for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure The taints and blames I laid upon myself, For strangers to my nature.
— from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

The more fertile Taoist and Buddhist imaginations led to the preservation of what the Confucianists, distrusting the marvellous, would have allowed to die a natural death.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

Meanwhile the servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles of wine.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The pilot said that “those of Borneo brought for trade with the Filipinos, copper and tin, which was brought to Borneo from China, porcelain, dishes, and bells made in their fashion, very different from those that the Christians use, and benzoin, and colored blankets from India, and cooking-pans made in China, and that they also brought iron lances very well tempered, and knives and other articles of barter, and that in exchange for them they took away from the islands gold, slaves, wax, and a kind of small seashell which they call ‘sijueyes,’ and which passes for money in the kingdom of Siam and other places; and also they carry off some white cloths, of which there is a great quantity in the islands.”
— from A History of the Philippines by David P. Barrows

The god was wroth, and at his temples threw A branch in Lethe dipp’d, and drunk with Stygian dew: The pilot, vanquish’d by the pow’r divine, Soon clos’d his swimming eyes, and lay supine.
— from The Aeneid by Virgil

Then was it that by signs, which in all occurrences of venereal love are incomparably more attractive, valid, and efficacious than words, she beckoned to him to come along with her to her house; which when he had done, she drew him aside to a privy room, and then made a most lively alluring sign unto him to show that the game did please her. Whereupon, without any more advertisement, or so much as the uttering of one word on either side, they fell to and bringuardized it lustily.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

What the knitting was, I don’t know, not being learned in that art; but it looked like a net; and as she worked away with those Chinese chopsticks of knitting-needles, she showed in the firelight like an ill-looking enchantress, baulked as yet by the radiant goodness opposite, but getting ready for a cast of her net by and by.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

And it leads us back by this route of the social consciousness, to emphasize in life, and in our theological thinking upon the conditions of entering the kingdom of God, Christ's own insistence upon the two universally human characteristics found in every child—susceptibility and trust, which, voluntarily cherished, become teachableness and belief in love.
— from Theology and the Social Consciousness A Study of the Relations of the Social Consciousness to Theology (2nd ed.) by Henry Churchill King

May we drink to thee and be immortal like thee!'
— from Storyology: Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore by Benjamin Taylor

Till at last, finding its efforts ineffectual, quite tired and breathless, it lays itself down, and pants at the bottom of the cage, seeming to bemoan its cruel fate and forfeited liberty.
— from Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 4 by Samuel Richardson

For, the poor little harmless gentleman once had his fancy, like the rest of us, and she didn't answer (as she often does not), and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like the fancy as she was then (which she is not at all), and that if the fancy had not married some one else for money, but had married him for love, he and she would have been happy (which they wouldn't have been), and that she has a tenderness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb).
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Although some families are blessed with numerous children, the average birthrate is less than two per family—and there are many people who choose not to have families at all.
— from The Alembic Plot: A Terran Empire novel by Ann Wilson

Ellesmere Canal, which start at stated periods for Liverpool, &c. There are twelve [4] licensed inns and public houses in this little town, all of them very respectable; and whether it is owing to superior management, or to the excellence of the water, which is the most pure imaginable, and flows abundantly in every part of the town, the ale brewed in Llangollen is in great and deserved repute all over the kingdom.
— from History of Llangollen and Its Vicinity Including a Circuit of About Seven Miles by W. T. (Wilfrid Tord) Simpson

"Your father King Haffgo was angry this afternoon, because I looked at you; but," added the lover, "I could not have helped doing it, if I knew my life would have paid for the act.
— from The Land of Mystery by Edward Sylvester Ellis