Come, let us start now, right away."
— from Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street by Herman Melville

Ne lacruma, atque istuc, quidquid est, fac me ut sciam; Ne retice, ne verere, crede inquam mihi: 20 Aut consolando aut consilio aut re iuvero.
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce

She can alarm and reassure him just as he needs it; and if she sometimes makes him uneasy she never really gives him pain.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

One morning then, that both Mrs. Cole and Emily were gone out for the day, and only Louisa and I (not to mention the house-maid) were left in charge of the house, whilst we were loitering away the time, in looking through the shop windows, the son of a poor woman, who earned very hard bread indeed by mending of stockings, in a stall in the neighbourhood, offered us some nosegays, ranged round a small basket; by selling of which the poor boy eked out his mother's maintenance of them both: nor was he fit for any other way of livelihood, since he was not only a perfect changeling, or idiot, but stammered so that there was no understanding even those sounds his half-dozen animals ideas, at most, prompted him to utter.
— from Memoirs of Fanny Hill A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) by John Cleland

Terror et metus maxime ex improviso accedentes ita animum commovent, ut spiritus nunquam recuperent, gravioremque melancholiam terror facit, quam quae ab interna causa fit.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

[2573] This humour, saith he, prepares them to endure death itself, and all manner of torments with invincible courage, and 'tis a wonder to see with what alacrity they will undergo such tortures, ut supra naturam res videatur : he ascribes this generosity, fury, or rather stupidity, to this adustion of choler and melancholy: but I take these rather to be mad or desperate, than properly melancholy; for commonly this humour so adust and hot, degenerates into madness.
— from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton

The Secretary of the Territory kept his office in his bedroom, as I before remarked; and he charged the United States no rent, although his “instructions” provided for that item and he could have justly taken advantage of it (a thing which I would have done with more than lightning promptness if I had been Secretary myself).
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Pass examination for lowest grade wireless operator according to U. S. N. regulations.
— from Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts by Girl Scouts of the United States of America

It is an over-emphasis laid upon some normal reaction; or it is a perverse and morbid deviation from the normal path.
— from Suspended Judgments: Essays on Books and Sensations by John Cowper Powys

Beginning at the southwest corner of Halekauwila and Punchbowl streets, as shown on the Government blue print, and running in a westerly direction along the U.S. Naval Reservation 572 feet to Allen street, thence along Allen street 50 feet, thence in an easterly direction along the United States Naval Reservation 480 feet to land belonging to the Bishop Estate, thence 110 feet to the initial point.
— from A Supplement to A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents by William McKinley

It is a characteristic of organic evolution that numerous progressive tendencies, for a long time inconspicuous, now and then unite to bring about a striking and apparently sudden change; or a set of forces, quietly accumulating in one direction, at length unlock some new reservoir of force and abruptly inaugurate a new series of phenomena, as when water rises in a tank until its overflow sets whirl
— from The Idea of God as Affected by Modern Knowledge by John Fiske

All this fuss because one of the prize crew had found in my quarters a pamphlet giving information regarding the United States Naval Reserve requirements.
— from Ten Months in a German Raider: A prisoner of war aboard the Wolf by John Stanley Cameron

But all we really know is that Cabeza de Vaca, the only man to brush against both of the entradas that gave the world its first views of what became the United States, never returned there himself.
— from De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery by David Lavender

With its sixty square miles still mostly covered with a dense forest of oak, maple, and beech, with its uneven surface nowhere rising into high hills, it had a strong soil, which, when cultivated, yielded large crops of hay and grain.
— from Sketches of Successful New Hampshire Men by Various