If men only wished to excel by the help of their own talents, and in following their duty, there would be nothing false in their taste or in their conduct.
— from Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims by François duc de La Rochefoucauld

It is said that they are its intimates , its associates , its friends ; it is believed that they are inseparable from it.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim

‘Well, sir?’ In turning his face towards the brothers he was obliged to avert it from the window; but, before either of them could speak, he had looked round again.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

The essential idea is to [381] divide the opposing force by penetrating through an interval found, or made, in it, and then to concentrate upon that one of the fractions which can be least easily helped by the other.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

870 , or else straight and very close together, as in fig.
— from Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

Nicolas with the preparations or the atlases in front, myself next, and after me, the cart-horse, modestly hanging his head; or, if necessary, a corpse on a stretcher in front and behind the corpse Nicolas and so on.
— from The Bet, and other stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

He watched earnestly the passing of the grey web of twilight across its face.
— from Dubliners by James Joyce

When he speaks of stupid and intelligent faces he is a physiognomist; he sees that there are intellectual foreheads and microcephalic ones, and is thus a craniologist; he observes the expression of fear and of joy, and so observes the principles of imitation; he contemplates a fine and elegant hand in contrast with a fat and mean hand, and therefore assents to the effectiveness of chirognomy; he finds one hand-writing scholarly and fluid, another heavy, ornate and unpleasant; so he is dealing with the first principles of graphology;—all these observations and inferences are nowhere denied, and nobody can say where their attainable boundaries lie.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

She turned away, and then, as if fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by human reason, and it will always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produced by the creative power of the mind, or are derived from the author of our being.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

[217] In New York, as in many if not all the States, the law relating to trusts as it formerly existed in England in its intricate details, has been abolished, and only express, active trusts are permitted, where the trustee has some active duty to perform in the management of the estate.
— from The Curiosities and Law of Wills by John Proffatt

The artist is finding that exuberance, this Open Sesame to the things that count, may not be won without the friendly collaboration of the pores; and that two birds of paradise may be killed with one stone (which is precious above rubies) by giving the mind fun while one gives the pores occupation.
— from The Joyful Heart by Robert Haven Schauffler

So I leave it in their hands, and would request that if they are in favor of such an association, to send their ideas, suggestions, and questions to the Post-office Box.
— from Harper's Young People, May 31, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

Harry, Tubbs, and I, finding that no one interfered with us, knelt down beside three of the men who were unable to move on the after part of the deck.
— from The Two Supercargoes; Or, Adventures in Savage Africa by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Serious preparations and a large ship for a mere voyage from one Australasian colony to another,” I felt inclined to say, but during the voyage and my first week in New South Wales I began to discover that in England we are given over to a singular delusion as to the connection of New Zealand and Australia.
— from Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-7 by Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Sir

If he sat down to his books it was there; and it fell across his vision like a dark shadow when the sun shone its bravest on the imposing array of the batteries at exercise.
— from 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? by Franz Adam Beyerlein

He would rope them all in, for games good enough with four are many times as good with eight or more.
— from The Coil of Carne by John Oxenham

For many a mile the banks of the river are of red soil, and as the flood eats into the banks its waters are stained a dull brick colour, which hue is imparted to the Atlantic itself for miles along the coast as the red waters pour out into the sea, bearing with them a wonderful collection of flotsam in the shape of timber, dead sto
— from Tales from the Veld by Ernest Glanville

The conduct of the army in Flanders was intrusted to mareschal Villeroy, and Boufflers commanded a separate army though subject to the other’s orders.
— from The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. Continued from the Reign of William and Mary to the Death of George II. by T. (Tobias) Smollett

I may here state, that I was present at the bombardment of Acre, and from a favourable situation witnessed the terrific result of the “Geyser” bombshells, which were thrown with such unerring certainty, that, knowing the position of the powder-magazine, they fired upon it with so nice an aim, that each succeeding shell struck upon the last in such a manner that the first thrown was thus forced through the wall, and occasioned the explosion; but I may further state what is yet a hidden mystery to the British public, and which in a great measure accounts for the facility with which this almost impregnable fortress was captured, and that is, that the Imams and the Cadi of Acre secretly warned the soldiery not to resist the arms of the British force there assembled, because they were fighting for the Sultan, whom it was their duty, as Mahomedans, to obey; and, moreover, that in the sight of God and the prophet, there was no other lawful Moslem king; none to be acknowledged, save the Sultan of the Sublime Porte, Abdul Medjid; and that if they acted against his interests, then the Prophet would utterly forsake page 119 p. 119 them, and such as fell in battle might fully make up their minds to be hurled into eternal perdition, and that such as fought in his favour would assuredly go to heaven.
— from The Thistle and the Cedar of Lebanon by Habeeb Risk Allah