If we turn from contemplating the world as a whole, and, in particular, the generations of men as they live their little hour of mock-existence and then are swept away in rapid succession; if we turn from this, and look at life in its small details, as presented, say, in a comedy, how ridiculous it all seems!
— from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer

Having, like Jude, made rather a hasty toilet to catch the train, Arabella looked a little frowsy, and her face was very far from possessing the animation which had characterized it at the bar the night before.
— from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer; sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe than's artificial one.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Capitation taxes are levied at little expense; and, where they are rigorously exacted, afford a very sure revenue to the state.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

There are Liancourt, and La Rochefoucault; the liberal Anglomaniac Dukes.
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

Nor must it be forgotten that at least a large proportion of such people who are brought to court have prepared their story or probably blocked it out in the rough.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

A heavy blow on the head from a baseball bat, and the rapid projection of a baseball against his empty stomach, brought the tutor a limp and lifeless mass to the ground.
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

A month or so ago, we were all talking and laughing, and looking up a subject for one of Adelaida’s pictures—you know it is the principal business of this family to find subjects for Adelaida’s pictures.
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

At nightfall he gave orders for the watch-fires to be lit; and leaving the main body of his troops in the camp, and selecting the most suitable of his men, he had them armed lightly, and led them through the narrow parts of the road during the night, and seized on the spots which had been previously occupied by the enemy: they having, according to their regular custom, abandoned them for the nearest town.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

She crouched over the stairs, listening to a low and long-toned voice monotonously telling what seemed to be one sole thing over and over, without variation, in the room where the men were.
— from Rhoda Fleming — Complete by George Meredith

After the carrying would come supper, and the worn-out cart-horse which had brought it afield from the Parsonage stood at the foot of the knoll among the unladen kegs and baskets, patiently whisking his tail to keep off the flies, and serenely indifferent that a lean and lanky youth, seated a few yards away with a drawing-board on his knee, was attempting his portrait.
— from Hetty Wesley by Arthur Quiller-Couch

She was very sweet to look at; but, if she had descended from her pedestal, and talked a little and laughed a little, and even perhaps—but the idea of anything like flirtation on the part of Alice Meredith was too absurd an idea to be entertained for a moment.
— from A Son of the Soil by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

The abdomen has, so to speak, vanished, 561 and through this the abdominal limbs are left only, as thin and dry poles or staffs.
— from Elements of Physiophilosophy by Lorenz Oken

One of these men Lincoln had become well acquainted with in the Black Hawk War—Major John T. Stewart, 6 at that time a lawyer, and, like Lincoln, a candidate for the General Assembly.
— from McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 2, January, 1896 by Various

This produced a class described by Jefferson who said: "There were then aristocrats, half-breeds, pretenders, a solid independent yeomanry, looking askance at those above, yet not venturing to jostle them, and last and lowest, a seculum of beings called overseers, the most abject, degraded and unprincipled race, always cap in hand to the Dons who employed them for furnishing material for the exercise of their price."
— from The Journal of Negro History, Volume 1, January 1916 by Various

This apparatus looks a little more like a regular sounder than App.
— from How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus Containing Complete Directions for Making All Kinds of Simple Apparatus for the Study of Elementary Electricity by Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John

Come now, say good-night to all like a lady, Toddlekins."
— from Joyce's Investments: A Story for Girls by Fannie E. (Fannie Ellsworth) Newberry

wherein, as commissioner for Solomon’s timber, and like a learned architect and planter, he has summon’d a jury of twelve sorts of trees; namely,
— from Sylva; Or, A Discourse of Forest Trees. Vol. 1 (of 2) by John Evelyn

As they strolled together through a flowery alley, she made them pass their hands through the thyme and lavender, and listen to a bird singing its verses, loud and then soft, in the scented air above them.
— from The Man Between: An International Romance by Amelia E. Barr