It is difficult to explain a process of thought so strange and unaccustomed to us, in which modern distinctions run into one another and are lost sight of.
— from Timaeus by Plato

And seeing that nature appears to have recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and progression of the successive pieces of this machine of hers, ‘tis no wonder if, on the contrary, that of children towards their parents is not so great.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

The popes, who in this tempest submitted rather to bend than to break, confirmed by treaty the establishment and privileges of the senate, and expected from time, peace, and religion, the restoration of their government.
— 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

She sat in the cashier’s box, kept the theatre in order, wrote down the expenses, and paid out the salaries.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Let me be permitted to extract a passage on the subject from The Friend.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Kings of Granajah and of the Six Nations believe that it was created with the Earth, and produced on the same Day with the Sun and Moon.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Now, this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of an endless duration of the existence and personality of the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul).
— from The Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant

I to them, where the Goldsmiths do decry the new Act, for money to be all brought into the Exchequer, and paid out thence, saying they will not advance one farthing upon it; and indeed it is their interest to say and do so.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And thus in politics, there is the government of the many and the government of the few; or a democracy and an oligarchy: for an aristocracy may be considered as a species of oligarchy, as being also a government of the few; and what we call a free state may be considered as a democracy: as in the winds they consider the west as part of the north, and the east as part of the south: and thus it is in music, according to some, who say there are only two species of it, the Doric and the Phrygian, and all other species of composition they call after one of these names; and many people are accustomed to consider the nature of government in the same light; but it is both more convenient and more correspondent to truth to distinguish governments as I have done, into two species: one, of those which are established upon proper principles; of which there may be one or two sorts: the other, which includes all the different excesses of these; so that we may compare the best form of government to the most harmonious piece of music; the oligarchic and despotic to the more violent tunes; and the democratic to the soft and gentle airs.
— from Politics: A Treatise on Government by Aristotle

Mr. Greig, the editor and publisher of the South African Almanac, says, “It is compiled from tax and rolls, and there is an omission of the itinerants’ and Hottentots’ settlement at Kat river, &c., to the number of between fifteen and sixteen thousand;” and Cape Town is supposed to contain about twenty-two thousand, in December, 1833, instead of the number stated.
— from Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat In the U. S. Sloop-of-war Peacock, David Geisinger, Commander, During the Years 1832-3-4 by Edmund Roberts

Alexander made the Emperor a present of three superb pelisses of martin-sable, one of which the Emperor gave to his sister Pauline, another to the Princess de Ponte-Corvo; and the third he had lined with green velvet and ornamented with gold lace, and it was this cloak which he constantly wore in Russia.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon by Various

This is to be acquired not externally through creeds and priests, but internally by the education and purification of the soul.
— from The Influence of Buddhism on Primitive Christianity by Arthur Lillie

In pursuance of their plans, on the same afternoon, they bade adieu to the inhabitants of Kacunda, and every thing having been conveyed to the canoe, they embarked and pushed off the shore, in the sight of a multitude of people.
— from Travels of Richard and John Lander into the interior of Africa, for the discovery of the course and termination of the Niger From unpublished documents in the possession of the late Capt. John William Barber Fullerton ... with a prefatory analysis of the previous travels of Park, Denham, Clapperton, Adams, Lyon, Ritchie, &c. into the hitherto unexplored countries of Africa by Robert Huish

At the same time a series of rocks were cast up diagonally across this region to the south, thus enclosing a portion of the salt waters within the basin so formed.
— from The World's Progress, Vol. 01 (of 10) With Illustrative texts from Masterpieces of Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Modern European and American Literature by Delphian Society

It was a good custom because it not only enabled the Salesmen to earn a portion of their salaries during the dull months, but also got them into the habit of breakfasting before Noon.
— from Dumbells of Business by Louis Custer Martin Reed

"If," continued the letter, "we can not prevent vessels from passing up, and the enemy are possessed of the surrounding country, what valuable purpose can it answer to attempt to hold a post from which the expected benefit can not be derived?
— from The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 Commander in Chief of the American Forces During the War which Established the Independence of his Country and First President of the United States by John Marshall