As for Jacob, he became well known to strangers also, by the greatness of that prosperity in which he lived, and left to his sons, who came into Egypt with no more than seventy souls, while you are now become above six hundred thousand.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

Well hast thou taught the dastard foe That British honour never yields To democratic influence, low, The glory of a thousand fields.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

But if the lawfulness of benevolent deception in any case be admitted, I do not see how we can decide when and how far it is admissible, except by considerations of expediency; that is, by weighing the gain of any particular deception against the imperilment of mutual confidence involved in all violation of truth.
— from The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

The expression in the glance of that child of eight years was habitually so gloomy, and at times so tragic, that it seemed at certain moments as though she were on the verge of becoming an idiot or a demon.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

Though the emperors no longer dreaded the ambition of their praefects, they were attentive to counterbalance the power of this great office by the uncertainty and shortness of its duration.
— 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

By those best acquainted with his habits, the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of parochial duty, and, more than all, by the fasts and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

If an Army is surprised, and therefore cannot make a regular and intelligent use of its powers and resources, then the effect of the surprise is not doubtful.—If theory has determined that in a battle the convergent form of attack is calculated to produce greater but less certain results, then the question is whether he who employs that convergent form had in view chiefly that greatness of result as his object; if so, the proper means were chosen.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

And as they wended their way by Nelson’s Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel street, Little Britain street chanting the introit in Epiphania Domini which beginneth Surge, illuminare and thereafter most sweetly the gradual Omnes which saith de Saba venient they did divers wonders such as casting out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying fishes, healing the halt and the blind, discovering various articles which had been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and prophesying.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

The confusion got worse every moment, and Alice was very glad to get out of the wood into an open place, where she found the White King seated on the ground, busily writing in his memorandum-book.
— from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

I only smiles, and lets the other two go on till they need the judgment and the whip—then they get them.
— from Jack Ballington, Forester by John Trotwood Moore

By this arrangement, when the divergence of the balls I causes the collar E to be drawn down, the fork K , whose prongs are inserted in the groove of that collar, is likewise drawn down; and, on the other hand, when, by reason of the balls I falling towards the [Pg211] vertical spindle, the collar E is raised, the fork K is likewise raised.
— from The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated (Seventh Edition) With an Account of Its Invention and Progressive Improvement, and Its Application to Navigation and Railways; Including Also a Memoir of Watt by Dionysius Lardner

Beneath him knelt, with bowed heads, the groups of the peasant-pilgrims; the women, with murmuring lips and clasped hands, their strong, deeply-seamed faces outlined, with the precision of a Francesco painting, against the gray background of a giant mass of wall, or the amazing breadth of a vast sea-view; children, squat and chubby, with bulging cheeks starting from the close-fitting French bonnet ; and the peasant-farmers, mostly of the older varieties, whose stiffened or rheumatic knees and knotty hands made their kneeling real acts of devotional zeal.
— from In and out of Three Normandy Inns by Anna Bowman Dodd

“In reason, it is scarcely a defect, but with Morales it is a passion which is apt to betray into indiscretions a man who should have nothing at heart but the good of his country and the good of himself.”
— from The Dust of Conflict by Harold Bindloss

They have a growth of their own, like the growth of a flower, a tree, a human being.
— from Theaetetus by Plato

Of course, signals might be made to passing ships, but signals were often, according to maritime history, unheeded, and the ocean was very large and empty, though it was only the German Ocean....
— from The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett

The origin of prairies has occasioned much theory; it is to our mind very simple: they are caused by the Indian custom of annually burning the leaves and grass in autumn, which prevents the growth of any young trees.
— from The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 19, No. 530, January 21, 1832 by Various

THE GENESIS OF SCIENCE.
— from Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions by Herbert Spencer

They lengthen by unrolling their twist, they shorten by rolling it again; lastly, they become adhesive by taking the glaze of the gummy moisture wherewith they are filled.
— from The Wonders of Instinct: Chapters in the Psychology of Insects by Jean-Henri Fabre

"Oh, found the book in the lord's library?" asked the TN: "gentlemen" changed to "gentleman" on Page 24 gentleman with some astonishment.
— from Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician by Alexandre Dumas