For I have already reaped from it such fruits that, although I have been accustomed to think lowly enough of myself, and although when I look with the eye of a philosopher at the varied courses and pursuits of mankind at large, I find scarcely one which does not appear in vain and useless, I nevertheless derive the highest satisfaction from the progress I conceive myself to have already made in the search after truth, and cannot help entertaining such expectations of the future as to believe that if, among the occupations of men as men, there is any one really excellent and important, it is that which I have chosen.
— from Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences by René Descartes

Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

Josefina was bright, vivacious, and a welcome addition to the little colony at Talisay, but at times Rizal had misgivings as to how it came that this foreigner should be permitted by a suspicious and absolute government to join him, when Filipinos, over whom the authorities could have exercised complete control, were kept away.
— from Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot by Austin Craig

Nor will they, I dare say, who quarrel at this or any other of the sacred histories, find it a very easy matter to reconcile the different accounts which were given by historians of the affairs of this king, or to confirm any one fact of his whatever with the same evidence which is here given for the principal fact in this sacred book, or even so much as to prove the existence of such a person, of whom so great things are related, but upon granting this Book of Esther, or sixth of Esdras, [as it is placed in some of the most ancient copies of the Vulgate,] to be a most true and certain history," etc.]
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

In vacuo lćtus sessor plausorque theatro— and could have exclaimed with equal reason against the friendly hands that cured us— Pol me occidistis, amici, Non servâstis, ait; cui sic extorta voluptas, Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

The statement of this curious fact—intended merely to assist me in identifying the person of whom we were in search—when coupled with the additional information that Anne Catherick had escaped from a mad-house, started the first immense conception in my mind, which subsequently led to such amazing results.
— from The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The awful combatants held each other in a tight embrace.
— from A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the severity of a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with such deliberate policy.
— 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

Little more than a century has elapsed since their conversion from a spurious Hinduism to the doctrines of the sectarian Nanak, and their first attempt to separate themselves, in temporal as well as spiritual matters, from all control, and they are now the sole independent power within the limits [399] of the Mogul monarchy.
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever dreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings, more than the author himself knew.
— from Symposium by Plato

Then the Antelope ceased his effort, with the intention of trying some “lock” of which the white boy knew nothing.
— from Deerfoot on the Prairies by Edward Sylvester Ellis

Dick saw the dim forms stretched in hundreds on the ground, and, thanking his uncle for his kindness, he stretched himself upon an unoccupied bit of turf and closed his eyes.
— from The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler

He sat down under a tree, and pressed his tired-out body to the trunk and closed his eyes.
— from A Slav Soul, and Other Stories by A. I. (Aleksandr Ivanovich) Kuprin

Thus it came to pass that, with a shamelessness for which history shows few parallels, the German Chancery gave out that a 'Convention' had existed, by which Belgium had betrayed her most sacred pledges and violated her own neutrality for the benefit of England.
— from The Great War and How It Arose by Anonymous

Therewith he fell to, and straightened his body, and laid his huge limbs together and closed his eyes and folded his arms over his breast; and then he piled the stones above him, and went on casting them on the heap a long while after there was need thereof.
— from The Well at the World's End: A Tale by William Morris

But with Little Thunder breaking the trail and chanting his encouraging refrain in front and the trader and his demoniac stallion dynamically bringing up the rear, this achievement was effected without the straying of a single animal.
— from Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police: A Tale of the Macleod Trail by Ralph Connor

The Abbot covered his eyes with his hand, then said, “There is a monk here that I hold to be holy as any living Dominican!”
— from Silver Cross by Mary Johnston

In 1782, Inquisitor-general Beltran issued a decree reciting that ample cause had existed for exceeding the Tridentine rule, but these causes had ceased and, in view of the usefulness of the sacred text, the Spanish rule was modified to conform to that of Trent, to the decree of the Congregation of 1757 and to the brief of 1778.
— from A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3 by Henry Charles Lea

The angle chambers have either cross-groined vaults or flat dome vaults.
— from Byzantine Churches in Constantinople: Their History and Architecture by Alexander Van Millingen

Production of textiles and carpets has expanded recently and accounted for about 80% of foreign exchange earnings in the past three years.
— from The 2001 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency