excitements, instead of turning to the quiet and more satisfying pursuits of ordinary life.
— from The Last Penny and Other Stories by T. S. (Timothy Shay) Arthur

The nails ( Ungues ) which form important protective structures on the back of the most sensitive parts of our limbs, the tips of the fingers and toes, are horny growths of the epidermis, which we share with the apes.
— from The Evolution of Man by Ernst Haeckel

“I've got to get some pleasure out of life, Mr. Hendricks.”
— from A Poor Wise Man by Mary Roberts Rinehart