Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara.
— from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

How the duce Corporal Trim, who knew not so much as an acute angle from 214 an obtuse one, came to hit it so exactly;——or whether it was chance or nature, or good sense or imitation, &c. shall be commented upon in that part of the cyclopædia of arts and sciences, where the instrumental parts of the eloquence of the senate, the pulpit, and the bar, the coffee-house, the bed-chamber, and fire-side, fall under consideration.
— from The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Not only grain has become somewhat cheaper, but many other things, from which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and wholesome variety of food, have become a great deal cheaper.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

From whence Socrates would infer that learning is nothing more than recollection; and this topic he explains more accurately in the discourse which he held the very day he died; for he there asserts that, any one, who seeming to be entirely illiterate, is yet able to answer a question well that is proposed to him, does in so doing manifestly show that he is not learning it then, but recollecting it by his memory.
— from Cicero's Tusculan Disputations Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Suppose that a man thinks he has done a wrong to another, the nobler he is the less able is he to feel indignant at any suffering, such as hunger, or cold, or any other pain which the injured person may inflict upon him—these he deems to be just, and, as I say, his anger refuses to be excited by them.
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

“Well, that is pretty clear also.
— from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

‘Shake hands, Heathcliff,’ said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; ‘once in a way that is permitted.’
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Two other soldiers were thrown into prison merely because they had spoken well of Cortes; one of whom was Sancho de Barahona, who afterwards settled down in Guatimala.
— from The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Vol 1 (of 2) Written by Himself Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain. by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

Without this irradiating Power the proudest Fair One ought to know, whatever her Glass may tell her to the contrary, that her most perfect Features are Uninform'd and Dead.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

Sapor entered the Armenian territories at the head of a formidable host of cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary foot; but it was the invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and negotiation, and to consider falsehood and perjury as the most powerful instruments of regal policy.
— 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

Would the interest paid have been the interest upon which we could raise money, the rate at which France could have raised money, or the rate at which Russia could raise money?
— from New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 April-September, 1915 by Various

I have given an oath that I will do so; otherwise the love with which they have cherished me would turn into poison and defile my whole life.
— from The Golden Maiden, and other folk tales and fairy stories told in Armenia by A. K. Seklemian

I have a copy in my pocket; you may examine it when there is positively nothing else to do.”
— from The Story of a Country Town by E. W. (Edgar Watson) Howe

Then he mentions his discussion with the illegal party and says that he is aiming at “cooperative representation of the movement in the Fatherland Front, but nevertheless is refraining from putting National Socialists in important positions for the time being.”
— from Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 6 by Various

But, gradually becoming accustomed to it, and looking carefully into it from all sides, it seemed somehow to contain the promise of a jolly row, and their hearts warmed to it proportionally.
— from The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's: A School Story by Talbot Baines Reed

We spent considerable time while we were there in praying to our Heavenly Father for His guidance and protection, that He would make our way plain before us, bless us with a prosperous voyage across the billows of the mighty ocean, and make us a blessing to each other and to the captain and crew with whom we should sail.
— from President Heber C. Kimball's Journal Seventh Book of the Faith-Promoting Series. Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints by Heber C. (Heber Chase) Kimball

Of all the claims that have been advanced by authors for the reputation of being rapid workmen, this is perhaps the most audacious.
— from A Book About Doctors by John Cordy Jeaffreson

It was not wonderful that its palaces and its magazines, glittering with splendor and bursting with treasure, should arouse the avidity of a reckless and famishing soldiery.
— from PG Edition of Netherlands series — Complete by John Lothrop Motley

Each plebeian receiving an allotment in the territory of the Latini had 2 jugera assigned him, while those in Privernum received 2¾, and those in Falernian territory received 3 jugera each (p. 252).
— from Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic by Andrew Stephenson

The time of his reign is ascertained by an eclipse of the sun, which the inscriptions place in his ninth year, and which astronomers know to have occurred June 15, 763 B. C. After Asshur-likh-khus, the following king, the dynasty was ended with a revolution.
— from A Manual of Ancient History by M. E. (Mary Elsie) Thalheimer