Up, and to the office, where busy all the morning, and then at noon to the ‘Change with Mr. Hater, and there he and I to a tavern to meet Captain Minors, which we did, and dined; and there happened to be Mr. Prichard, a ropemaker of his acquaintance, and whom I know also, and did once mistake for a fiddler, which sung well, and I asked him for such a song that I had heard him sing, and after dinner did fall to discourse about the business of the old contract between the King and the East India Company for the ships of the King that went thither, and about this did beat my brains all the afternoon, and then home and made an end of the accounts to my great content, and so late home tired and my eyes sore, to supper and to bed. 26th (Lord’s day).
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

But when their royal power became hereditary in their family, and they found every necessary for security ready to their hands, as well as more than was necessary for their personal support, then they gave the rein to their appetites; imagined that rulers must needs wear different clothes from those of subjects; have different and elaborate luxuries of the table; and must even seek sensual indulgence, however unlawful the source, without fear of denial.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

For, in all the world, is there a more entrancing spectacle than that of a young, handsome mother with, in her arms, a healthy child?
— from Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

I say, keep hold of a few plain truths, and make everything square with them.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot

So that even if the average man ever should reach such a pitch of sympathetic development, as never to feel prompted to sacrifice the general good to his own, still this will not prove that it is egoistically reasonable for him to behave in this way.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

In his uneasiness Huck found himself drawing closer and closer to the alley; fearing all sorts of dreadful things, and momentarily expecting some catastrophe to happen that would take away his breath.
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

" Carry, in her rare moments of prosperity, became so expansively maternal that Miss Bart sometimes wondered whether, if she could ever get time and money enough, she would not end by devoting them both to her daughter.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

A young man in our college yonder asked me to formulate for him what I thought was the happiest hour in a man's history, and I studied it long and came back convinced that the happiest hour that any man ever sees in any earthly matter is when a young man takes his bride over the threshold of the door, for the first time, of the house he himself has earned and built, when he turns to his bride and with an eloquence greater than any language of mine, he sayeth to his wife, "My loved one, I earned this home myself; I earned it all.
— from The Art of Public Speaking by J. Berg (Joseph Berg) Esenwein

rather expeditious mode of transferring patterns on to thin and more especially smooth glossy stuffs, is by means of a special kind of tinted paper, called autographic paper, which is impregnated with a coloured oily substance and is to be had at any stationer's shop.
— from Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont

It was found, upon investigation after some years of agitation, that the factory at which this 'manufacture' took place was in reality merely a depôt in which the already manufactured article was manipulated to a moderate extent, so as to lend colour to the President's statement that a local industry was being fostered.
— from South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 8) From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum of 9th Oct. 1899 by Louis Creswicke

Kitty knocked a photograph-book off the table, and Mrs. Ellison said, "Why, Kitty!"
— from A Chance Acquaintance by William Dean Howells

Primary education is largely supported by government grants; there are many excellent schools and colleges; the chief universities are Dublin and the Royal (an examining body only).
— from The Nuttall Encyclopædia Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge by P. Austin Nuttall

We (as before) lay off thirty degrees on the arc m each side of the intersection of said arc with the line A B' , and thus establish on the arc m the points a b , and from A as a center draw through the points so established the radial lines A a' and A b' .
— from Watch and Clock Escapements A Complete Study in Theory and Practice of the Lever, Cylinder and Chronometer Escapements, Together with a Brief Account of the Origin and Evolution of the Escapement in Horology by Anonymous

But his advice that all maritime efforts should be confined to privateers, prevailed, and Bainbridge and Stewart were told that the decision which had been made respecting the national ships, could not be changed.
— from The Second War with England, Vol. 1 of 2 by Joel Tyler Headley

“Let's sit down there a minute, Ellen,” said she.
— from The Portion of Labor by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman