'I can hardly believe,' thought Bella, 'that I ever did endure life in this place!' Gloomy majesty on the part of Mrs Wilfer, and native pertness on the part of Lavvy, did not mend the matter.
— from Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Never in my life have I experienced such an autumn; nor had I ever imagined that such things were possible on earth—a Claude Lorrain extended to infinity, each day equal to the last in its wild perfection.
— from Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I don’t know, indeed, that I ever dreamt either a cough or a sneeze.
— from The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

In every encounter with the enemy where he himself commanded, he came off with complete success; nor was the issue ever doubtful, except on two occasions: once at Dyrrachium, when, being obliged to give ground, and Pompey not pursuing his advantage, he said that “Pompey knew not how to conquer;” the other instance occurred in his last battle in Spain, when, despairing of the event, he even had thoughts of killing himself.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

“I don’t blame you for not believing me—but the evidence is conclusive, and there is enough documentary evidence in the space ship—and in the fact of the ship itself to prove what I am saying.
— from The Lani People by Jesse F. (Jesse Franklin) Bone

But they interrupt every dream, every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome cackling.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Do I not fare better, much better, than I ever dared expect?
— from Boris Lensky by Ossip Schubin

No least inkling of its storms or terrors is ever discovered except through accident.
— from The Financier: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser

VII Was it that when, by rarest chance, there fell Disguise from Nature, so that Truth remained Naked, and whoso saw for once could tell Us others of her majesty and might In large, her lovelinesses infinite In little,—straight you used the power wherewith Sense, penetrating as through rind to pith Each object, thoroughly revealed might view And comprehend the old things thus made new, So that while eye saw, soul to tongue could trust Thing which struck word out, and once more adjust Real vision to right language, till heaven's vault Pompous with sunset, storm-stirred sea's assault On the swilled rock-ridge, earth's embosomed brood Of tree and flower and weed, with all the life That flies or swims or crawls, in peace or strife, Above, below,—each had its note and name For Man to know by,—Man who, now—the same As erst in Eden, needs that all he sees Be named him ere he note by what degrees Of strength and beauty to its end Design Ever thus operates—(your thought and mine, No matter for the many dissident)—
— from The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition by Robert Browning

Men, women and children scoured the country with the charmed turf in every direction, “each endeavouring to be foremost in finding unserved houses.”
— from A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2) From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time by Charles Creighton

To quote again from the writer in the Edinburgh Review, already cited; "Its undoubted antiquity, no less than its extraordinary diffusion, evidences that it must have been, as it may be said to be still in unchristianized lands, emblematical of some fundamental doctrine or mystery.
— from Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly

[Pg 45] goes without saying, and exhaustive measures are taken in every domestic establishment to afford protection against the ubiquitous pest.
— from Under the Southern Cross Or Travels in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Samoa, and Other Pacific Islands by Maturin Murray Ballou

That one's ten dollars and forty-nine cents, and this is eight dollars, eighty-nine.
— from Lady Betty Across the Water by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson