I could always draw animals, but before I was educated I could not tell what kind they were when I got them done, but now I can.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain

But the old World knoweth—'tis the speech of all his ages— Man's wrong and ours: he knoweth and is still.
— from Medea of Euripides by Euripides

I am, perhaps, the only one who knows the truth.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Farewell to the patriotic scene, to the love of liberty and well earned meed of virtuous aspiration!—farewell to crowded senate, vocal with the councils of the wise, whose laws were keener than the sword blade tempered at Damascus!—farewell to kingly pomp and warlike pageantry; the crowns are in the dust, and the wearers are in their graves!—farewell to the desire of rule, and the hope of victory; to high vaulting ambition, to the appetite for praise, and the craving for the suffrage of their fellows!
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Note 76 ( return ) [ Villehardouin (No. 116) speaks of him as a favorite, without knowing that he was a prince of the blood, Angelus and Ducas .
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Practice, however, enables us, with effort , to attend to a marginal object whilst keeping the eyes immovable.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

For the Rishis well knew the exact position of each god in the Soma ritual, in which nearly every member of the pantheon found a place.
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

To anyone who knew the country well, the mere style and title of "Don Quixote of La Mancha" gave the key to the author's meaning at once.
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The formidable attacks made by this people, divided into the nations of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, upon the Roman power during its decline, are too well known to every reader of Gibbon to require further notice.
— from The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1 (of 6) by the Elder Pliny

Other men, as is well known, take refuge in Authority.
— from The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies by Walter Besant

Annie was kneeling, too, her fine, unringed hands clasping one of her mother's hands.
— from The Beloved Woman by Kathleen Thompson Norris

He could beat any boy in school in wrestling, and no doubt could flog any of them in a fist-fight, though on this point I speak only from conjecture, as this part of boys' amusements is not always as well known to their teachers as it is to the boys themselves.
— from In the School-Room: Chapters in the Philosophy of Education by John S. (John Seely) Hart

He would know his work and he would know their work, and then in battle there would be killed only what men were absolutely necessary and the sick list would be comparatively free of fools.
— from Wounds in the rain: War stories by Stephen Crane

The demeanor of the Viscount was serious; he well knew that in Sir Thomas Winter he had no unskilled swordsman, but a man of much experience, with wrist of steel, and a trick of fence acquired by long practice in foreign service.
— from The Fifth of November A Romance of the Stuarts by Charles S. Bentley

ACORN, the fruit of the oak-tree; a word also used, by analogy with the shape, in nautical language, for a piece of wood keeping the vane on the mast-head.
— from The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg

It means that if we do go to work without knowing the exact spot where old Godfrey and the abbot concealed the silver altar and the three chestsful of plate we might continue our investigations until doomsday and achieve nothing except the inevitable reputation of having made arrant fools of ourselves.”
— from The Closed Book: Concerning the Secret of the Borgias by William Le Queux

Every one, as she says, was kind to her; and the result is, that although she rejoices over our victories in Italy and Germany, she talks very little about the Flanders campaign; about which, by the way, were she even as French as possible, there would not be anything very pleasant to say."
— from The Cornet of Horse: A Tale of Marlborough's Wars by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

The colonel was known to have written to influential friends in London, begging them to urge upon the authorities the folly of allowing a fine regiment like his to leave the country at such a moment.
— from One of the 28th: A Tale of Waterloo by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty