"All the gods appear to me," said Gangler, "to have great power, and I am not at all surprised that ye are able to perform so many great achievements, since ye are so well acquainted with the attributes and functions of each god, and know what is befitting to ask from each, in order to succeed.
— from The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson by Snorri Sturluson

Now, and from hence, in ev’ry future age, When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood, With fire and sword pursue the perjur’d brood; Our arms, our seas, our shores, oppos’d to theirs; And the same hate descend on all our heirs!”
— from The Aeneid by Virgil

but you are a very sagacious Person, but you are so great with Tully of late, that I fear you will contemn these Things as Matters of no Consequence: But believe me, Sir, they are of the highest Importance to Human Life; and if you can do any thing towards opening fair Eyes, you will lay an Obligation upon all your Contemporaries who are Fathers, Husbands, or Brothers to Females.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays by Steele, Richard, Sir

At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years; and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans.
— 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

Other early Canadian newspaper mottoes which pleased the boyish fancy years ago, and which may still be pleasantly read on the face of the same long-lived and yet flourishing publications, were the " Mores et studia et populos et prælia dicam ," of the Quebec Mercury , and the " Animos novitate tenebo " of the Montreal Herald .
— from Toronto of Old Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario by Henry Scadding

“Why, you are a love of a man,” she said.
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

The lady, seized with a sudden idea, said, 'Harkye, dress yourself and when you are dressed, take your godchild in your arms and hearken well to that which I shall say to him, so your words may after accord with mine, and leave me do.'
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

"Ah, I see you ARE a friend after all, and that is one of the disagreeable things I was asking for.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Ye are ashamed of your flow, and others are ashamed of their ebb.
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“The Morcerfs!—Stay, my dear count,” said Danglars; “you are a man of the world, are you not?”
— from The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas

The town remained in the hands of the Spaniards, for Prince Maurice, after spending some days in vain attempts to capture it, marched with his whole force to Ostend, where soon afterwards began the celebrated siege, which was to last for three long years, and about which all Europe never tired of talking.
— from Belgium by George W. T. (George William Thomson) Omond

You are a fool, and know not what you are about.
— from Arabella Stuart: A Romance from English History by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

you have scratched yourself—you are always in mischief.
— from Night and Morning, Volume 2 by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

If you take this view of society, in which you are about to seek a place in keeping with your intellect and your faculties, you must set before you as a generating principle and mainspring, this maxim: never permit yourself to act against either your own conscience or the public conscience.
— from The Works of Balzac: A linked index to all Project Gutenberg editions by Honoré de Balzac

We know that all their ethical schemes could not lift the sages of Greece and Rome out of the deep, the intense sadness which possessed them, nor respond to their yearnings after a something they could neither describe nor define.
— from Curiosities of Superstition, and Sketches of Some Unrevealed Religions by W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport) Adams

But you are acting the part of La Fontaine's schoolmaster, who moralized with the pupil when he had fallen into the water.”
— from A Treatise on Etching by Maxime Lalanne

The good clergyman declared that his part should be to keep down his veil and hold his tongue, and Mistress Margaret willingly undertook to be the talker for the whole party, while Constance, not yet at all assured of safety, listened for every sound with a beating heart, and trembled at every suspicious look that she beheld, or fancied that she beheld, in the people around her.
— from Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

"Tell me, Evelyn, tell me truly, is it on account of religious scruples, or is it because you are afraid of falling in love with Ulick Dean, that you came here to-night and asked me to marry you?" "Owen, we can live in contradiction to our theories, but not in contradiction to our feelings, and you know that my life has always seemed to me fundamentally wrong."
— from Evelyn Innes by George Moore