You see, it is not your financial position (though I should not object if you were a bit richer)—I am thinking of my daughter’s happiness, of course, and the thing is—are you able to give her the happiness she deserves?
— from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Yes, he is funny, and in such a mess," said the old man, delighted that his wife was laughing.
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

This trial of my discretion, which I did not then perceive, was certainly very dangerous, and not very humane; for in this state of idleness I might have contracted vices which I should not otherwise have given into.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I also insert here another letter, dated the 14th instant, sent afterward to me at Memphis, which completes all instructions received by me governing the first movement against Vicksburg: HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI, December 14, 1862 Major-General SHERMAN, commanding, etc., Memphis, Tennessee.
— from Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete by William T. (William Tecumseh) Sherman

There has been a sudden and concerted abandonment of office wherever the office made direct contact with the public; there has, however, been no abandonment of power.
— from The International Jew : The World's Foremost Problem by Anonymous

what became of me, when as the powers of solid pleasure thickened upon me, I could not help feeling the stiff stake that had been adorned with the trophies of my despoiled virginity, bearing hard and inflexible against one of my thighs, which I had not yet opened, from a true principle of modesty, revived by a passion too sincere to suffer any aiming at the false merit of difficulty, or my putting on an impertinent mock coyness.
— from Memoirs of Fanny Hill A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) by John Cleland

Unlike its two sisters, it has no priesthood, and fundamentally is not a religion at all; yet with the many rites grafted on the original tree it becomes a religion, and the one most difficult to deal with.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

If, as we who study ourselves have learned to do, every one who hears a good sentence, would immediately consider how it does in any way touch his own private concern, every one would find, that it was not so much a good saying, as a severe lash to the ordinary stupidity of his own judgment: but men receive the precepts and admonitions of truth, as directed to the common sort, and never to themselves; and instead of applying them to their own manners, do only very ignorantly and unprofitably commit them to memory.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

The King's muskets are the Nation's; think, old M. de Sombreuil, how, in this extremity, thou wilt refuse them!
— from The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle

The Saint, it is alleged, had encountered numberless reverses between that time and the year 1672, since which date it has been safely lodged in the Parish Church of Antipolo—a village in the old Military District of Mórong (Rizal Province)—in the custody of the Austin friars.
— from The Philippine Islands A Political, Geographical, Ethnographical, Social and Commercial History of the Philippine Archipelago, Embracing the Whole Period of Spanish Rule by Foreman, John, F.R.G.S.

The young warriors were very surly, and manifestly disposed to fight; but the old men dreaded the perils of war with foes whose prowess they appreciated, and were inclined to a renewal of friendship.
— from King Philip Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

There were pigs and little boys, but they were not neatly pink and they were not starving, and the old man did not swing a shillelagh or sing songs as I was passing by.
— from Just Irish by Charles Battell Loomis

The old man delivered these insults with a purple face, and a loud fury, that in former days would have awakened corresponding rage in the fiery young fellow.
— from Put Yourself in His Place by Charles Reade

The sensations inspired in me to-day, on again witnessing its convulsions, and the dense clouds of vapor expelled in rapid succession from its crater, amid the jarring of the earth, and the ominous intonations from beneath, were those of mingled dread and wonder.
— from The Discovery of Yellowstone Park Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870 by Nathaniel Pitt Langford

“She looks fit as a fiddle,” the old man declared, cocking his head to one side and running his eyes over the graceful lines of the craft.
— from The River Motor Boat Boys on the Amazon; Or, The Secret of Cloud Island by Harry Gordon

A characteristic story of the hauteur of the old French aristocracy is told of Madame de Brionne, who, at the time of the first insurrection of Paris, was advised by the Bishop of Autun to go and spend some time in a little provincial town, where she would not be known.
— from British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV July and October, 1871 by Various

Then the chains clang down; I see the thickness of my dungeon.
— from Letters to Madame Hanska, born Countess Rzewuska, afterwards Madame Honoré de Balzac, 1833-1846 by Honoré de Balzac