But this union on the side of the woman was rigorous and unequal; and she renounced the name and worship of her father's house, to embrace a new servitude, decorated only by the title of adoption, a fiction of the law, neither rational nor elegant, bestowed on the mother of a family 117 (her proper appellation) the strange characters of sister to her own children, and of daughter to her husband or master, who was invested with the plenitude of paternal power.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

I was very fond, too, of the little nimble red and yellow lizards with black spots on them, but I was afraid of snakes.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The fact that all the Semites have rules of uncleanness as well as rules of holiness, that the boundary between the two is often vague, and that the former as well as the latter present the most startling [Pg 814] agreement in point of detail with savage taboos, leaves no reasonable doubt as to the origin and ultimate relations of the idea of holiness.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

Mrs. Norris and her nieces were all well pleased with its revival, and an early day was named and agreed to, provided Mr. Crawford should be disengaged: the young ladies did not forget that stipulation, and though Mrs. Norris would willingly have answered for his being so, they would neither authorise the liberty nor run the risk; and at last, on a hint from Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth discovered that the properest thing to be done was for him to walk down to the Parsonage directly, and call on Mr. Crawford, and inquire whether Wednesday would suit him or not.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

The latter now retreated, and fortified themselves in a township named Ozucar, [101] which had been garrisoned by another body of Mexicans.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

The demonstration we require is always necessary when the superiority of the means propounded is not so evident as to leave no room for doubt, and it consists in the examination of each of the means on its own merits, and then of its comparison with the object desired.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

Me before all things may the Muses sweet, Whose rites I bear with mighty passion pierced, Receive, and show the paths and stars of heaven, The sun's eclipses and the labouring moons, From whence the earthquake, by what power the seas Swell from their depths, and, every barrier burst, Sink back upon themselves, why winter-suns So haste to dip 'neath ocean, or what check The lingering night retards.
— from The Georgics by Virgil

I have never beene foule mouthd against thy law, Nev'r reveald secret, for I knew none—would not, Had I kend all that were; I never practised Vpon mans wife, nor would the Libells reade Of liberall wits; I never at great feastes Sought to betray a Beautie, but have blush'd At simpring Sirs that did; I have beene harsh To large Confessors, and have hotly ask'd them If they had Mothers: I had one, a woman, And women t'wer they wrong'd.
— from The Two Noble Kinsmen by Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works)

In the long noon rest of the hot summer days they withdrew from the place where he threw himself down, faint with fatigue and the heat, and left him to that solitude he unmistakably desired.
— from The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874 by Various

Whereas, by the provisions of an act approved February sixth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, entitled 'An act to amend an act entitled "An act for the collection of direct taxes in insurrectionary districts within the United States, and for other purposes," approved June seventh, eighteen hundred and sixty-two,' certain lands in the parishes of Saint Helena and Saint Luke, South Carolina, were bid in by the United States at public tax sales, and, by the limitation of said act, the time of redemption of said lands has expired; and whereas, in accordance with instructions issued by President Lincoln on the sixteenth day of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, to the United States direct tax commissioners for South Carolina, certain lands bid in by the United States in the parish of Saint Helena, in said State, were in part sold by the said tax commissioners to 'heads of families of the African race,' in parcels of not more than twenty acres to each purchaser; and whereas, under the said instructions, the said tax commissioners did also set apart as 'school-farms' certain parcels of land in said parish, numbered in their plats from one to sixty-three inclusive, making an aggregate of six thousand acres, more or less: Therefore, be it further enacted , That the sales made to 'heads of families of the African race,' under the instructions of President Lincoln to the United States direct tax commissioners for South Carolina, of date of September sixteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, are hereby confirmed and established; and all leases which have been made to such 'heads of families' by said direct tax commissioners shall be changed into certificates of sale in all cases wherein the lease provides for such substitution; and all the lands now remaining unsold, which come within the same designation, being eight thousand acres, more or less, shall be disposed of according to said instructions.
— from History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States by William Horatio Barnes

Then, after conducting his wife to Bourbon-les-Bains, he will make a détour to Lyons, not returning to Paris till the end of the summer.
— from The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Volumes 1 and 2 by Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq

"As the last news received from your daughter is so reassuring, pray do not worry any more about her.
— from Pride: One of the Seven Cardinal Sins by Eugène Sue

Is the lunch nearly ready?
— from Babes in the Bush by Rolf Boldrewood

And he told her of his having been a delegate to the last National Republican Convention, explaining what a delegate was.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

Helvius Cinna, tribune of the people, admitted to several persons the fact, that he had a bill ready drawn, which Caesar had ordered him to get enacted in his absence, allowing him, with the hope of leaving issue, to take any wife he chose, and as many of them as he pleased; and to leave no room for doubt of his infamous character for unnatural lewdness and adultery, Curio, the father, says, in one of his speeches, “He was every woman’s man, and every man’s woman.” LIII.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius