There was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and with weakish legs, as yet unversed in the wiles of waiterhood, and but too evidently of a romantic temperament, and deeply (it were not too much to add hopelessly) in love with some young female not aware of his merit.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

And they so well, that as Hierome in like case said, si nostrum areret ingenium, de illorum posset fontibus irrigari , if our barren wits were dried up, they might be copiously irrigated from those well-springs: and I shall but actum agere ; yet because these tracts are not so obvious and common, I will epitomise, and briefly insert some of their divine precepts, reducing their voluminous and vast treatises to my small scale; for it were otherwise impossible to bring so great vessels into so little a creek.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Are there any men who displease thee?" To this he replied, "No." "Dost thou think thou art held in less esteem by me than thou wouldst like to be?"
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

You used to say that about him in letters.
— from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott (Francis Scott) Fitzgerald

The predictions of the augurs had inspired Litorius with the profane confidence that he should enter the Gothic capital in triumph; and the trust which he reposed in his Pagan allies, encouraged him to reject the fair conditions of peace, which were repeatedly proposed by the bishops in the name of Theodoric.
— 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

Had I not been and spoken to you, O Adam, concerning the tree, and had I left you without a commandment, and you had sinned—it would have been an offence on My part, for not having given you any order; you would turn around and blame Me for it.
— from The First Book of Adam and Eve by Rutherford Hayes Platt

That this truth should nowadays sound paradoxical, which would not have been the case in the first thirty years after the appearance of the Critique of Reason, is due to the fact that a generation has grown up that does not know Kant properly, because it has never heard more of him than a hasty, impatient lecture, or an account at second-hand; and this again is due to the fact that in consequence of bad guidance, this generation has wasted its time with the philosophemes of vulgar, uncalled men, or even of bombastic sophists, which are unwarrantably commended to it.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
— from Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare

—The reason for repeating this article here is largely historical, tho interest in the matter discust occasionally crops out even yet.
— from On the Firing Line in Education by Adoniram Judson Ladd

To a white man they are humility itself, looking upon him, by their own account, as their father, and so considering him bound to provide them with everything they want, even to his last pair of trowsers or pipeful of tobacco; refuse them anything when you are dependent upon their services on a journey, and they will leave you in the woods; for their own part, if they have ammunition they are always at home.
— from The Barren Ground of Northern Canada by Warburton Pike

Suddenly she exclaimed: "Why, the atmosphere here is like Spain!
— from Set in Silver by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

Yet these characters evidently gave expression to a highly intellectual language.
— from Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett Putman Serviss

That army had its leaders, though they wore only the uncouth regimentals of the rank and file.
— from Pilots of the Republic: The Romance of the Pioneer Promoter in the Middle West by Archer Butler Hulbert

The cattle “stolen or strayed,” as the advertisements have it, “lowed,” and were troublesome; while those born and bred in the glen were content to graze in peace, and to “low” only when they deemed it absolutely necessary.
— from Nether Lochaber The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands by Stewart, Alexander, Rev.

And then Caiaphas’ scribe stood forth and said, I have the accusations here in legal form; the charges made and signed by scribes and priests and Pharisees.
— from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ The Philosophic and Practical Basis of the Religion of the Aquarian Age of the World and of The Church Universal by Levi

If I were to hold out a bit of cake to him, and say, 'Ta,'"—(and as I spoke I did so to a highly intelligent little gentleman who sat close to the bars of the cage with his eyes on my face, as if he were well aware that a question of deep importance to himself was being discussed)— "He would probably snatch it out of your hand without further ceremony," said my father.
— from A Flat Iron for a Farthing; or, Some Passages in the Life of an only Son by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

There are hemistichs in Lucan that go to one's soul and one's heart;—for a mere epic poem, a fabulous tissue of uninteresting battles that don't teach one even to fight, I know nothing more tedious.
— from Letters of Horace Walpole — Volume I by Horace Walpole