I was going on with the religion of my fathers in pride and conceit, yet weeping over sin and pleading for mercy and pardon, though I did not know how hideous sin was in the sight of God, neither did it ever enter my mind to ask myself whether I obtained those things I so earnestly sought for from God.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

Her he endeavoured to lead, and did lead, to history and moral essays; but his daughter whom a fond weak mother had indulged, and who consequently was averse to every thing like application, he allowed to read novels; and used to justify his conduct by saying, that if she ever attained a relish for reading them, he should have some foundation to work upon; and that erroneous opinions were better than none at all.
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects by Mary Wollstonecraft

“Then I shall enjoy as much happiness as this world can possibly confer.”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

I proceeded, therefore, to tell her that I should expose myself to ridicule if I attempted to keep a beauty like herself for a servant.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

But there is something excessively unphilosophical in the attempt on the part of Le Moniteur, to rebut the general assertion of L’Etoile, by a citation of particular instances militating against that assertion.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Edgar Allan Poe

It gushes forth like an oil-well, and the sympathetic pour out their sympathy with an abandon that is sometimes embarrassing to their victims.
— from The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham

She is the most beautiful creature in the universe: and yet she is mistress of such noble elevated qualities, that, though she is never from my thoughts, I scarce ever think of her beauty
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

He comes to it for the first time—all that he has been reading of it all his life, and that the most enthusiastic part of life,—all he has gathered from narratives of wandering seamen; what he has gained from true voyages, and what he cherishes as credulously from romance and poetry; crowding their images, and exacting strange tributes from expectation.—He thinks of the great deep, and of those who go down unto it; of its thousand isles, and of the vast continents it washes; of its receiving the mighty Plata, or Orellana, into its bosom, without disturbance, or sense of augmentation; of Biscay swells, and the mariner For many a day, and many a dreadful night, Incessant labouring round the stormy Cape; of fatal rocks, and the "still-vexed Bermoothes;" of great whirlpools, and the water-spout; of sunken ships, and sumless treasures swallowed up in the unrestoring depths: of fishes and quaint monsters, to which all that is terrible on earth— Be but as buggs to frighten babes withal, Compared with the creatures in the sea's entral; of naked savages, and Juan Fernandez; of pearls, and shells; of coral beds, and of enchanted isles; of mermaids' grots— I do not assert that in sober earnest he expects to be shown all these wonders at once, but he is under the tyranny of a mighty faculty, which haunts him with confused hints and shadows of all these; and when the actual object opens first upon him, seen (in tame weather too most likely) from our unromantic coasts—a speck, a slip of sea-water, as it shows to him—what can it prove but a very unsatisfying and even diminutive entertainment?
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

above ceder I passed a large Island on the S. S. to this Island Several Elk Swam above this Island on the Midle is Situated 2 Islands small one above the other, those Islands are Called mud Islands and camped on the upper Island of them 3 Buffalow 1
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

The ice seldom exceeds an inch in thickness.
— from The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea by Trumbull White

It appears, then, that the influence of the centrifugal force is most powerful at the equator, not only because it is actually greater there than elsewhere, but because its whole effect is employed in diminishing gravity, whereas, in every other point of the fluid mass, it is only a part that is so employed.
— from On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences by Mary Somerville

"I do not think I should enjoy it, but if I were very hungry, I might not be particular: however, I must own I should even then prefer beef or mutton to lizards and monkeys."
— from The World of Waters Or, A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea by Osborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)

He hastened to ask the other what had decided him and Blossy to come to-day, and was informed that Miss Abigail had written to tell Blossy that if she ever expected to see her "Brother Abe" alive again, she must come over to Shoreville at the earliest possible moment.
— from Old Lady Number 31 by Louise Forsslund

That is, Stemmons Expressway?
— from Warren Commission (15 of 26): Hearings Vol. XV (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

Achillea atrata and A. moschata will live either on calcareous or granitic soil, but in a district where both occur, A. atrata grows so much the more vigorously of the two if the soil is calcareous that it soon exterminates A. moschata; while in granite districts, on the contrary, A. moschata is victorious and A. atrata disappears.
— from The Beauties of Nature, and the Wonders of the World We Live In by Lubbock, John, Sir

That is simple enough.
— from The Golden Web by E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim

The first will be answered in a few days’ time, no doubt, in view of the rapidity with which we are ripping through the water, under the action of a means of propulsion that I shall end by finding out all about.
— from Facing the Flag by Jules Verne

The castle of Gloucester is now entirely destroyed, but there is sufficient evidence to show that it was of the usual Norman type.
— from The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles. by Ella S. Armitage