‘What is that?’ said the Cardinal: ‘The increase of pasture,’ said I, ‘by which your sheep, which are naturally mild, and easily kept in order, may be said now to devour men and unpeople, not only villages, but towns; for wherever it is found that the sheep of any soil yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men, the abbots!
— from Utopia by More, Thomas, Saint

But these ideas may be brought up not only voluntarily; we have also a certain degree of power in making these images clearer and more accurate.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

And as light, I take it, makes us not only visible 376 but useful to one another, so knowledge gives not only glory but impetus to virtue.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

But the best evidence is afforded by parts or organs of an important and uniform nature occasionally varying so as to acquire, in some degree, the character of the same part or organ in an allied species.
— 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

And if two persons have an equal number of votes, and thus increase the number beyond one-half, they shall withdraw the younger of the two and do away the excess; and then including all the rest they shall again vote, until there are left three having an unequal number of votes.
— from Laws by Plato

Small is the comfort from the queen to hear Unwelcome news, or vex the royal ear; Blank and discountenanced the servants stand, Nor dare to question where the proud command; No profit springs beneath usurping powers; Want feeds not there where luxury devours, Nor harbours charity where riot reigns: Proud are the lords, and wretched are the swains."
— from The Odyssey by Homer

Yes, I have already passed that period of spiritual life when happiness alone is sought, when the heart feels the urgent necessity of violently and passionately loving somebody.
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov

The government of the Roman world was exercised in the united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder brother, never obtained any weight or influence in the councils of the West.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

In Dieppe, where the revolt followed hard upon news of Vassy, a conflict between Protestants and Catholics resulted in the death of 150 persons.
— from The Wars of Religion in France 1559-1576 The Huguenots, Catherine de Medici and Philip II by James Westfall Thompson

If you take a seat in the wide balcony of the house, where the manager and the clerks of the establishment reside, and live not uncomfortably, you look down almost at your feet on what appears to be an uncountable number of vast iron tanks containing coloured liquids, a tall chimney, a chemical laboratory, an iodine extracting house, a steam-pump, innumerable connecting pipes, stretching and twisting about the vast premises as if they were the bowels of some scientifically formed stomach of vast proportions for the purpose of digesting poisons and producing the elements of gunpowder, a blacksmith's forge, an iron foundry, a lathe shop, complicated scaffolding, tramways, men making boilers, men attending on waggons, bending iron plates, stoking fires, breaking up caliche , wheeling out refuse, putting nitrate into sacks, and other miscellaneous labour, requiring great intelligence to direct and great endurance to carry on; and all beneath the fierce heat of a sun, unscreened by trees or clouds, the glare of which on the white substance which is in process of being turned over, broken, and carried from one point to another, is as painful as looking into a blast furnace.
— from Peru in the Guano Age Being a Short Account of a Recent Visit to the Guano Deposits, with Some Reflections on the Money They Have Produced and the Uses to Which It Has Been Applied by A. J. (Alexander James) Duffield

Not less wonderful is it that the ear is so formed as to be able to take in an uncounted number of various sounds, and {73} yet is never filled; and in the mouth we are instantly met with the remarkable fact in all animals, that, while the front teeth, which take up the food, are formed for cutting, the back teeth, which receive it from them, are adapted for the after operation of grinding; observe also the situation of the great organ of nourishment, close to eyes and the nostrils, which keep a watch against the approach of unhealthy food; while on the other hand, that part of the food which is useless for nutrition, being naturally offensive, is carried off by ducts and passages placed at as great a distance as possible from the organs of sensation.
— from Four Phases of Morals: Socrates, Aristotle, Christianity, Utilitarianism by John Stuart Blackie

On emerging from her bag, a circle formed about her, and she was graciously pleased to dance for us, no one venturing to join her.
— from The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon by Cornélis De Witt Willcox

7. Litlu síðarr enn þeir Ormr ok Ásbjǫrn hǫfðu skilit, fýstist Ásbjǫrn norðr í Sauðeyjar, fór hann við 4 menn ok 20 á skipi, heldr norðr fyrir Mæri, ok leggr seint dags at Sauðey Page 187 {187} hinni ytri, gánga á land ok reisa tjald, eru þar um nóttina, ok verða við ekki varir; um morgininn árla rís Ásbjǫrn upp, klæðir sik, ok tekr vópn sín, ok gengr uppá land, en biðr menn sína bíða sín; en er nokkut svá var liðit frá því, er Ásbjǫrn hafði í brott gengit, verða þeir við þat varir, at ketta ógrlig var komin í tjaldsdyrnar, hon var kolsvǫrt at lit ok heldr grimmlig, þvíat eldr þótti brenna or nǫsum hennar ok munni, eigi var hon ok vel eyg; þeim brá mjǫk við þessa sýn, ok urðu óttafullir.
— from Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn by R. W. (Raymond Wilson) Chambers

Listen now: only this morning they forc'd me to order a young man's hanging, who might if kept alive be forc'd in time to give us news of value.
— from The Splendid Spur Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Majesty King Charles I, in the Years 1642-3 by Arthur Quiller-Couch

We have had a very busy and exciting week since Polly began this letter, for there have been various interruptions and an unusual number of visitors.
— from A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

An almost unlimited number of varieties appears to connect this form with one, in which all the markings on the hind-wings are nearly obsolete.
— from New Zealand Moths and Butterflies (Macro-Lepidoptera) by G. V. (George Vernon) Hudson