If it be wished to induce the egoist to act with beneficence and humanity, this can be done but in one way: he must be made to believe that the assuaging of others' suffering will, somehow or other, surely turn out to his own advantage .
— from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer

Sometimes, Grimaud, who feared his master as he did fire, while entertaining a strong attachment to his person and a great veneration for his talents, believed he perfectly understood what he wanted, flew to execute the order received, and did precisely the contrary.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

The old man appeared enraptured, and said some words, which Agatha endeavoured to explain to Safie, and by which he appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on him the greatest delight by her music.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

If she gave him to Ethel, to Anne, he would be still in a sense hers.
— from The Gay Cockade by Temple Bailey

She was sleepy, and at the same time she wanted to talk endlessly, to laugh and to cry, and to go to a restaurant to lunch that she might feel her freedom.
— from The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

“Suppose you want the chambermaid to empty the slopjar?”
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

“’Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,’ I am thankful enough to be here.”
— from She by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

5 By the agreement of the three females who governed the Roman world, the son of Placidia was betrothed to Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius and Athenais; and as soon as the lover and his bride had attained the age of puberty, this honorable alliance was faithfully accomplished.
— 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

Well, they had such an awful time making her understand ANYTHING, that after that, every time the piano commenced to play across the street, Mrs. White felt so glad she COULD hear it, that she didn't mind so much that she DID hear it, 'cause she couldn't help thinking how awful 'twould be if she was deaf and couldn't hear anything, like her husband's sister.
— from Pollyanna by Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

He was on the bench in that exalted tribunal for four years, during the last three of which he was chief justice.
— from Makers and Romance of Alabama History by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Riley

Nothing in Italy, nothing in the Tropics, equals the magnificence of the Polar skies.
— from Northern Travel: Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland by Bayard Taylor

The communication was thus established between the two poles, the current, starting from the positive pole, traversed the wire, passed through the magnet which was temporarily magnetised, and returned through the earth to the negative pole.
— from Abandoned by Jules Verne

General Torbert's division, then arriving from the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, represented the mounted arm of the service, and in the expectation that Averell would soon join me with his troopers, I assigned General Torbert as chief of cavalry, and General Wesley Merritt succeeded to the command of Torbert's division.
— from Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, Volume 1, Part 3 by Philip Henry Sheridan

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education): total: 16 years male: 16 years female: 17 years (2006)
— from The 2009 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

“Why, what is it that you covet for them?” “That they should see something of courts and cities, instead of being immured in this mountain-dungeon; that they should take that place in the world to which their rank entitles them, and that they should be followed by a host of admirers, and that their cotemporaries should have cause to envy their 65 good fortune.
— from The Hope of the Katzekopfs; or, The Sorrows of Selfishness. A Fairy Tale. by Francis Edward Paget

As it was impossible to explain to you, at one and the same time, all the resources of the needle as well as those of biting, between which, as I told you before, there exist very intimate relations, I had to choose a general example by which to demonstrate the processes employed, and which would allow me to explain the reasons for these processes.
— from A Treatise on Etching by Maxime Lalanne

But, my Lords, the very attempt to exact them utterly ruined the trade of the country.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 11 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

Never had he felt so closely united to her in sentiment.—And that the egregious Tadpole, of all living creatures, should prove so excellent a stalking-horse!
— from Adrian Savage: A Novel by Lucas Malet