“You suppose that one may attain to God by work, and by peasants’ work,” he repeated, reflecting as though he had really come across something new and serious which was worth considering.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Thus spake the old magician, and the higher men applauded him; so that Zarathustra went round, and mischievously and lovingly shook hands with his friends,—like one who hath to make amends and apologise to every one for something.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

While her aunt Bulstrode, who had a sisterly faithfulness towards her brother's family, had two sincere wishes for Rosamond—that she might show a more serious turn of mind, and that she might meet with a husband whose wealth corresponded to her habits.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

As, on their start from Sinaketa, they stopped for some time on Muwa and there performed the last act of their inaugurating rites and ceremonies, so in the same manner this beach is the place where they once more muster their forces after the journey has been accomplished.
— from Argonauts of the Western Pacific An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea by Bronislaw Malinowski

One of them, tall and thin, was Monsieur Saribe, the oil merchant, and the other, short and fat, was Monsieur Parisse.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

He first saw the old man; and then Christine entered, carrying the tea-tray.
— from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

"That thou art in truth a Christian," said the old man, "and that thou hast given thy father into the power of his enemies?"
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Without continuing the citation of cases, suffice it to say, the sin-atoning Gods of the orientals are reported as performing the same train of miracles assigned to Jesus Christ, such as performing astonishing cures, casting out devils, raising the dead, &c. Now, sadly warped indeed by education must be that mind which cannot see that if the account of such prodigies, reported in the history of Jesus Christ, can do anything towards proving him to have been a God, then the world must have been full of Gods long before his time.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

But the operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to each other.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

It is strenuously turning out money at the cost of happiness.
— from Nationalism by Rabindranath Tagore

"I blow my breath," said the old man, "and the streams stand still.
— from The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

They were beginning to have something like a theatrical establishment there, which we are sorry to hear has been suppressed; for we are of opinion with those who think that a taste for such kind of entertainments is one remove at least from profligacy, and that Shakspeare and Gay may be as safe teachers of morality as the ordinary treatises which assume to instil that science.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1 Miscellaneous Prose by Charles Lamb

Events that are now the masterful theme of history crowded in rapid succession, the opportune moment arrived, the hour struck, the proclamation that has no counterpart fell upon the ears of the startled world, and, as by the interposition of a mightier hand, a race was lifted out of the depths of bondage.
— from Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective by Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing) Stevenson

“Good-evening, sir,” said the old man at the door.
— from The Young Physician by Francis Brett Young

Before they came, Avonlea had seemed thousands of miles away; those letters brought it near and linked the old life to the new so closely that they began to seem one and the same, instead of two hopelessly segregated existences.
— from Anne of the Island by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

If this be so, then once more at the Savoy will there be a Sullivan-and-Guilbert Combination.
— from Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 108, May 25, 1895 by Various

Auld Nature swears the lovely dears, / Her 25 noblest work she classes, O; / Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, / An' then she made the lasses, O. Burns.
— 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.

Napoleon Murat was of a scientific turn of mind, and took great interest in our educational institutions.
— from The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 6 August 1906 by Various

Indeed, the enlightenment common to young wits and worm-eaten old satirists, who plume themselves on detecting the scientific ineptitude of religion—something which the blindest half see—is not nearly enlightened enough: it points to notorious facts incompatible with religious tenets literally taken, but it leaves unexplored the habits of thought from which those tenets sprang, their original meaning, and their true function.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

The ear, showing the outer, middle, and the inner part.
— from Principles of Public Health A Simple Text Book on Hygiene, Presenting the Principles Fundamental to the Conservation of Individual and Community Health by Thomas Dyer Tuttle