the helplessness of a thing urges me on to plunge into it so deeply that I end by penetrating to its deepest depths, and perceive that in reality it is not worth so very much.
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Thus it will be under nature; for within a confined area, with some place in the natural polity not perfectly occupied, all the individuals varying in the right direction, though in different degrees, will tend to be preserved.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

My conscience (saith [6767] Anselm) dictates to me that I deserve damnation, my repentance will not suffice for satisfaction: but thy mercy, O Lord, quite overcometh all my transgressions.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

75: Celmis, again, and Damnameneus, the first of the Idaean Dactyls, discovered iron in Cyprus; but bronze smelting was discovered by Delas, another Idaean, though Hesiod calls him Scythes 1501 .
— from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod

Many suns circle in desert space: to all that is dark do they speak with their light—but to me they are silent.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

‘I’d go ten thousand mile,’ he said, ‘I’d go till I dropped dead, to lay that money down afore him.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I know that, seen as I see it to-day, the place is the very archetype of all that is darksome, dull, desolate, dismal, and dreary.
— from Birds of Prey by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon

Flames soon burst from the roof—the log hut was ablaze—and, with loud screeches of joy, the Indian devils danced about the crumbling remains of the once peaceful home.
— from Famous Indian Chiefs Their Battles, Treaties, Sieges, and Struggles with the Whites for the Possession of America by Charles H. L. (Charles Haven Ladd) Johnston

It is true I delivered a certain sum of money, by his order, to Mr. Nolan; but Philip Nolan is not James Wilkinson; ergo , I may with a safe conscience swear that I never delivered James Wilkinson any money, &c., but I scorn to make use of any such pitiful, contemptible and degrading mode of defence, and will allow for a moment that I did deliver to General Wilkinson the money in question.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 3 (of 16) by United States. Congress

Not knowing which of the women he was alluding to, I dipped down and, dodging the crowd, broke through the ring and flung myself upon Phoebe; my one fear was that she would be too late for her work and that the promise I had made to Cliffords would be broken.
— from Margot Asquith, an Autobiography - Two Volumes in One by Margot Asquith

Her three daughters, Miss Susan, Miss Sophie, and Miss Emma, taught in different departments of the school, and were in every respect most admirably fitted for their different stations.
— from Lewie; Or, The Bended Twig by Sarah H. (Sarah Hopkins) Bradford

When I had done this, I began to work my way into the rock, and bringing all the earth and stones that I dug down, out through my tent, I laid them up within my fence in the nature of a terrace, that so it raised the ground within about a foot and a half; and thus I made me a cave just behind my tent, which served me like a cellar to my house.
— from The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) by Daniel Defoe

Just as men do not always think correctly, or act rightly, though they tend, in different degrees, to do so; so too, in religion, neither do they always move in the right direction, even if they move at all.
— from The Idea of God in Early Religions by F. B. (Frank Byron) Jevons