The great sophist was indeed the Athenian public itself, Athens, as the willing victim of its own gifts, its own flamboyancy, well-nigh worn out now by the mutual friction of its own parts, given over completely to hazardous political experiment with the irresponsibility which is ever the great vice of democracy, ever ready to float away anywhither, to misunderstand, or forget, or discredit, its own past.
— from Plato and Platonism by Walter Pater

He becomes the puppet of passions which the sane man cannot so much as picture to his fancy, the victim of desire, ever recurring and ever destined to remain unsatisfied; nor is any hallucination more akin to lunacy than the mirage of a joy that leaves the soul thirstier than it was before, the paroxysm of unnatural pleasure which wearies the nerves that crave for it.
— from Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) The Age of the Despots by John Addington Symonds

The correct determination of such admixtures, like the fixing of anything like the exact commercial value of dyewood extracts, requires nothing less than a complete chemical investigation coupled with numerous dyeing trials in comparison with standard preparations, and should be left to an expert.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 by Various

Every dinner, every voyage of discovery, every reception, and in short anything happening that would be of interest to the absent members, is written up by some one for their edification.
— from The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 01, No. 10, October 1895. French Farmhouses. by Various

She heard again the familiar voice of Dr. Ewing reciting the words of that wonderful introduction.
— from Project Gutenberg Complete Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill

[84] "Variation, one degree east," remarked Dinshaw, and went back to his figuring, talking to himself and scratching his head.
— from Isle o' Dreams by Frederick Ferdinand Moore