Nevertheless, though of real knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and so in some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

The more proclaiming Our suit shall be neglected: when her Armes Able to locke Iove from a Synod, shall By warranting Moone-light corslet thee, oh, when Her twyning Cherries shall their sweetnes fall Vpon thy tastefull lips, what wilt thou thinke Of rotten Kings or blubberd Queenes, what care For what thou feelst not?
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

My Guide and I, our journey to pursue To the bright world, upon this road concealed Made entrance, and no thought of resting knew.
— from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

His quality was a mixture of the effect of rich experience—oh, so easily come by!—with a modesty at times almost boyish; the sweet and wholesome savour of which—it was as agreeable as something tasted—lost nothing from the addition of a tone of responsible kindness.
— from The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 by Henry James

Let the old ruffian know I have many other ways to die, meantime Laugh at his challenge.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

Come then, you, Senor Judge, and you, senor curate; let the one represent King Agramante and the other King Sobrino, and make peace among us; for by God Almighty it is a sorry business that so many persons of quality as we are should slay one another for such trifling cause.”
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep."
— from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron

When we remember how very often in early society the king is held responsible for the fall of rain and the fruitfulness of the earth, it seems hardly rash to conjecture that in the legend of the nuptials of Numa and Egeria we have a reminiscence of a sacred marriage which the old Roman kings regularly contracted with a goddess of vegetation and water for the purpose of enabling him to discharge his divine or magical functions.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

And although embodying many important historical facts which should have commanded for it a word-wide circulation, but a few copies of this invaluable treasury of religious knowledge have ever found their way into this country.
— from The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors; Or, Christianity Before Christ by Kersey Graves

lo, where Dolops lies; And is it thus our royal kinsman dies? O'ermatch'd he falls; to two at once a prey, And lo!
— from The Iliad by Homer

After it was all over and the girls were in their own rooms, Kit stepped to Helen's door for an extra match, and found her standing before the mirror, a long green velvet portière draped around her shoulders, and a strip of gold braid banding her hair.
— from Kit of Greenacre Farm by Izola L. (Izola Louise) Forrester

He would have been on terms of recognized kinship with Sydney Smith and Charles Lamb.
— from Something of Men I Have Known With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective by Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing) Stevenson

No figure of bronze could be more rigid than that of the old river king, as he thus stood, his left foot advanced, his right-hand grasping the harpoon above his head, and his left the loose coil of rope attached to the buoy.”
— from Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley by William Henry Giles Kingston

What all the brilliance of Emma Fornez had not been able to accomplish, one touch of Rita Kildair had effected.
— from The Sixty-First Second by Owen Johnson

Get you into this other room; keep you as still as death, and wait till they are gone."
— from The Fate: A Tale of Stirring Times by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

The incessant pumping showed everybody, who gave a thought to the matter, that the leak had been serious; but as the subsidence of the vessel was imperceptible to all save experts, no one but the officers really knew the grave danger they were in.
— from A Woman Intervenes by Robert Barr