"These things are always seen and felt in a person's manner and conversations, if modestly used, but it is not necessary to display them," said Mrs. March.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

A promise fixes and determines the persons, without any uncertainty: But it is evident, that if men were to regulate their conduct in this particular, by the view of a peculiar interest, either public or private, they would involve themselves in endless confusion, and would render all government, in a great measure, ineffectual.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

This habit among educated men in the West is not universal, but it is prevalent—prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities; and to a degree which one cannot help noticing, and marveling at.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

The unknowable may be unfathomed, but if it make such distinct demands upon our activity we surely are not ignorant of its essential quality.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James

But why that should have most virtues that grows upon oaks I know not, unless because it is rarest and hardest to come by; and our college’s opinion is in this contrary to scripture, which saith, God’s tender mercies are over all his works ; and so it is, let the college of physicians walk as contrary to him as they please, and that is as contrary as the east to the west.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

But I am especially pleased with their Freundinn, which, unlike the amica of the Romans, is seldom used but in its best and purest sense.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The bloody farce which this Revolution ultimately became, its "immorality," concerns me but slightly; what I loathe however is its Rousseauesque morality —the so-called "truths" of the Revolution, by means of which it still exercises power and draws all flat and mediocre things over to its side.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist Complete Works, Volume Sixteen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it.
— from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Also a custom of watching the dead, called Late Wake, in use both in Ireland and Wales, where the corpse being deposited under a table, with a plate of salt on its breast, the table is covered with liquor of all sorts; and the guests, particularly, the younger part of them, amuse themselves with all kinds of pastimes and recreations: the consequence is generally more than replacing the departed friend.
— from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose

Two spoonfuls of the distilled water of the flowers taken, helps them that have lost their voice, as also the tremblings and passions of the heart, and faintings and swooning, not only being drank, but applied to the temples, or nostrils to be smelled unto; but it is not safe to use it where the body is replete with blood and humours, because of the hot and subtile spirits wherewith it is possessed.
— from The Complete Herbal To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic. by Nicholas Culpeper

The heart of the rabbit continues to beat regularly long after the brain has been removed by careful excision, if respiration be artificially kept up; but if, instead of amputating the head, the brain be crushed in its place by a sudden blow of a hammer, the heart ceases its motion at once.
— from The Cruise of the Betsey or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland by Hugh Miller

If now it be your general determination, Athenians, to surrender to the king all places that he gets possession of, whether by surprise or by deluding certain of the inhabitants, you have determined, in my judgment, unwisely; but if in the cause of justice you esteem it your duty either to make war, if needful, or to suffer any extremity, in the first place, there will be the less necessity for such trials, in proportion as you are resolved to meet them; and, secondly, you will manifest a spirit that becomes you.
— from How to Master the Spoken Word Designed as a Self-Instructor for all who would Excel in the Art of Public Speaking by Edwin Gordon Lawrence

The gentleman from Maryland has made an observation which struck me very forcibly as applied to the subject before us, because it is a maxim to which all mankind have assented, and upon which all mankind continually practise—it was this: "there is no friendship in trade;" and it maybe added, as a necessary consequence, there ought to be no hatred in trade.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 1 (of 16) by United States. Congress

I would I could mind what she told us; but it is long, long ago; and mine heart is hard, and my remembrance dim.
— from The Well in the Desert An Old Legend of the House of Arundel by Emily Sarah Holt

Perhaps the most hopeless area of undrainable bog in Ireland lies in Western and North-Western Mayo.
— from Climbing in The British Isles, Vol. 2 - Wales and Ireland by W. P. (Walter Parry) Haskett Smith

He could not have danced with Nan at the University ball, it is true: clergymen, according to his creed, must not dance.
— from Not Like Other Girls by Rosa Nouchette Carey

How far the anti-Catholic tenets of the Waldenses derive from ancient heresy is uncertain; but it is clear that late in the twelfth century they were acted on by the immense ferment of new ideas around them.
— from A Short History of Christianity Second Edition, Revised, With Additions by J. M. (John Mackinnon) Robertson

He also pointed out the bad effect it would have upon British influence in Europe if, at such a moment, England did not show herself as good as her word.
— from A Queen of Tears, vol. 2 of 2 Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark and Norway and Princess of Great Britain and Ireland by W. H. (William Henry) Wilkins

This attempted visit of yours will revive his interest in his wife, inconveniently for us; but if I know his type it will die down again, the minute he thinks he has covered his tracks.
— from It Happened in Egypt by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson