Among the rest, I was much diverted with a little old treatise, which always lay in Glumdalclitch's bed-chamber, and belonged to her governess, a grave elderly gentlewoman, who dealt in writings of morality and devotion.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

Why did he stand transfixed with open mouth and distended eyeballs?
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

A learned writer of more ancient date asks why a doctor has not a possessory action if you cease to employ him, and answers: "Sentio actionem non tenere, sed sentio tantum, nec si vel morte mineris, possum dicere quare.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

I had staked all on Gussie making a favourable impression on his hostess, basing my confidence on the fact that he was one of those timid, obsequious, teacup-passing, thin-bread-and-butter-offering yes-men whom women of my Aunt Dahlia's type nearly always like at first sight.
— from Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse

Further, let us get rid of all superfluous baggage, save only what we require for the sake of war, or meat and drink, so that as many of us as possible may be under arms, and as few as possible doing porterage.
— from Anabasis by Xenophon

That was the first sound I had heard from human lips during all this dreadful chase, and full as it was of menace and danger to me it was a welcome sound for it broke that awful silence which shrouded and appalled me.
— from Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker

I offer you, now, no distinction among a bustling crowd; no mingling with a world of malice and detraction, where the blood is called into honest cheeks by aught but real disgrace and shame; but a home—a heart and home—yes, dearest Rose, and those, and those alone, are all I have to offer.' 'What do you mean!'
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

In countries outworn by monarchy, these titles are the surest reward for whoever thinks good to write on morals and does not dedicate his book to the Mme.
— from On Love by Stendhal

Having unhappily contracted expensive habits of living, partly occasioned by licentiousness of manners, he in an evil hour, when pressed by want of money, and dreading an exposure of his circumstances, forged a bond of which he attempted to avail himself to support his credit, flattering himself with hopes that he might be able to repay its amount without being detected.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

In a pencil factory the women in one department have to grasp with one movement a dozen pencils, no more and no less.
— from Psychology and Industrial Efficiency by Hugo Münsterberg

On any other theory than that of Liberty, the words, obligation, merit and demerit, &c., are words without meaning.
— from Doctrine of the Will by Asa Mahan

To propose his name would only mean a division of votes in the party and that was to be avoided before everything.
— from Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism by Gilbert Chinard

Of the other holes on the way out, most are decidedly long, except the fifth, which is a simple enough short hole, and ‘South America,’ before described, is as good as any of them.
— from The Golf Courses of the British Isles by Bernard Darwin

It has however been long since remarked, that these names 283 are much older than Charles the Great 666 ; and it is highly probable that they were only more accurately defined, or publicly confirmed by this prince, or that in his time they came into general use.
— from A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume 2 (of 2) by Johann Beckmann

They had, of course, in the progress of human life, been both laid upon the bed of sickness, where, with similar contrast, the one lay muttering discontent, and the other smiling patiently: they had both been in dangers by land and by sea, where Julian, though not a little lacking to himself at the moment of peril, was still loudly minacious till it came too near; while Charles, with all his caution, was more actually courageous, and in spite of all his gentleness, stood against the worst undaunted: they had both, with opposite motives and dissimilar modes of life, passed through various vicissitudes of feeling, scene, society; and the influence of circumstance on their different characters, heightened or diminished, bettered or depraved, by the good or evil principle in each, had produced their different and probable results.
— from The Twins: A Domestic Novel by Martin Farquhar Tupper

If, cries Amelia's husband, when his distresses overwhelm him, "if I was to suffer alone, I think I could bear them with some philosophy"; and again "this was the first time I had ever felt that distress which arises from the want of money; a distress very dreadful indeed in the married state for what can be more miserable than to see anything necessary to the preservation of the beloved creature and not be able to supply it?"
— from Henry Fielding: a Memoir Including Newly Discovered Letters and Records with Illustrations from Contemporary Prints by G. M. (Gertrude M.) Godden