But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl—you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one
— from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

She lay stretched out, motionless, as though afraid to move, with her head thrown back on the pillow, rather on one side, staring at the ceiling with exhausted but glowing eyes.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Though it is not very probable that any part of a tax, which is not only imposed upon one of the most proper subjects of taxation, a mere luxury and superfluity, but which affords so very important a revenue as the tax upon silver, will ever be given up as long as it is possible to pay it; yet the same impossibility of paying it, which, in 1736. made it necessary to reduce it from one-fifth to one-tenth, may in time make it necessary to reduce it still further; in the same manner as it made it necessary to reduce the tax upon gold to one-twentieth.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

‘Friend Homer,’ then we say to him, ‘if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third—not an image maker or imitator—and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your help?
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified.
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

He was now grown up, and had a liberal education, and was well improved by it, and was in esteem and favor with the people, on account of the excellent character of his father Germanicus, who had attained the highest honor among the multitude, by the firmness of his virtuous behavior, by the easiness and agreeableness of his conversing with the multitude, and because the dignity he was in did not hinder his familiarity with them all, as if they were his equals; by which behavior he was not only greatly esteemed by the people and the senate, but by every one of those nations that were subject to the Romans; some of which were affected when they came to him with the gracefulness of their reception by him, and others were affected in the same manner by the report of the others that had been with him; and, upon his death, there was a lamentation made by all men; not such a one as was to be made in way of flattery to their rulers, while they did but counterfeit sorrow, but such as was real; while every body grieved at his death, as if they had lost one that was near to them.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus

It is not probable that any precise explanation of the cause or source of each particular sound, under different states of the mind, will ever be given.
— from The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin

They looked at it for a few minutes in silence, and then the oldest of the pair gravely told the farmer that they were elders of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and were empowered by God to perform miracles, even to the extent of raising the dead; and that they felt quite assured they could bring to life the man who laid dead before them!
— from The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas by Frederick Marryat

This tract of land is the only real Estate to which the Heirs at Law of said Thomas Moss are entitled in the said County of Fairfax or Elsewhere—This tract of land is naturally a thin soil but from a careful course of husbandry for a number of years, is now in a good state of cultivation, the fields well enclosed by good and substantial fencing, the land not in cultivation well taken with grass (clover and timothy) and that in cultivation just sown down in winter grass, and the buildings in a good state of repair, the barn and stables having been Erected in the last two or three years— Your orators have been advised by persons in the neighbourhood with whom they have conversed, with the view of getting the best advice and information on the subject that the tract of land would not now rent for more than ____ per annum, which would give to each of the Heirs in the shape of rent Twenty five or Thirty dollars annually—while on the other hand owing as your Orators believe to the Convenient distance thence to Alexandria, George Town and Washington and the improved state of the farm in other respects, it would sell upon the usual terms of Sales of land for Twenty five dollars per Acre and thus afford an interest on the sale nearly double the annual rent—In addition to the fact that the rent would greatly fall short of the interest on the sale your orators have been advised that the property in the hands of tenants would in the course of a few years be excessively injured and lessened in value, the soil impoverished, the buildings and fencing neglected and suffered to delapidate perhaps destroyed.
— from Green Spring Farm, Fairfax County, Virginia by Nan Netherton

He ridicules the imaginary ailments of fashionable women exhausted by gaiety; but he waxes bitterly indignant over "the Old Bailey ladies" who obtained access to the chapel at Newgate to listen to the "condemned sermon" in the presence of a convicted murderer, or scrambled for seats at the trials of notorious malefactors.
— from Mr. Punch's History of Modern England, Vol. 1 (of 4).—1841-1857 by Charles L. (Charles Larcom) Graves

20 , e ), as was established by Grassi, experimentally on himself.
— from The Animal Parasites of Man by Fred. V. (Frederick Vincent) Theobald

Allured to the banks of the river Hawkesbury, both by the superiority of the soil, and the facilities which the navigation of this river afforded for the conveyance of produce to market, a circumstance of material advantage even at this moment, but of incalculable importance at a period, when as yet there were few or no cattle for the purposes of land carriage, the first colonists were encouraged by Governor Phillip to establish themselves on this low fertile tract of country, not so much perhaps from choice as necessity.
— from Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration, and Their Superiority in Many Respects Over Those Possessed by the United States of America by W. C. (William Charles) Wentworth

(iv) Robin Hood, or Robin o’ Wood, explained by German scholars as the English representative of Woden, or a wood-god, or some other mythical personage.
— from Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series by Frank Sidgwick

And a certain solidarity was established between God and His creature.
— from Tragic Sense Of Life by Miguel de Unamuno

For suspending his vow, Frederic was excommunicated by Gregory IX.
— from Heroines of the Crusades by C. A. (Celestia Angenette) Bloss

Some had passed beyond the portal of earthly existence, and others unexpectedly reappeared, among whom was my father, whose face I could not see, but whose emotion betokened great anguish at the sight of his blind daughter.
— from The World As I Have Found It Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl by Mary L. Day