The window-cases, door-cases, and chimnys of all the house are marble.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

They said their prayers inwardly, and lying down, since there was nobody there with authority to make them kneel and recite aloud; in truth, they had a mind not to say them at all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as that, lest they might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from heaven.
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

True art is inseparable from the highest and most ennobling ideas.
— from Laws by Plato

They had engaged all the tables for themselves, ordered the lights to be increased, and had posted on the wall beside the landscapes and Chinese kakemonos this strange versicle: “GLORY TO CUSTODIO FOR HIS CLEVERNESS AND PANSIT ON EABTH TO THE YOUTHS OF GOOD WILL.” In a country where everything grotesque is covered with a mantle of seriousness, where many rise by the force of wind and hot air, in a country where the deeply serious and sincere may do damage on issuing from the heart and may cause trouble, probably this was the best way to celebrate the ingenious inspiration of the illustrious Don Custodio.
— from The Reign of Greed by José Rizal

The fact is, between my respected reader and myself, that I was one of the handsomest and most dashing young men of England in those days, and my wife was violently in love with me; and though I say it who shouldn’t, as the phrase goes, my wife was not the only woman of rank in London who had a favourable opinion of the humble Irish adventurer.
— from Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray

He returned to the house, and Morgiana led him to his chamber.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Even in literature, the highest and most spiritual art, the forms are often confused.
— from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

ATHENIAN: Are we agreed thus far? CLEINIAS: About what? ATHENIAN: That every man and boy, slave and free, both sexes, and the whole city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of which we have spoken; and that there should be every sort of change and variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that the singers may always receive pleasure from their hymns, and may never weary of them? CLEINIAS: Every one will agree.
— from Laws by Plato

I have ever, as much as I could, wholly taken upon myself alone the hazard of our assignations, to acquit them; and have always contrived our meetings after the hardest and most unusual manner, as less suspected, and, moreover, in my opinion, more accessible.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Thus in two or three days the place was made thoroughly habitable, and men were detailed to see that the grounds, etc., were always kept thoroughly clean and in a good sanitary condition, a very necessary precaution in a tropical country.
— from The National Geographic Magazine, Vol. I., No. 4, October, 1889 by Various

" This phrase was interpreted to him as meaning that no article must be one line longer than the strictly allotted space.
— from The Silver Poppy by Arthur Stringer

Every house appeared to possess a dog, which made it its business to howl and make the night hideous.
— from Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant 1840-1910 by Forwood, William Bower, Sir

It was hard, she said, to refuse any of the dear children anything, and she was aware how little she had to give them, but she knew her duty to herself and Mrs Hawthorne.
— from Penelope and the Others: Story of Five Country Children by Amy Walton

Half a dozen tables held as many groups of dusty, motley men, some silent, others speaking and gesticulating, all earnest.
— from The Rustlers of Pecos County by Zane Grey

It must also be borne in mind that they had a month previously been raw troops of whom practically none had been under fire.
— from The War History of the 4th Battalion, the London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), 1914-1919 by F. Clive Grimwade

The bear made directly towards him, and my heart throbbed wildly as I saw the brute approach almost within clawing distance.
— from The War Trail: The Hunt of the Wild Horse by Mayne Reid

Two hours after midnight
— from El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness

While the wreckers were thus engaged, the fishermen appeared from their huts and made ready for another day on the lake.
— from The Copper Princess: A Story of Lake Superior Mines by Kirk Munroe