This verdict of the result must therefore always bring forth that which human sagacity cannot discover; and it will be chiefly as regards the intellectual powers and operations that it will be called into requisition, partly because they can be estimated with the least certainty, partly because their close connection with the will is favourable to their exercising over it an important influence.
— from On War — Volume 1 by Carl von Clausewitz

for, you may see, The wind is far too strong for me.
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine

The particulars, as much as by Sir G. Carteret afterwards I heard, I have said in a letter to my Lord Sandwich this day at Portsmouth; it being most wholly to the utter ruine of our Royall Company, and reproach and shame to the whole nation, as well as justification to them in their doing wrong to no man as to his private [property], only takeing whatever is found to belong to the Company, and nothing else.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

Beyond it there were, in former times, the towns of Cytæ, Zephyrium, Acræ, Nymphæum, and Dia.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers; of aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that sickens; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul.
— from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The master of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking; and as there were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself.
— from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I came but for thy good ... 'Twere well if from that fear I set thee free.
— from Oedipus King of Thebes Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes by Sophocles

But should we grant them even this, that men are by death deprived of good things; would it follow that the dead are therefore in need of the good things of life, and are miserable on that account?
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

In this furious style all orders for arrests proceeding from the Three were issued, for the least of their commands carried with it the penalty of death.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

I must be profoundly related to Byron's Manfred: of all the dark abysses in this work I found the counterparts in my own soul—at the age of thirteen I was ripe for this book.
— from Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“That woman is fitted,” thought Paul, as he left her, “to advance me in diplomacy before I am even made a deputy.”
— from The Marriage Contract by Honoré de Balzac

In filtration, the water is forced through porcelain or other porous substances which allow the passage of water, but which hold back the minute foreign particles suspended in the water.
— from General Science by Bertha May Clark

But I cannot look to what has taken place of late years, even in my own time, when I filled the situation of first Lord of his Majesty's Treasury,—cannot look to what took place then without seeing the advantage of having an overplus of income over expenditure, such as would tend to the gradual diminution of the public debt.
— from Maxims and Opinions of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington, Selected From His Writings and Speeches During a Public Life of More Than Half a Century by Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of

[Pg 181] its perfection, sublime truth, with its faint, troubled, yet still sublime reflection, error;—the "without passions" of Divine revelation, and its perversion, its undue development, the unconsciousness, issuing in the final perfection of annihilation, of Braminical deity.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 by Various

It was obvious that, whilst threatened with invasion from the west, Zemaun Shah could never conduct to a successful issue an expedition against Hindostan; and that so long as Persia remained true to Great Britain, there was nothing to be apprehended from French intrigue in the countries of Central Asia.
— from History of the War in Afghanistan, Vol. 1 (of 3) Third Edition by Kaye, John William, Sir

That was, in fact, the kind of interest that Bruno took.
— from Bruno; or, lessons of fidelity, patience, and self-denial taught by a dog by Jacob Abbott

It is not sufficient that they are capable of being so used; it must be shown that this was in fact their destination at the time of the seizure.
— from Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War by Robert Granville Campbell

Of the multitude who flocked to their standards, such as were not lured by the hope of plunder imagined they were fighting for the truth, while in fact they were shedding their blood for the personal objects of their princes.
— from The Thirty Years War — Volume 01 by Friedrich Schiller

I was twenty-three when I felt that all was not as it should be in this world, and that it was a shame to live as if it were, like a fool."
— from Tales of Two Countries by Maksim Gorky

In all disputes,——male or female,——whether for honour, for profit, or for love,—it makes no difference in the case;—nothing is more dangerous, Madam, than a wish coming sideways in this unexpected manner upon a man: the safest way in general to take off the force of the wish, is for the party wish’d at, instantly to get upon his legs—and wish the wisher something in return, of pretty near the same value,——so balancing the account upon the spot, you stand as you were—nay sometimes gain the advantage of the attack by it.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne