When the child wants something it ought not to have, its mother hands it something else and moves the object about until the child reaches out for it.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

She threw herself in my arms, and we spent a delightful night, during which I had full opportunity of admiring the strength of her constitution as well as my own restraint, for I had sufficient control over myself not to break through the last obstacle.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

While some claim that to his improved method of studying nature are chiefly to be attributed the prodigious strides taken by modern science, others deny him all merit in this respect.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson

To this however I made answer, that I should prefer continuing my studies; and as it so happened, he himself had just given me something to write.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

But, faith,'twas little use to try; For not so much as raise an eye Would this huge wielder of the spade: If he's the hest, it must be said Bad is the best, and the skald's praise Cannot be given to churls like these.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

Minor poets like Sidney, Drayton, and Daniel paid tribute to his inspiration; Milton was deeply indebted to him, especially in Lycidas ; and many of the pensive poets of the seventeenth century show traces of his influence.
— from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I by Edmund Spenser

The Himalayas In my early youth I had conceived a fancy to journey along the Grand Trunk Road, right up to Peshawar, in a bullock cart.
— from My Reminiscences by Rabindranath Tagore

My heart quite fails me when I think how I might have lost that beautiful luncheon-basket.
— from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is Mr. Charles Darnay.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

As the wife given to him in marriage by his father and mother was this year just twenty, and possessed further several traits of beauty, and was also naturally of a flighty and frivolous disposition, she had an extreme penchant for violent flirtations.
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

He was a poseur , and owed his position to his ingenious methods and his plausible tongue.
— from Behind the Throne by William Le Queux

"I've hardly spoken two words to him in my life," she replied.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

Further than that the liliputian mirror refused to go, and, with a smile at its absurdity in not taking in her chin and lower row of teeth, she resolved to have it more conveniently hung, and turned to her window.
— from Her Sailor: A Love Story by Marshall Saunders

To be true humour, it must not be at all a cynical thing—as soon as it becomes cynical, it loses all its natural grace; it is an essentially tender-hearted quality, apt to find excuse, ready to condone, eager to forgive.
— from At Large by Arthur Christopher Benson

In order to secure Chamberlain's support I told him "I might be able to save a seat for you and give the extended Birmingham seven if you liked to make that a condition, but in that case I must get one somewhere for Glasgow also out of the rest of Scotland, which is skinning flints."
— from The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Volume 2 by Stephen Lucius Gwynn

I have often thought that after Stanley completed his studies, I would take him into my office, and teach him my own profession.
— from Vashti; Or, Until Death Us Do Part by Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) Evans

Things that have interested me, third series.
— from U.S. Copyright Renewals, 1953 January - June by Library of Congress. Copyright Office

Stay, take this bracelet for the new thought thou hast inspired me with; remember, if thou servest Julia, she is grateful
— from The Last Days of Pompeii by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron