Ponocrates showed him that he ought not to eat so soon after rising out of his bed, unless he had performed some exercise beforehand.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

—This fable seems invented to show the nature of the compacts and confederacies of princes; which, though ever so solemnly and religiously sworn to, prove but little the more binding for it: so that oaths, in this case, seem used rather for decorum, reputation, and ceremony, than for fidelity, security, and effectuating.
— from Bacon's Essays, and Wisdom of the Ancients by Francis Bacon

On the first news of the emperor's death, the troops expressed some suspicion and resentment, till the one was removed, and the other assuaged, by a donative of twenty pieces of gold to each soldier.
— 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

It is in this church that the celebrated "Black Stones" of Iona were kept, on which the old Highland chieftains were accustomed to take oaths of contract or allegiance, and for which they entertained so sincere a reverence that oaths thus ratified were never broken.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 94, August, 1865 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

The electric signals sent and received through the whole cable are perfect.
— from The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph by Henry M. (Henry Martyn) Field

The children took a couple of steps forward, under their feet the elastic sod sank and rose with a spurt of silver jets; they sprang back to their seats, and the shading tree above shook down a shining shower in rillets of silver rain.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics by Various

And so he began to prate of the smallness of human affairs, and how that even so slight a removal from earth made man and his works look like one tenth part of a dollar thrice computed.
— from Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry