Their apparel, we are told, is mean beyond expression, and they avoid everything that has the most distant appearance of elegance or ornament.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

Your excellenza has been sufficiently good to me already; but I wish to have arms, that I may be equal to my enemy, if he should appear.'
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

His friends and also enemies (One and the same thing it may be) Esteemed him much as the world goes.
— from Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] A Romance of Russian Life in Verse by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

And I found that when the Paper was held nearer to any Colour than to the rest, it appeared of that Colour to which it approached nearest; but when it was equally or almost equally distant from all the Colours, so that it might be equally illuminated by them all it appeared white.
— from Opticks Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Isaac Newton

I wrote at once to quiet the old gentleman’s mind, by telling him of Sergeant Cuff’s visit: adding that Gooseberry was at that moment under examination; and promising to inform Mr. Bruff, either personally, or by letter, of whatever might occur later in the day.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

How much our intellects had been weakened by this incident may be estimated by the fact, that when the vessel had proceeded so far that we could perceive no more than the half of her hull, the proposition was seriously entertained of attempting to overtake her by swimming!
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

We must therefore train the body to contentment by plain living, that it may be easily satisfied: for they that require little do not miss much; and it is no great hardship to begin with our food, and take it silently whatever it is, and not by being choleric and peevish to thrust upon ourselves and friends the worst sauce to meat, anger.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

'Tis the same strain which Theagines used to his Chariclea, so that I may but enjoy thy love, let me die presently: Leander to his Hero, when he besought the sea waves to let him go quietly to his love, and kill him coming back.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

Being convinced that I should never succeed in accumulating money, and that what I could save would furnish but a very slender resource against the misfortune I dreaded, made me wish to place myself in such a situation that I might be enabled to provide for her, whenever she might chance to be reduced to want.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To reveal it we are obliged to venture upon the lifting of the veil which sacredly covers grief and refinement in poverty; but we think it may be excused, if so we can brighten the memory of the poet, even were there not a more needed and immediate service which it may render to the nearest 2147link broken by his death.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

Entirely unconscious that it might be embarrassing he sat and stared.
— from The Pastor's Wife by Elizabeth Von Arnim

It is so unlike what any other painters have given us of Moonlight, that it might be easily mistaken, if he had not likewise added stars, for a fainter setting sun.
— from Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses Edited, with an Introduction, by Helen Zimmern by Reynolds, Joshua, Sir

The existing rates of Income-Tax and Estate Duties cannot be raised, though their incidence might be extended to cover poorer elements of the population, as, for example, the small farmers.
— from The Framework of Home Rule by Erskine Childers

Luncheon, being a daylight function, is never so formidable as a dinner, even though it may be every bit as formal and differ from the latter in minor details only.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post

thick, that it may be easily carried in the waistcoat pocket.
— from Wrinkles in Electric Lighting by Vincent Stephen

In a police case, reported in The Times of the 28th of May, a woman was called as a witness who, however, upon the book being tendered to her, positively refused to be sworn, with the remark, that it must be evident to the magistrate that she could not take an oath.
— from Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 96, August 30, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various

Again, in the next place, if it be said that mind is so far an entity sui generis that it must be either self-existing or caused by another mind, there is no assignable warrant for the assertion.
— from Thoughts on Religion by George John Romanes

The idea of a hard-and-fast programme does not commend itself; it should, on the contrary, be more or less elastic in order that it may be expanded or contracted according to circumstances.
— from The Principles of Language-Study by Harold E. Palmer

Who would, then, hesitate to sacrifice a prejudice that it may be effected?
— from Monks, Popes, and their Political Intrigues by John Alberger