This arose from the circumstance that he was usually an all but illiterate village rustic, or narrow-minded small-townsman, brought into a prominence felt on all sides to be awkward.
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

The proof is limited to the assertion that such shoes as were indicated in the evidence were very rarely or never worn in that region, also that no native could have been present, that the form of the nails allowed inference of somebody from foreign regions, one of which might be the home of the suspect, etc.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

My idea was—a very ridiculous one, no doubt—that she had intended to poison him—and that, in some way, Mrs. Inglethorp got hold of it by mistake.
— from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

I had long ago observed most of the opinions of the ancients to concur in this, that it is high time to die when there is more ill than good in living, and that to preserve life to our own torment and inconvenience is contrary to the very rules of nature, as these old laws instruct us.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

This is a verbatim repetition of ℞ No. 178 .
— from Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Apicius

Any vague rumor of number had a tendency to settle itself into Twelve.
— from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

But perhaps one may approximate it by imagining the States of our Union peopled by separate nations, speaking separate languages, with guards and custom-houses strung along all frontiers, plenty of interruptions for travelers and traders, interpreters able to handle all the languages very rare or non-existent, and a few wars always going on here and there and yonder as a further embarrassment to commerce and excursioning.
— from Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World by Mark Twain

Natural instincts are lost under domestication: a remarkable instance of this is seen in those breeds of fowls which very rarely or never become "broody," that is, never wish to sit on their eggs.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 6th Edition by Charles Darwin

At that time it was the sudden volcanic rupture of nearly all relations between black and white, in work and government and family life.
— from The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt) Du Bois

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The "Heimskringla" of Snorri Sturlason is a collection of sagas concerning the various rulers of Norway, from about A.D. 850 to the year A.D. 1177.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

But now even these have disappeared, for about eighteen months ago the Turkish Government [ 174 ] sold all the visible remains of Nineveh for the enormous sum of two Turkish liras (36s.)!
— from Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia An Account of an Englishwoman's Eight Years' Residence Amongst the Women of the East by A. Hume-Griffith

While a clear conception of fluctuations was thus gained, mutations were excluded from consideration, being considered as very rare, or non-existent.
— from Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Hugo de Vries

Later in the day, when the heat was past, he unloaded his bales, hired a coolie, and set forth to offer his wares to the Prince Mirza Mogul, subahdar of the volunteer regiment of native infantry, who seemed to be one of the most important persons in the city.
— from Barclay of the Guides by Herbert Strang

After various raidings of northern England, and after the death of the Conqueror, Malcolm renewed, in Lothian, the treaty of Abernethy, being secured in his twelve English manors (1091).
— from A Short History of Scotland by Andrew Lang

The case of various American monkeys, both sexes of which have been kept for many years together in their own countries, and yet have very rarely or never bred, is a more apposite instance, because of their relationship to man.
— from The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin

[p. 132] Even if your thinking the thing good is the same thing as your preference of it, yet the goodness of the thing—that of which you think—is, for that very reason, obviously not the same thing as your preference of it.
— from Principia Ethica by G. E. (George Edward) Moore

Where Mohammed speaks in the name of the universal natural power he is abundantly scornful toward that fond paganism which consists in imagining distinct patrons for various regions of nature or for sundry human activities.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana