However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy.
— from Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling.
— from Tender Buttons Objects—Food—Rooms by Gertrude Stein

The truth is, that, in spite of all its efforts to the contrary, criticism has ever been utterly impotent to eliminate from human thinking the elements we have presented.
— from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation Including Some Strictures Upon the Theories of Rev. Henry L. Mansel and Mr. Herbert Spencer by Jesse Henry Jones

The reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension, becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition Table Of Contents And Index Of The Five Volumes by Edgar Allan Poe

It lasted for some time on the quay; then it gradually ceased, as though that which was passing were entering the interior of the island; then it stopped altogether, and the line of the quay became straight and motionless again.
— from Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

81, therefore, if this is so, you are to honour me as a god .
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane

Dorothea fancied that Don Fernando changed colour and looked as though he meant to take vengeance on Cardenio, for she observed him put his hand to his sword; and the instant the idea struck her, with wonderful quickness she clasped him round the knees, and kissing them and holding him so as to prevent his moving, she said, while her tears continued to flow, “What is it thou wouldst do, my only refuge, in this unforeseen event?
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

This is the ideal state; than which there never can be a truer or better—a state, whether inhabited by Gods or sons of Gods, which will make the dwellers therein blessed.
— from Laws by Plato

The only thing is that if she goes on, day after day, doing nothing else than clamour in this manner, how can she let people get along?
— from Hung Lou Meng, or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel, Book I by Xueqin Cao

By MILDRED ALDRICH TO F. E. C. a prince of comrades and a royal friend, whose quaint humor gladdened the days of my early struggle, and whose unfailing faith inspired me in later days to turn a smiling face to Fate CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introduction 3 How We Came into the Garden I The Youngster's Story 29 It Happened at Midnight—The Tale of a Bride's New Home II The Trained Nurse's Story 45 The Son of Josephine—The Tale of a Foundling III The Critic's Story 60 'Twas in the Indian Summer—The Tale of an Actress IV The Doctor's Story 83 As One Dreams—The Tale of an Adolescent V The Sculptor's Story 96 Unto This End—The Tale of a Virgin VI The Divorcée's Story 135 One Woman's Philosophy—The Tale of a Modern Wife VII The Lawyer's Story 166 The Night Before the Wedding—The Tale of a Bride-Elect VIII The Journalist's Story 188 In a Railway Station—The Tale of a Dancer IX The Violinist's Story 221 The Soul of the Song—The Tale of a Fiancée X Epilogue 259 Adieu—How We Went Out of the Garden TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN
— from Told in a French Garden August, 1914 by Mildred Aldrich

On the morning, which was the Sabbath, or Saturday, they took holy bread (the Eulogies) and water, and {6} were then surprised and taken by Polemon, the chief priest of the idol temple in Smyrna, and his satellites.
— from The Lives of the Saints, Volume 02 (of 16): February by S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould

"The trouble is that I should do it too well.
— from The Fool Errant Being the Memoirs of Francis-Anthony Strelley, Esq., Citizen of Lucca by Maurice Hewlett

“That is the illicit spirit, isn’t it?” asked Grenfell.
— from Luttrell Of Arran by Charles James Lever

This palace, which to others is a scene of feasting and amusement, to me is full of sorrows; there is not an object which does not bear the mark, as it were, of my sighs; there is not a spot of which I could not say: ‘Here I cried on such a day; there I thought I should die of grief.’
— from Leon Roch: A Romance, vol. 1 (of 2) by Benito Pérez Galdós

They concluded by asking that all their demands should be tested by the word of God, and that if any of them should be found to be opposed to its teaching, it should be rejected.
— from A History of the Reformation (Vol. 1 of 2) by Thomas M. (Thomas Martin) Lindsay

Had the said tube been filled with copper instead of gas, the experimenter must have known that the electricity, in passing through it, would have spread itself all through the wide part, and contracted itself to pass through the narrow part, spreading itself out again through the other wide part, thus giving rise to differences of pressures and velocities at the different widths of the tube; but, of course, he would not have been able to see this, because the electricity could hardly be in sufficient quantity to light up the copper, or to impart to it sufficient heat to make it visible.
— from New Theories in Astronomy by Willam Stirling

What tormented me most was the reflection that if the ice stopped us now we could have no assurance that it would not do the same at the same time next year; it has been observed so often that several bad ice-years come together, and this was evidently none of the best.
— from Farthest North, Vol. I Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 by Fridtjof Nansen