It is this a duty which must reasonably be expected of him who has made it his business to survey the whole field, in order to consign it to others for future cultivation and allotment.
— from Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant

Lord I am A goueing to Let or shildren know Now to see good Lord what has bin in the world grat wase back to own fore fathers Not old plimeth but stop to Addom & Eve to shoue 45 figers two Leged and fore Leged becose we Cant Doue well without fore Legd in the first plase they are our foude in the Next plase to make out Dexters mouseum I wants 4 Lions to defend thous grat and mistry men from East to wist from North to South which Now are at the plases Rased the Lam is Not Readey in short meater if Agreabel I forme A good and peasabel govement on my Land in Newburyport
— from A Pickle for the Knowing Ones by Timothy Dexter

By varying the position of my Eye, and moving it nearer to or farther from the direct beam of the Sun's Light, the Colour of the Sun's reflected Light constantly varied upon the Speculum, as it did upon my [Pg 297] Eye, the same Colour always appearing to a Bystander upon my Eye which to me appear'd upon the Speculum.
— from Opticks Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light by Isaac Newton

And I listened diligently to him preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought, but, as it were, trying his eloquence, whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than was reported; and I hung on his words attentively; but of the matter I was as a careless and scornful looker-on; and I was delighted with the sweetness of his discourse, more recondite, yet in manner less winning and harmonious, than that of Faustus.
— from The Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

For a long time he kept away from the other Foxes, for he knew well enough that they would all make fun of him and crack jokes and laugh behind his back.
— from The Aesop for Children With pictures by Milo Winter by Aesop

As for their talk, I paid but little attention to that (when it related to the fair hermit, I mean), and the only information I derived from it was, that one fine frosty day she had ventured to take her little boy as far as the vicarage, and that, unfortunately, nobody was at home but Miss Millward; nevertheless, she had sat a long time, and, by all accounts, they had found a good deal to say to each other, and parted with a mutual desire to meet again.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

My horse put his fore feet over the bank without hesitation or urging, and with his hind feet well under him, slid down the bank and trotted aboard the boat, twelve or fifteen feet away, over a single gang plank.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

“I am taken for you, sir,” said the marquis, “and it may cause some annoyance to our fair friends here.”
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

During the four years that followed, until the surrender of Yorktown, the scales rose and fell according as the one navy or the other appeared on the scene, or as English commanders kept touch with the sea or pushed their operations far from its support.
— from The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

Norah shrank from the prospect of that overpopulated future for which the temporary emptiness of Lonsdale Road was no consolation, and, removing the mirror from the window-sill, she sat down at her dressing-table and devoted herself to the adjustment of the arcuated pad of mock hair that was an indispensable adjunct to the pompadour style then in vogue.
— from The Vanity Girl by Compton MacKenzie

whate'er thy foes may do or say, Thousands of families for thee will pray, By love and duty led.
— from The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales in Verse Together with Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects by Thomas Cowherd

Let us take the unerring test of figures for our guide.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 331, May, 1843 by Various

"I have been wishing to speak to you, and I was afraid I might not get the opportunity, for father is very strange to me.
— from Joshua Marvel by B. L. (Benjamin Leopold) Farjeon

Each weighs about 4-1/2 cwt., is about three or four feet long, and about three eighths of an inch thick.
— from The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson Comprising Also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive by Samuel Smiles

So says Stein Herdison:— "Harald and Svein first met as foes, Where the Nis in the ocean flows; For Svein would not for peace entreat, But, strong in ships, would Harald meet.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

And now, old chap,” said Joe, conveying to me a sensation, first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar expression were applied to Miss Havisham,—“and now, old chap, may we do our duty!
— from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

They leaned together, one flesh from shoulder to finger-tips, their eyes held by the snared glitter of the ripples.
— from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

The principal obstruction and danger in arctic navigation arises from the ice; fields of which often occur of twenty or thirty miles in diameter, and ten or fifteen feet in thickness.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II. by Various

Mignot and Mademoiselle Rouzaire, although by no means fond of the Jews, shared the opinion that this one at all events strove by irreproachable conduct to obtain forgiveness for his birth.
— from Truth [Vérité] by Émile Zola