Do you suppose that a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work?
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

None of these omens had any effect upon Caius Flaminius, the consul, for, besides his naturally spirited and ambitious nature, he was excited by the successes which he had previously won, contrary to all reasonable probability.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

The British scientist may tell the British soldier in India that the native is in reality his brother, and that it is wholly absurd and illogical and unscientific for such a thing as "race prejudice" to exist between them.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Yet as a maritime State, securely resting upon a broad basis of sea commerce, France, as compared with other historical sea-peoples, has never held more than a respectable position.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

She opened the drawer in the table and began flinging the papers out of it on the table at random, poking me in the chest with her elbow and brushing my face with her hair; as she did so, copper coins kept dropping upon my knees and on the floor.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

There I would show him how to hold himself, how to carry his body and head, how to place first a foot then a hand, to follow lightly the steep, toilsome, and rugged paths, to leap from point to point, either up or down.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

His blue double-breasted coat, edged with black braid, buttoned close to a red puff tie, and his patent-leather shoes looked like murder-fitted weapons.
— from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane

For they say that only those deeds are to be admired and are worthy of serious treatment and repeated praise which, because of their magnitude, have been thought by some to be incredible, those stories for instance about that famous woman 592 of Assyria who turned aside as though it were an insignificant brook the river 593 that flows through Babylon, and built a gorgeous palace underground, and then turned the stream back again beyond the dykes that she had made.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 1 by Emperor of Rome Julian

The little word seemed to have turned a rapier point of his sensitiveness against this courteous and vigilant foe.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Much cannot be founded on merely negative evidence; but it would be certainly a curious circumstance should it be found that this graceful family, first ushered into being some time in the later Palæozoic periods, was withdrawn from creation during the Middle ages of the earth's history, to be again introduced in greatly more than the earlier proportions during the Tertiary and recent periods.
— from The Testimony of the Rocks or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed by Hugh Miller

The Porte of Philippe-Auguste was where the house No. 30 now stands, and this part of the street was known then as Rue Porte-Montmartre.
— from Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff

Brethren, from henceforth, let truth and righteousness prevail and abound in you; and in all things be temperate; abstain from drunkenness, and from swearing, and from all profane language, and from everything which is unrighteous or unholy; also from enmity, and hatred, and covetousness, and from every unholy desire.
— from History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Volume 3 by Smith, Joseph, Jr.

Tom and Roger pushed with the last ounce of strength in their bodies, and after a final desperate effort, slumped to the floor breathless.
— from Stand by for Mars! by Carey Rockwell

This may be a glorious though a remote prospect.
— from Magic and Religion by Andrew Lang

If, considering that mine is a very wide house, and by no means lofty, aught in the above may appear like interested pleading, as if I did but fold myself about in the cloak of a general proposition, cunningly to tickle my individual vanity beneath it, such misconception must vanish upon my frankly conceding, that land adjoining my alder swamp was sold last month for ten dollars an acre, and thought a rash purchase at that; so that for wide houses hereabouts there is plenty of room, and cheap.
— from The Apple-Tree Table, and Other Sketches by Herman Melville

Every day this matter will go forth—sermons, lectures on prohibition, noble thoughts and religious poems."
— from Solander's Radio Tomb by Ellis Parker Butler