Dic utinam nunc ipse meus
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

"If we do not know every one of them, if nature still keeps ichthyological secrets from us, nothing is more admissible than to accept the existence of fish or cetacean s of new species or even new genera, animals with a basically 'cast–iron' constitution that inhabit strata beyond the reach of our soundings, and which some development or other, an urge or a whim if you prefer, can bring to the upper level of the ocean for long intervals.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne

For this purpose I thought a knowledge of navigation might be of use to me; for, though I did not intend to run away unless I should be ill used, yet, in such a case, if I understood navigation, I might attempt my escape in our sloop, which was one of the swiftest sailing vessels in the West Indies, and I could be at no loss for hands to join me: and if I should make this attempt, I had intended to have gone for England; but this, as I said, was only to be in the event of my meeting with any ill usage.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African Written By Himself by Olaudah Equiano

He who understood nothing in my work, would deny that I was worth considering at all.—The word "Superman," which designates a type of man that would be one of nature's rarest and luckiest strokes, [Pg 58] as opposed to "modern" men, to "good" men, to Christians and other Nihilists,—a word which in the mouth of Zarathustra, the annihilator of morality, acquires a very profound meaning,—is understood almost everywhere, and with perfect innocence, in the light of those values to which a flat contradiction was made manifest in the figure of Zarathustra—that is to say, as an "ideal" type, a higher kind of man, half "saint" and half "genius." ...
— from Ecce Homo Complete Works, Volume Seventeen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

‘Cold iron (cried Humphry) I shall never use against the life of any human creature; but I am so far from being afraid of his cold iron, that I shall use nothing in my defence but a good cudgel, which shall always be at his service.’
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. (Tobias) Smollett

Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is ornamented with a hen-roost!
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

19 Beautiful and Ugly: —Nothing is more relative, let us say, more restricted, than our sense of the beautiful.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist Complete Works, Volume Sixteen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Yes,” she answered, “but look how he didn’t order a mass said for the soul of his father, who undoubtedly needs it more than others.” “But, woman, haven’t you any pity?” “Pity for the excommunicated?
— from The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal

Hence, though under nature it must generally be left doubtful, what cases are reversions to an anciently existing character, and what are new but analogous variations, yet we ought, on my theory, sometimes to find the varying offspring of a species assuming characters (either from reversion or from analogous variation) which already occur in some other members of the same group.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin

But, among us, nothing is more common than for land to be improved by those who do not own it.
— from Progress and Poverty, Volumes I and II An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth by Henry George

The nave remains to be described; and to do this well and adequately, it is necessary to use, not indeed many, but certainly strong, words.
— from Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain by George Edmund Street

Brave knight, since fear of death enforceth still To greater minds submission and relent, Know that this Medor, whose unhappy name Is mixèd with the fair Angelica's, Is even that Medor that enjoys her love.
— from Robert Greene: [Six Plays] by Robert Greene

In relation to us now, I mean.
— from Astounding Stories, March, 1931 by Various

“If I only had my right arm to use now, I might--” Far below, down there a hundred feet beneath them and out a long way from the tower base, night yawned wide in a burst of hellish glare.
— from Darkness and Dawn by George Allan England

It seems to us next in merit to some of Cibber's dramatic comic portraitures, Joe, the absolute Joe, lives again in every line.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1 Miscellaneous Prose by Charles Lamb

But with a view to the larger question—What quality of opposition is ever likely to be brought into play against us, not in merely military displays, but in the secret organisation of plots and local tumults, propagated over extensive provinces?
— from The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg by Thomas De Quincey

These sentiments spring up naturally in my present disposition; and should I endeavour to banish them, by attaching myself to any other business or diversion, I feel I should be a loser in point of pleasure; and this is the origin of my philosophy.
— from Philosophical Works, v. 1 (of 4) Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author by David Hume

It meant, I like to use the thing I find, Rather than strive at unfound novelty: I make the best of the old, nor try for new.
— from The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition by Robert Browning