for I know well what valour is, that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes, cowardice and temerity; but it will be a lesser evil for him who is valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until he reaches the point of cowardice; for, as it is easier for the prodigal than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour; and believe me, Senor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a card too many than by a card too few; for to hear it said, 'such a knight is rash and daring,' sounds better than 'such a knight is timid and cowardly.'" "I protest, Senor Don Quixote," said Don Diego, "everything you have said and done is proved correct by the test of reason itself; and I believe, if the laws and ordinances of knight-errantry should be lost, they might be found in your worship's breast as in their own proper depository and muniment-house; but let us make haste, and reach my village, where you shall take rest after your late exertions; for if they have not been of the body they have been of the spirit, and these sometimes tend to produce bodily fatigue."
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Leonid Andreyevitch, they say, has accepted a post in a bank; he will get sixty thousand roubles a year....
— from Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

(He was Duport, who received sixty thousand rubles a year for this art.)
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The rooms were smallish and had low ceilings, and the furniture was typical of the summer villa (Russians like having at their summer villas uncomfortable heavy, dingy furniture which they are sorry to throw away and have nowhere to put), but from certain details I could observe that Kisotchka and her husband were not badly off, and must be spending five or six thousand roubles a year.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

“You are the rudest person I ever met,” said the Rocket, “and you cannot understand my friendship for the Prince.”
— from The Happy Prince, and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde

Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and you will find that you have though you will not believe me now." Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more, and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand, and two or three others laying by her.
— from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Well, strange to relate, and yet not strange, our ancestors with the going-out of their sense of sight also felt their sense of hearing on the wane.
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

Rationalism is a kind of builder's bias which the impartial public cannot share; for the dead walls and glass screens which may have no function in supporting the roof are yet as needful as the roof itself to shelter and beauty.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Thus faring on and passing from one thing to another, as it chanceth in discourse, they presently fell to talking of the orisons that men offer up to God, and one of the highwaymen, who were three in number, said to Rinaldo, 'And you, fair sir, what orison do you use to say on a journey?'
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

A house may be away off among the hills; it may be kivered all over with vines an' the flowers may sweeten the roof, and yit inside thar may be a heart that is a smotherin'."
— from The Starbucks by Opie Percival Read

This had already been attempted by others, who failed because their plates were not sufficiently sensitive to red and yellow.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 by Various

From this I understand how it is that the shore seems to recede as you sail away from it.
— from The World I Live In by Helen Keller

One of the gendarmes several times repressed a yawn.
— from Resurrection by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

“Now good time for dem rascal to lose scalp!” “Them rascals, as you call them, begin to understand their friends in the marsh, and are looking to the priming of their rifles.
— from Oak Openings by James Fenimore Cooper

Though madder and weld might supply the reds and yellows which he needed, blue was more troublesome.
— from Victorian Worthies: Sixteen Biographies by George Henry Blore

These are scenes so bloody as almost to be too shocking to relate; and yet as many may not be acquainted with the horrible nature of them, it may be proper, for the excitement of our aversion and detestation, to describe them in a few words.
— from The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims. Volume 2 (of 2) by Andrew Steinmetz

The troops and the sheriff were trying to oppose the crowd by force and stop the riot, and you say you did not agree with their plan of action?
— from Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877 Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878 by 1877 Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July

The little filling stitch I am going to suggest to you is so simple that really after you have buttonholed the handkerchief your task is almost completed.
— from The Library of Work and Play: Needlecraft by Effie Archer Archer