When Hidrieus was dying, he confided the administration of affairs to her, for it had been a custom in Asia, ever since the time of Semiramis, even for women to rule men.
— from The Anabasis of Alexander or, The History of the Wars and Conquests of Alexander the Great by Arrian

Experience abundantly shows that men can govern anything more easily than their tongues, and restrain anything more easily than their appetites; when it comes about that many believe, that we are only free in respect to objects which we moderately desire, because our desire for such can easily be controlled by the thought of something else frequently remembered, but that we are by no means free in respect to what we seek with violent emotion, for our desire cannot then be allayed with the remembrance of anything else.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

Note 27 ( return ) [ A critic will always distrust these spolia opima of a victorious general, so difficult for valor to obtain, so easy for flattery to invent, (Cantemir, p. 90, 91.)
— 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

Sometimes I would try to take the little obstinate creature by surprise, and casually ask her the word while she was thinking of something else; frequently she would begin to say it, and then suddenly check herself, with a provoking look that seemed to say, ‘Ah!
— from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

But you must understand, there are two women; one insists only on her rights, and those rights are your love, which you can’t give her; and the other sacrifices everything for you and asks for nothing.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

“If aunt pleases,” said young Mr. Branghton, “we’ll talk o’ somewhat else, for Miss looks very uneasy-like.”
— from Evelina, Or, the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney

The result of twenty years' effort proved that the theory of scientific education failed where most theory fails--for want of money.
— from The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

May be, you'll think of some excuse for the mate when you get there.”
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie

Once more, in speaking of beauty is he really thinking of some external form such as might have been expressed in the works of Phidias or Praxiteles; and not rather of an imaginary beauty, of a sort which extinguishes rather than stimulates vulgar love,—a heavenly beauty like that which flashed from time to time before the eyes of Dante or Bunyan?
— from Phaedrus by Plato

It was agreed by the Emperor and M. Fontaine that these buildings should be united by two wings, the first of which should be finished in five years, a million to be granted each year for this purpose; and that a second wing should also be constructed on the opposite side, extending from the Louvre to the Tuileries, forming thus a perfect square, in the midst of which would be erected an opera house, isolated on all sides, and communicating with the palace by a subterranean gallery.
— from Complete Project Gutenberg Collection of Memoirs of Napoleon by Various

And we calmly think of such endless fire as a possibility!
— from Love's Final Victory Ultimate Universal Salvation on the Basis of Scripture and Reason by Horatio

Into the other side exactly fitted that daguerreotype of her mother which her father had given her when he died.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

(From Gegenbaur; after Grenacher.) l. corneal lens; g. vitreous humour; r. retina; o. optic nerve; h. hypodermis. ( c ) A type of simple eye found in the Arachnida, and apparently some Chilopoda, and forming the simple eyes of most Insects, which differs from type ( a ) in the cells of the retina forming a distinct layer beneath the hypodermis ; the latter only obviously giving rise to the vitreous humour.
— from The Works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 3 (of 4) A Treatise on Comparative Embryology: Vertebrata by Francis M. (Francis Maitland) Balfour

It is a fact that pertinent relationships in population studies can often be expressed in terms of simple exponential functions or in linear combinations of logarithms.
— from California Athabascan Groups by Martin A. Baumhoff

Then these kneeling and standing men were not in prayer; there was no devotion in this picture; the personages were all thinking of something else, folding their hands and looking round at the painter who was depicting them.
— from The Cathedral by J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

Sometimes, in their desire to offer some excuse for massacre, they have been seen to make a show of evacuating a village which it was said had been threatened, and then to fire some shots, which they then blamed the inhabitants for doing.
— from German Barbarism: A Neutral's Indictment by Léon Maccas

The change was so important and so prejudicial to the interests of the Confederacy that, after a vain attempt to obtain satisfactory explanations from that Government, I directed a solemn protest to be made.
— from The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 2 by Jefferson Davis

It may be well, before entering into details of the process, briefly to explain the ordinary system employed for preparing fibres, or fibrous materials, as also rags, for Paper-making.
— from Bamboo, Considered as a Paper-making Material With remarks upon its cultivation and treatment. Supplemented by a consideration of the present position of the paper trade in relation to the supply of raw material. by Thomas Routledge