‘Tis not enough to reckon experiences, they must weigh, sort and distil them, to extract the reasons and conclusions they carry along with them.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

For let any Man who knows what it is to have passed much Time in a Series of Jollity, Mirth, Wit, or humourous Entertainments, look back at what he was all that while a doing, and he will find that he has been at one Instant sharp to some Man he is sorry to have offended, impertinent to some one it was Cruelty to treat with such Freedom, ungracefully noisy at such a Time, unskilfully open at such a Time, unmercifully calumnious at such a Time; and from the whole Course of his applauded Satisfactions, unable in the end to recollect any Circumstance which can add to the Enjoyment of his own Mind alone, or which he would put his Character upon with other Men.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

ance of the Eagles Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles, The rushing amorous contact high in space together, The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling, Till o'er the river pois'd, the twain yet one, a moment's lull, A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing, Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight, She hers, he his, pursuing. H2 anchor Roaming in Thought [After reading Hegel] Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast all that is call'd Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

For a few short hours only we rough sailors were permitted to enjoy the refined and cultured society of our generous friends, and it is to be hoped we came out the purer for the contact.
— from In Eastern Seas Or, the Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 by J. J. Smith

To ascertain this point, an equal number of frogs, deprived of the power to exercise their respiratory and circulating functions, together with others left entire, were respectively plunged into disaërated water.
— from The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, July-December, 1827 by Various

For it is only in virtue of an undefined perception that the relation between bulk and weight in the one stone is equal to the relation between bulk and weight in the other, that even the roughest approximation can be made.
— from Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects Everyman's Library by Herbert Spencer

Like some fast steed, wi’ all its speed, All seemed as they wor flying; To escape the rain, an’ catch the train Both old an’ young wor trying.
— from Adventures and Recollections by Bill o'th' Hoylus End

At the inquest the evidence took rather a curious turn.
— from The Master Detective: Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles by Percy James Brebner

The genius of Swedenborg, largest of all modern souls in this department of thought, wasted itself in the endeavor to reanimate and conserve what had already arrived at its natural term, and, in the great secular Providence, was retiring from its prominence, before western modes of thought and expression.
— from Representative Men: Seven Lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson

He seemed to enjoy the repose and comparative solitude of this place, where he met but few persons, except those of my own family, for we usually saw but little company.
— from The Life of Sir Humphrey Davy, Bart. LL.D., Volume 1 (of 2) by John Ayrton Paris

To tell these women that they had a sphere, was merely to excite their ridicule, and court their contempt.
— from The Life of a Celebrated Buccaneer A Page of Past History for the Use of the Children of To-day by Richard Clynton

In Alaska Basin he can study the gently tilted layers of sandstone, limestone, and shale that once blanketed the entire Teton Range and can search for the fossils that help determine their age and decipher their history.
— from Creation of the Teton Landscape: The Geologic Story of Grand Teton National Park by John C. (John Calvin) Reed

The passengers across the aisle would perk their ears, then rise and come, craning their necks, to find the words he was reading from the bill-board, or finally some old fellow would come up to the seat and declare that he could not find where it said that.
— from The Army Mule, and Other War Sketches by Henry A. (Henry Anson) Castle