The policy of Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his most irreconcilable enemy.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

I had to summon a good deal of courage to take a student who had been studying cube root and "banking and discount," and explain to him that the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly master the multiplication table.
— from Up from Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

It is true that at all times an etiology, unmindful of its real aim, has striven to reduce all organised life to chemism or electricity; all chemism, that is to say quality, again to mechanism (action determined by the shape of the atom), this again sometimes to the object of phoronomy, i.e. , the combination of time and space, which makes motion possible, sometimes to the object of mere geometry, i.e. , position in space (much in the same way as we rightly deduce the diminution of an effect from the square of the distance, and the theory of the lever in a purely geometrical manner): geometry may finally be reduced to arithmetic, which, on account of its one dimension, is of all the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the most intelligible, comprehensible, and completely susceptible of investigation.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

He saw the aghast looks of her auditors, changing from horror to fury—the names of those already sacrificed were echoed by their relatives, now assured of their loss.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"Take good care," dowager lady Chia enjoined some of them, "and stay with him, while he rests for a while, when he can come back;" whereupon Chia Jung's wife, Mrs. Ch'in, smiled and said with eagerness: "We got ready in here a room for uncle Pao, so let your venerable ladyship set your mind at ease.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

As he dreaded his own constancy in the first—he very chearfully betook himself to the second; and though he could very well have explained it, as I said, to his honour,—yet, for that very reason, he had a spirit above it; choosing rather to bear the contempt of his enemies, and the laughter of his friends, than undergo the pain of telling a story, which might seem a panegyrick upon himself.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

As Tarquin was stirring up the Etruscans to a second war with Rome, a great portent is said to have taken place.
— from Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4) by Plutarch

As nothing can happen either to an ox, a vine, or to a stone, which is not incidental unto them; unto every one in his own kind.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

The Huron chief, therefore, stepped eagerly out a little from the throng, to a spot whence he might catch a nearer glimpse of the features of the man, whose decision was likely to produce so deep an influence on his own fortunes.
— from The Last of the Mohicans; A narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper

Man is wholly external, the Angelic Spirit wholly internal.
— from Seraphita by Honoré de Balzac

" Since the above sketch was written Dr. Chalmers has gone to his rest.
— from The Genius of Scotland; or, Sketches of Scottish Scenery, Literature and Religion by Robert Turnbull

Whoever did it must have known that a storm was coming and thought that the first good puff of wind would leave us without a roof over our heads.
— from The Meadow-Brook Girls on the Tennis Courts; Or, Winning Out in the Big Tournament by Janet Aldridge

Unfortunately the plantations have recently been interspersed with Forastero or Trinidad-Criollo trees—called in Venezuela “Trinitarios because brought over from Trinidad, a species which requires less attention and bears more fruit, but which just on that account supplies commoner and mediocre beans, slowly fermenting, and often developing a violet hue.
— from The Manufacture of Chocolate and other Cacao Preparations by Paul Zipperer

They are sick who gloat over news of victories and see conquered miles of territory rise resplendent above mounds of corpses.
— from Men in War by Andreas Latzko

The ponds were frozen, too, and skating was added to the sum of their rural delights.
— from Madcap by George Gibbs

Beginning at first with small and imperfect alluvial plains, the river, as it descends toward the sea, [Pg 180] gaining in store of water and in the amount of débris which comes with that water from the hills, while the rate of fall and consequent speed of the current are diminished, soon comes to a stage where it is engaged in an endless struggle with the terrace materials.
— from Outlines of the Earth's History: A Popular Study in Physiography by Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

The "Albemarle" started with a convoy of thirty-odd vessels on the 10th of April, 1782; and after a short stop at Cork, anchored at St. John's, Newfoundland, on May 27, whence she reached Quebec July 1.
— from The Life of Nelson, Volume 1 The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

At Rue des Bois in May 1915, when the battalion attacked the German positions near Festubert, every company was played up, and Pipers Stuart and Wishart distinguished themselves, and Stuart was awarded the D.C.M. REG.
— from The Pipes of War A Record of Achievements of Pipers of Scottish and Overseas Regiments during the War, 1914-18 by John (Pipe-Major) Grant

Maseden smiled grimly behind a cloud of cigarette smoke because of the absurd shock which the words administered.
— from His Unknown Wife by Louis Tracy