Possibly, could it be made visible, it might prove a masterpiece of some great artist; else why has it so long held such a conspicuous place?" As her uncle, contrary to his usual custom—for he was as attentive to all the humors and caprices of Alice as if she had been his own best-beloved child—did not immediately reply, the young captain of Castle William took that office upon himself.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Now the science of Vertue and Vice, is Morall Philosophie; and therfore the true Doctrine of the Lawes of Nature, is the true Morall Philosophie.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

He values it more particularly as a deliverance from the "burning core of the will" which is sexuality,—in beauty he recognises the negation of the procreative instinct.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist Complete Works, Volume Sixteen by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I searched in vain in my pocket, and turned it inside out; the small bit of bone, which was no bigger than half a pin, had disappeared.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

Accordingly, whilst the dictator is engaged in person in holding a levy, in ordering his [Pg 382] master of the horse, Lucius Valerius, to bring up the troops from Veii, in making preparations and arrangements, so that he may attack the enemy on equal terms, in the mean time the army of the Capitol, wearied out with keeping guard and with watches, having surmounted all human sufferings, whilst nature would not suffer famine alone to be overcome, looking forward from day to day, to see whether any succour would come from the dictator, at length not only food but hope also failing, and their arms weighing down their debilitated bodies, whilst the guards were being relieved, insisted that there should be either a surrender, or that they should be bought off, on whatever terms were possible, the Gauls intimating in rather plain terms, that they could be induced for no very great compensation to relinquish the siege.
— from The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 by Livy

To get there myself with my gouvernante, I had the Alps to cross, and in a journey of two hundred leagues to drag after me all my baggage; I had also to pass through the states of several sovereigns, and according to the example set to all Europe, I had, after what had befallen me, naturally to expect to find obstacles in every quarter, and that each sovereign would think he did himself honor by overwhelming me with some new insult, and violating in my person all the rights of persons and humanity.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

This man was the secretary of the Inquisitors, the prudent Dominic Cavalli, who was apparently ashamed to speak Venetian in my presence as he pronounced my doom in the Tuscan language.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

421 sapientissimum esse dīcunt eum, cui quod opus sit ipsī veniat in mentem; proximē accēdere illum quī alterīus bene inventīs obtemperet , Clu.
— from A Latin Grammar for Schools and Colleges by George Martin Lane

I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his face to mine.
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

He that is unjust, hurts V. If my present apprehension of the object be right, and my present VI.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

ii.—Jerome, in his Preface to Job, writes, " Habeant qui volunt veteres libros, vel in membranes purpurus auro argentique colore purpuros aurum liquiscit in literis.
— from Bibliomania in the Middle Ages by F. Somner (Frederick Somner) Merryweather

We cannot but think that its vocabulary is miserably poor, and its mechanism deficient both in power and precision.
— from Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays; Vol. 6 With a Memoir and Index by Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron

The colours of the paintings on the walls are as vivid in many places as they were the day they were finished: the silence and the solemn grandeur of the immense buildings around me were most imposing; and on emerging from the lofty gateway between the two towers of the propylon, as I wandered about the island, the tufts of palms, which are here of great height, with their weeping branches, seemed to be mourning over the desolation of the stately palaces and temples to which in ancient times all the illustrious of Egypt were wont to resort, and into whose inner recesses none might penetrate; for the secret and awful mysteries of the worship of Osiris were not to be revealed, nor were they even to be spoken of by those who were not initiated into the highest orders of the priesthood.
— from Visits to Monasteries in the Levant by Robert Curzon

When seen [Pg 206] vertically it may present a wide variety of contours, ellipsoid, ovoid, pentagonoid, etc., but its distinguishing characteristic remains that of the flattened vault.
— from Pedagogical Anthropology by Maria Montessori

Though it be midwinter, the land is gorgeous with blossoms; with glowing rose, fuchsia, and geranium; with snowy datura, jasmine, belladonna, stephanotis, lily, and camelia; with golden bignonia and grevillea; with purple passion-creeper; with scarlet coral and poinciana; with blue jacaranda (rosewood), solanum and lavender; and with sight-dazzling bougainvillea of five varieties, in mauve, pink, and orange sheets.
— from To The Gold Coast for Gold: A Personal Narrative. Vol. I by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir

It is evident the country grows better as we proceed west, and vegetation is more plentiful and looks richer.
— from William Clayton's Journal A Daily Record of the Journey of the Original Company of "Mormon" Pioneers from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake by William Clayton

To view it more profoundly and accurately, is to observe, even in matter, constant changes of state, where the identity has continued entire, and changes as opposite, as those of the mind itself, when, at different periods, it presents itself in different aspects, as sad and cheerful, ignorant and wise, cruel and benevolent.
— from Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (Vol. 1 of 3) by Thomas Brown

The vicinity is most picturesque and luxuriant, and the great volcano of Gunung Salak, with its truncated and jagged summit, forms a characteristic background to many of the landscapes.
— from The Malay Archipelago, Volume 1 The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise; A Narrative of Travel, with Studies of Man and Nature by Alfred Russel Wallace

Mr. Wordsworth’s philosophic poetry, with a less glowing aspect and less tumult in the veins than Lord Byron’s on similar occasions, bends a calmer and keener eye on mortality; the impression, if less vivid, is more pleasing and permanent; and we confess it (perhaps it is a want of taste and proper feeling) that there are lines and poems of our author’s, that we think of ten times for once that we recur to any of Lord Byron’s.
— from Hazlitt on English Literature: An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by William Hazlitt