To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book about the world solely to swear people on in cases of emergency, would be to state what I never quite established; but this I can say, that I never knew him put it to any other use.
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

'I don't know what to suppose; there is no knowing how young women will act.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Having staid out my time that I thought fit for me to return home, I home and there took coach and with my wife to Walthamstow; to Sir W. Pen’s, by invitation, the first time I have been there, and there find him and all their guests (of our office only) at dinner, which was a very bad dinner, and everything suitable, that I never knew people in my life that make their flutter, that do things so meanly.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

The same truth is now known about crime; but the understanding and the application of it are just opening upon us.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

For I am sure that I never knew him give birth to such fine conceptions, or display so much eloquence, as in the time of his sickness.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

And I’ll tell you what, sir, that I never knew the people play yet, but if a word had passed atween them and the main-masters aforehand, it might not have been settled; but you can’t get at them any way.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

“For,” said he, “I would be unknown.” “Sir,” said his host, “ye shall have your desire, for here is the shield of my eldest son, Sir Torre, who was hurt the day he was made knight, so that he cannot ride; and his shield, therefore, is not known.
— from The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights by Knowles, James, Sir

And I think, continued he, that the shock I received the year after the demolition of Dunkirk, in my affair with widow Wadman;—which shock you know I should not have received, but from my total ignorance of the sex,—has given me just cause to say, That I neither know nor do pretend to know any thing about 'em or their concerns either.—Methinks, brother, replied my father, you might, at least, know so much as the right end of a woman from the wrong.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

“A very slight touch; I never knew my father so well.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

Honest, I needed the dope myself for fair by that time, what with the lady bein' that way I'm 'a tellin' you, and Kelly, the crazy Irishman—I could hear him off in one corner givin' his reg'ler stunt about his friend, O'Houlihan, lately landed and lookin' for work, comes to a sausage factory and goes up to the boss and says, 'Begobs!'— you know the old gag—say, I run out in the snow and looked over to the crowd around the fire and thought of Prof. pokin' around in that dressin'-room for Kelly's other kid, when he might 'a jumped after he got the first one, and, say, this is no kid—first thing I knew I begin to bawl like a baby.
— from The Seeker by Harry Leon Wilson

He growls and prowls, and roams and foams, about the stage, in every direction, like a tiger in his cage, so that I never know on what side of me he means to be; and keeps up a perpetual snarling and grumbling like the aforesaid tiger, so that I never feel quite sure that he has done , and that it is my turn to speak.
— from Records of Later Life by Fanny Kemble

“I wish that some one else had been saved, though I now know for certain that the only ones with whom I could have associated are dead!”
— from The Rival Crusoes by William Henry Giles Kingston

I can truly say that I never knew a gentleman more earnest and energetic, in the pursuit of journalism, while you have displayed accomplishments for the profession that are rare and invaluable.
— from Reminiscences of Confederate Service, 1861-1865 by Francis Warrington Dawson

I, and I only, perhaps, am above the law, since there is no King now.
— from An Episode under the Terror by Honoré de Balzac

I can truly say, that I never knew a single defect in this princess.
— from Lives of Celebrated Women by Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich

Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard, What other pleasure can the world afford?
— from The History of King Henry the Sixth, Third Part by William Shakespeare

“Surely, if I feasted not, neither went out to war, they might say, ‘This is no king, but the cripple Morven;’ and some of the race of Siror might slay me secretly.
— from The Fallen Star, or, the History of a False Religion by E.L. Bulwer; And, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil by Lord Brougham by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

When a man, especially a wealthy man, sets out to erect a memorial to something or somebody, there is no knowing what eccentricity he will not commit.
— from The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 131, February, 1909 by Various

Here some of us fell to handycap, a sport that I never knew before."
— from Old and New London, Volume I A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places by Walter Thornbury