Wash , “It wont WASH ,” i.e. , will not stand investigation, will not “bear the rub,” is not genuine, can’t be believed.
— from The Slang Dictionary: Etymological, Historical and Andecdotal by John Camden Hotten

The lieutenant then fell a laughing, and said, “Come, I will put an end to this contention;” and then turning to the servants, commended them for their resolution in not giving up the point; but added, he was sure, if one would consent to go the other would.
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

But the relief is not great.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. (Jacob August) Riis

kay dì na ikatárì, This rooster is no good for fighting any more, but we can still use him as breeder.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

kay dì muayis, This refrigerator is no good because it won’t produce ice.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

The amount of regard for the public interest implied in this recognition, is no greater than is demanded by every system of morals; for they all enjoin to abstain from whatever is manifestly pernicious to society.
— from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill

A wedding is a licensed subject to joke upon, but there really is no great joke in the matter after all;—we speak merely of the ceremony, and beg it to be distinctly understood that we indulge in no hidden sarcasm upon a married life.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

The residue is nowadays generally bequeathed by the will, but it is not even now regarded as a specific gift of the chattels remaining undisposed of, and I cannot help thinking that this doctrine echoes that under which the executor took in former times.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Transportation Cuba Railways: total: 3,442 km standard gauge: 3,442 km 1.435-m gauge (142 km electrified) note: an additional 7,742 km of track is used by sugar plantations; about 65% of this track is standard gauge; the rest is narrow gauge (2002)
— from The 2003 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

If they forgot to take it back on their return, it nevertheless “got perched upon the top of the pineal gland” of [Pg 439] the college brain; and with characteristic spirited piety the descendants of the old hall-men found it out in 1890, and hung it in a place of honour and safety.
— from Oxford by Edward Thomas

The result is not great.
— from A Woman In China by Mary Gaunt

It is a craving that the race is never going to outlive, and that will afford occupation and subsistence to a considerable class of its most intelligent and respectable members until the year one million, as it has done since the year one.
— from Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 by Various

The name of the Rabbi is not given, but the fact that R. Simeon b. Gamaliel (160 a.c. ) already refers to this interpretation makes it clear that its anonymous author must have lived at least a generation before.
— from Studies in Judaism, First Series by S. (Solomon) Schechter

Happily for the victims of these disgusting parasites, their reproduction is not generally to this prodigious extent.
— from The Insect World Being a Popular Account of the Orders of Insects; Together with a Description of the Habits and Economy of Some of the Most Interesting Species by Louis Figuier

The ordinary height attained by these ranges is not great, but there are many volcanic peaks which rise out of the surrounding mass to a great elevation.
— from Japan by David Murray