Poetry has ever had that power over me from a child to transpierce and transport me; but this vivid sentiment that is natural to me has been variously handled by variety of forms, not so much higher or lower (for they were ever the highest of every kind), as differing in colour.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

§ v. For the first way, my friend, to overcome anger, like the putting down of some tyrant, is not to obey or listen to it when it bids you speak loud, and look fierce, and beat yourself, but to remain quiet, and not to make the passion more intense, as one would a disease, by tossing about and crying out.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

Thereupon the friar fell a-smiling, and said, 'My son, that is no thing to be recked of; we who are of the clergy, we spit there all day long.'
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

But we hardly find this view in the Common Sense of civilised Europe, upon which we are now reflecting: at any rate in our societies there is not thought to be any portion of the definite prescriptions of positive law which, in virtue of its origin, is beyond the reach of alteration by any living authority.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

What makes them so rare is that if the heart, thus disposed to love beforehand, has the slightest inkling of its situation, there is no thunderbolt.
— from On Love by Stendhal

But a man need not be great in order to be sincere; that is not the necessity of Nature and all Time, but only of certain corrupt unfortunate epochs of Time.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

No doubt their company may be set down against our loss in this respect; but the more a man is worth, the more he will find that what he gains does not cover what he loses, and that the balance is on the debit side of the account; for the people with whom he deals are generally bankrupt,—that is to say, there is nothing to be got from their society which can compensate either for its boredom, annoyance and disagreeableness, or for the self-denial which it renders necessary.
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer

It is less mechanical than on other days; you will say, "That is not the post, I am sure."
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so much as rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil.
— from Pascal's Pensées by Blaise Pascal

For whom sh d a lad submit to, if not to his own father?
— from Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Volume 6 by Robert Bridges

Unlikely, too, that Jack Fisher will take part in perfunctory performances, as when the House, meeting at 4.15, sits twiddling its noble thumbs till 4.30, the hour on stroke of which public business commences.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 by Various

“If she is desired to be silent, there is nothing to be said,” replied Flora, sitting down again, while Ethel ran away to guard her secret.
— from The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations by Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary) Yonge

"But everybody says there is nothing to Christian Science," said the pastor.
— from The Pastor's Son by William W. Walter

"Why," said Tyrrel, "is not the mercy of God promised to the wicked in every part of the Bible?"
— from Coelebs In Search of a Wife by Hannah More

Thine is she for the music thou canst pour Through her white limbs, the madness, the deep dream; Thine, while thy kiss Can sweep her flaming with thee down the stream That is not thou nor she but merely bliss; The music ended, she is thine no more.
— from A Jongleur Strayed Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane by Richard Le Gallienne

She looked at me, at this, with that air of timid but candid and even gratified curiosity with which she had confronted me from the first; and then she said, “There is nothing to tell.
— from The Aspern Papers by Henry James

After that date, roughly speaking, this is not the case.
— from The Common People of Ancient Rome Studies of Roman Life and Literature by Frank Frost Abbott

So there is nothing to be done!
— from Captivity and Escape by Jean Martin