These terrible penalties, which many Freemasons themselves regret as a survival of barbarism and which have in fact been abolished in the higher degrees, have done much to create prejudice against Freemasonry, whilst at the same time they provide an additional incentive to outside intriguers.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

"Well then, let me tell you, brother," said Sancho, "I haven't got the 'Don,' nor has any one of my family ever had it; my name is plain Sancho Panza, and Sancho was my father's name, and Sancho was my grandfather's
— from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

"Dr. Bretton wrote one other letter, deeply grateful for my calm, brief note; but I anticipated your advice, by saying, that while my sentiments continued the same, I could not, without my father's knowledge, write again."
— from Villette by Charlotte Brontë

But ’tis not so with me: Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy At ample point all that I did possess Save these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find out Something not worth in me such rich beholding As they have often given.
— from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare

So saying, he advanced and posted himself in the middle of the road along which the friars were coming, and as soon as he thought they had come near enough to hear what he said, he cried aloud, “Devilish and unnatural beings, release instantly the highborn princesses whom you are carrying off by force in this coach, else prepare to meet a speedy death as the just punishment of your evil deeds.” The friars drew rein and stood wondering at the appearance of Don Quixote as well as at his words, to which they replied, “Senor Caballero, we are not devilish or unnatural, but two brothers of St. Benedict following our road, nor do we know whether or not there are any captive princesses coming in this coach.” “No soft words with me, for I know you, lying rabble,” said Don Quixote, and without waiting for a reply he spurred Rocinante and with levelled lance charged the first friar with such fury and determination, that, if the friar had not flung himself off the mule, he would have brought him to the ground against his will, and sore wounded, if not killed outright.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don’t be angry with me for saying so.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

This circumstance put an end to some of my hopes, and I only thought of amusing myself with my friends, as if I had never been at Naples before.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The members of the Club were all disposed of, and the journal formally wound up; but by the suggestion of a future ceremony of opening the Spectator's mouth, a way was made for Addison, whenever he pleased, to connect with the famous series an attempt of his own for its revival.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a woman surely are they theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the D B C with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both ordered 2 teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it was what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches he made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting all myself always with some brandnew fad every other week such a long one I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind that I never got after some robber of a woman and he wanted me to put it in the Irish times lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame street finder return to Mrs Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going out through the turning door he was looking when I looked back
— from Ulysses by James Joyce

Up to this point George Eliot had confined herself to English country life, but now she suddenly abandoned the scenes and the people with whom she was most familiar in order to write an historical novel.
— from English Literature Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English-Speaking World by William J. (William Joseph) Long

There was no one to tell him their names, but the names themselves were more familiar than the rows of figures in his books down-town.
— from The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

“I’m ready now,” said Dick Bannock, with his voice sounding husky out of the darkness; and there was silence, broken only by a groan or two for a few minutes, during which Mark, feeling the terrible responsibility of his position, tried to make some plan as to his future proceedings, but only to be compelled to come back to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but wait for morning.
— from The Black Bar by George Manville Fenn

Fortunately, two days later, as the Strathcona lay taking on whale meat for winter dog food at the northernmost [278] factory, the Northern mail steamer came in.
— from A Labrador Doctor The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell by Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason, Sir

We have materials in us for any amount or character of evil; and whenever we hear any one saying, "Well, I certainly am a poor, failing, stumbling creature, but I am not capable of doing the like of that," we may feel assured he does not know his own heart; and not only so, but he is in imminent danger of falling into some grievous sin.
— from The Great Commission. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. IV by Charles Henry Mackintosh

All —yet even this is much; even for this we shall need the pressure of constant and weighty motives: for it is not only occasional acts which are required of us, but settled tempers and habits of goodwill, industry, and cheerfulness; and to love all men, to rejoice alway, to do our duty in all weathers and all moods, is very hard work to our feeble, selfish, and easily-dejected natures.
— from Expositor's Bible: The Book of Ecclesiastes by Samuel Cox

But if La Rochefoucauld’s warning failed to reach the ears of the Princes, he was more fortunate in effecting the escape of Madame de Longueville.
— from Political Women, Vol. 1 by Menzies, Sutherland, active 1840-1883

Words my father knew he should have to put up with, after today, from Erpwald, but this seemed token of more than words only.
— from A Prince of Cornwall A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex by Charles W. (Charles Watts) Whistler

The Capi ( Saltator cœrulescens ) is nearly of the same size as our English Blackbird, being about eight inches long and twelve broad; the wing measures four inches from the shoulder to the tip, and the tail three and a half inches.
— from Cassell's Book of Birds, Volume 1 (of 4) by Alfred Edmund Brehm