They who instruct gentlemen only to employ their valour for the obtaining of honour: “Quasi non sit honestum, quod nobilitatum non sit;” [“As though it were not a virtue, unless celebrated” —Cicero De Offic. iii. 10.] what do they intend by that but to instruct them never to hazard themselves if they are not seen, and to observe well if there be witnesses present who may carry news of their valour, whereas a thousand occasions of well-doing present themselves which cannot be taken notice of?
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

There is then a nameless satisfaction in passing on; which is the virtual ideal of pain and mere willing.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Dap-ásun lang níya ang lubi ug way hakhak, He’ll shin up the coconut tree if there are no steps.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

After the flowers are past, there comes rough flat seed, with a small pointle in the middle, easily cleaving to any garment that it touches, and not so easily pulled off again.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

And finally, this train was rich, very rich in cattle, horses, mules and other property—and how could the Mormons consistently keep up their coveted resemblance to the Israelitish tribes and not seize the “spoil” of an enemy when the Lord had so manifestly “delivered it into their hand?”
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

“This is the assembly night,” said William.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

custom of Italy that so much has been preserved, to throw in the aggregate no small amount of light on the domestic life of the family in which Columbus was the oldest born.
— from Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery by Justin Winsor

Let me tell them that if they are not satisfied with our ideas of fair play, they had better pack their sledges and go right away.”
— from To Win or to Die: A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze by George Manville Fenn

No doubt it is true (as has been finely said) that there is one thing which is worse for a nation than war, and that is that a nation should be so afraid of war as to submit to aggression rather than fight in defence of its rights.
— from A Hundred Years Hence: The Expectations of an Optimist by T. Baron Russell

The murderer, the ravisher, and the torturer should be allowed to vent their cruelty in these forms, for fear that if they are not so allowed they will vent it in other forms!
— from A Sheaf by John Galsworthy

Men of great position in England are born to it; they are not so afraid of losing it as our celebrated Republicans and Democrats.
— from T. De Witt Talmage as I Knew Him by Eleanor McCutcheon Talmage

Nevertheless they are not illuminated from strictly the same point as they ought to be; for the white marks on the ocelli of the feathers which are held almost horizontally, are placed rather too much towards the further end; that is, they are not sufficiently lateral.
— from The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin

It seems the very spirit of evil itself that twines its shadow about human beings and crushes them if they are not strong enough to resist.
— from History of American Literature by Reuben Post Halleck

We have seen in previous pages that the consensus of opinion among international law authorities of modern times is that a neutral should in no case whatever allow the use of its territory for the purposes of a belligerent expedition against a State with which it is upon friendly terms.
— from Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War by Robert Granville Campbell

Let me not be understood to imply that a novel should be a sort of sandwich, in which the author's mood or philosophy is the slice of ham.
— from Villa Rubein, and Other Stories by John Galsworthy