With an easy condescension, and kind forbearance towards our stupidity,—which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little short of crime,—would he forthwith, by the merest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear as daylight.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

And he who at every age, as boy and youth and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the State; he shall be honoured in life and death, and shall receive sepulture and other memorials of honour, the greatest that we have to give.
— from The Republic by Plato

and they accompanied with many more going farther from this Region, endeavored to penetrate into the Heart of this Countrey, where they found about Three Hundred Miles from Carthagena and St. Martha , many admirable Provinces and most fruitful Land, furnished with an even-tempered or meek-spirited People, as they are in other parts of India ; very rich in Gold and those sorts of precious Stones known by the name of Emralds: To which Province they gave the Name of Granada , upon this account, because the Tyrant who first arrived in these Regions, was born in the Kingdom of Granada belonging to these parts; now they that spoiled these Provinces with their rapine being wicked, cruel, infamous Butchers, and delighting in the effusion of Humane Blood, having practically experimented the piacular and grand Enormities perpetrated among the Indians ; and upon this account their Diabolical Actions are so great, so many in number, and represented so grievously horrid by circumstantial aggravations, that they exceed all the villanies committed by others, nay by themselves in other Regions, I will only select and cull out a few out of so great a number which have bene transacted by them within these three years, for my present purpose.
— from A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies Or, a faithful NARRATIVE OF THE Horrid and Unexampled Massacres, Butcheries, and all manner of Cruelties, that Hell and Malice could invent, committed by the Popish Spanish Party on the inhabitants of West-India, TOGETHER With the Devastations of several Kingdoms in America by Fire and Sword, for the space of Forty and Two Years, from the time of its first Discovery by them. by Bartolomé de las Casas

These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven; for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose,—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

And, suffocating at the thought of all the dogs living at her expense, she went away, even carrying back what remained of the bread, which she ate as she walked along.
— from Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant by Guy de Maupassant

After leaving the university he was at first a private scholar, and as such wrote an exposition of the prophecy of Obadiah, and also the first volume of an Arabic grammar, which was translated into several languages, and is in use to-day.
— from Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ by Aaron Bernstein

We see it in Roman Catholic countries, where the music and the paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker spirit of unsensualizing would have kept out.—You, yourself, have a pretty collection of paintings—but confess to me, whether, walking in your gallery at Sandham, among those clear Vandykes, or among the Paul Potters in the ante-room, you ever felt your bosom glow with an elegant delight, at all comparable to that you have it in your power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged assortment of the court cards?—the pretty antic habits, like heralds in a procession—the gay triumph-assuring scarlets—the contrasting deadly-killing sables—the 'hoary majesty of spades'—Pam in all his glory!—
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

Thus it goes: If it do come to pass That any man turn ass, Leaving his wealth and ease A stubborn will to please, Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame; Here shall he see Gross fools as he, An if he will come to me.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

I did not exchange a word with anyone, except the landlord of the hotel where I breakfasted.
— from With Frederick the Great: A Story of the Seven Years' War by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

To steal insidiously upon a destructively-included wild beast and transfix it with one well-directed blow of a spear is attended by difficulties and emotions which are entirely absent in the case of a wickerwork animal covered with canvas-cloth, no matter how deceptive in appearance the latter may be.”
— from The Wallet of Kai Lung by Ernest Bramah

By its means those specific variations which already exist in a species [153] may continually be blended in a fresh manner, but it is incapable of giving rise to new variations, even though it often appears to do so....
— from An Examination of Weismannism by George John Romanes

He gazed at Margaret Walsingham with arrested eye, and his hands strayed unconsciously to his wrists as if they would find spectral shackles there.
— from Faithful Margaret: A Novel by Simpson, J. M., Mrs.

That which might else seem irreverent appears to have been a deep knowledge of human nature; he contrasts, because his rule was to distinguish two things which are easily mistaken for each other.
— from Sermons Preached at Brighton Third Series by Frederick William Robertson

And those Ruachs which appertain to wicked and evil persons, having strong wills inclined earthwards,—these persist longest and manifest most frequently and vividly, because they rise not , but, being destined to perish utterly, are not withdrawn from immediate contact with the earth.
— from The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the new Gospel of Interpretation by Edward Maitland

In order to ensure that the EU can continue to function efficiently with an expanded membership, the Treaty of Nice (in force as of 1 February 2003) set forth rules streamlining the size and procedures of EU institutions.
— from The 2009 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency

As he uttered these words, in a coarse, ruffianly tone, a visible shudder of fear or disgust, or both combined, passed through the frame of each of the prisoners; and Algernon turning to him, with an expression of loathing contempt, said: "I more than half suspected as much, when I sometime since contemplated your low-browed, hang-dog countenance.
— from Ella Barnwell A Historical Romance of Border Life by Emerson Bennett

The vicissitudes of the war had produced many silent and internal as well as exterior changes.
— from Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book IV by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

Among the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific we meet with apparent exceptions.
— from Primitive Love and Love-Stories by Henry T. Finck