Without touch, without progressive motion, the sharpest eyes in the world could give us no idea of space.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

At this time the birds also had their own language which every one understood; now it only sounds like chirping, screeching, and whistling, and to some like music without words.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Wilhelm Grimm

But tonight our friend Pash, there, brought up the law of progress; and we got on statistics; then Lily, there, saying we knew well enough before counting that in the same state of society the same sort of things would happen, and it was no more wonder that quantities should remain the same, than that qualities should remain the same, for in relation to society numbers are qualities—the number of drunkards is a quality in society—the numbers are an index to the qualities, and give us no instruction, only setting us to consider the causes of difference between different social states—Lily saying this, we went off on the causes of social change, and when you came in I was going upon the power of ideas, which I hold to be the main transforming cause.”
— from Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

If we fail, the fault is in us, not in our subjects.
— from The American Reformed Cattle Doctor Containing the necessary information for preserving the health and curing the diseases of oxen, cows, sheep, and swine, with a great variety of original recipes, and valuable information in reference to farm and dairy management by George H. Dadd

At mulier, ne hac quidem benignitate contenta, thori consortium obnixè flagitabat, addens id tanti referre, ut nisi impetraret, omnino sibi moriendum esset.
— from Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Volume 3 (of 3) Consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, Collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland; with a Few of Modern Date, Founded Upon Local Tradition by Walter Scott

Diadelphous (meaning in two brotherhoods), when united by the filaments into two sets, as in the Pea and most of its near relatives (Fig. 288 ), usually nine in one set, and one in the other.
— from The Elements of Botany, For Beginners and For Schools by Asa Gray

During his period as disciple of Plotinos, twenty-four years in duration, Plotinos would naturally have been under Numenian influence of some kind, and we cannot be very far wrong in thinking that this change of editors must have left some sort of impress on the dreamy thinker, Plotinos, ever seeking to experience an ecstasy.
— from Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 4 In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods by Plotinus

Moreover, the investigations of the last three-quarters of a century have proved, they tell us, that similar inquiries, carried out through all the different kinds of animals which are met with in nature, will lead us, not in one straight series, but by many roads, step by step, gradation by gradation, from man, at the summit, to specks of animated jelly at the bottom of the series.
— from Science & Education: Essays by Thomas Henry Huxley

Much has been said about the unfortunate natural inclination of some people to indulge in sexual perversion, but such talk partakes of the nature of similar remarks with regard to habits of other kinds.
— from Psychotherapy Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

Plantations of all sorts, orchards, gardens, and nurseries, have increased in number and extent to a degree quite unprecedented; not in one section or locality, but from the extreme north to the southern limits of the fruit-growing region.
— from Ten Acres Enough A practical experience, showing how a very small farm may be made to keep a very large family by Edmund Morris