Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said: “I dare you to step over that, and I’ll lick you till you can’t stand up.
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

It was a time when in the acres in late there was a wheel that shot a burst of land and needless are niggers and a sample sample set of old eaten butterflies with spoons, all of it to be are fled and measure make it, make it, yet all the one in that we see where shall not it set with a left and more so, yes there add when the longer not it shall the best in the way when all be with when shall not for there with see and chest how for another excellent and excellent and easy easy excellent and easy express e c, all to be nice all to be no so.
— from Tender Buttons Objects—Food—Rooms by Gertrude Stein

As Christians assume the liberty to arrange the doctrines of Paul and Peter under the head of Christianity because claimed to be in consonance with the religion of Christ, though not all taught by him, the author, in like manner, has assumed, that some doctrines taught by other systems and religious teachers of India accord with those taught by Chrishna, and hence has arranged them with his.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

And although they all in like manner, with common accord, teach us also to despise pain, poverty, and the other accidents to which human life is subject, it is not, nevertheless, with the same solicitude, as well by reason these accidents are not of so great necessity, the greater part of mankind passing over their whole lives without ever knowing what poverty is, and some without sorrow or sickness, as Xenophilus the musician, who lived a hundred and six years in a perfect and continual health; as also because, at the worst, death can, whenever we please, cut short and put an end to all other inconveniences.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Ney coming from the shores of Lake Constance, Lannes from Upper Swabia, Soult and Davoust from Bavaria and the Palatinate, Bernadotte and Augereau from Franconia, and the Imperial Guard from Paris, were all thus arranged in line on three parallel roads, to debouch simultaneously between Saalfeld, Gera, and Plauen, few persons in the army or in Germany having any conception of the object of these movements which seemed so very complicated.
— from The Art of War by Jomini, Antoine Henri, baron de

Afterwards, I allowed an ant to visit them, and it immediately seemed, by its eager way of running about to be well aware what a rich flock it had discovered; it then began to play with its antennae on the abdomen first of one aphis and then of another; and each, as soon as it felt the antennae, immediately lifted up its abdomen and excreted a limpid drop of sweet juice, which was eagerly devoured by the ant.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

there ’tis natural, but usually nursed up in gardens for the use of the apothecaries in London.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

But Jane and me were allays contrairy; she would have striped things, and I like spots.
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

All of them held possibilities of misunderstanding, and these misunderstandings were increased tenfold by differences in nationality, in temper, and in language.
— from The Boys' Life of Lafayette by Helen Nicolay

In one of his many stories of Lincoln, his law partner, W. H. Herndon, told this as illustrating Lincoln’s shrewdness as a lawyer: “I was with Lincoln once and listened to an oral argument by him in which he rehearsed an extended history of the law.
— from The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete by Abraham Lincoln

He looked timid, and I liked to see his embarrassment.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

And from this time, although I lay four months in prison after this, and heard no more of it, yet from this time, as I learned afterwards, this noble person made it his business to have my case represented to her majesty, and methods taken for my deliverance.
— from An Appeal to Honour and Justice, Though It Be of His Worst Enemies. Being A True Account of His Conduct in Public Affairs. by Daniel Defoe

I went down the room and stuck my head through the winder, and as true as I live it was a little room all full of bushes and roses sot up on benches; it had a glass ruff, and the sides were one allfired great winder, with little vines a hanging down over it, and [Pg 56] a great tree chuck full of something that looked like oranges, a standing up agin it.
— from High Life in New York A series of letters to Mr. Zephariah Slick, Justice of the Peace, and Deacon of the church over to Weathersfield in the state of Connecticut by Ann S. (Ann Sophia) Stephens

I encamped with my command on the banks of the Coosa, which was the dividing line between the Cherokee and Creek Indians, where I was compelled to halt for want of provisions for my own command; and at no time after I left Knoxville had I more than five days' rations for my army.
— from Red Eagle and the Wars With the Creek Indians of Alabama. by George Cary Eggleston