It was easy to melt all these away in the gold-making crucible, and yet obtain no gold.
— from Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

But the one to whom my arrival gave the greatest pleasure was the duke’s second son, Fernando by name, a gallant youth, of noble, generous, and amorous disposition, who very soon made so intimate a friend of me that it was remarked by everybody; for though the elder was attached to me, and showed me kindness, he did not carry his affectionate treatment to the same length as Don Fernando.
— from The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

If one is young one never grows old, and if one is old one becomes young.
— from The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Line, a 12-year old Norwegian girl, started the day talking with Japanese kids at the Nishimachi and Kanto International School in Tokyo.
— from The Online World by Odd De Presno

There was, then, no great while ago, in Florence a damsel very handsome and agreeable, according to her condition, who was the daughter of a poor father and was called Simona; and although it behoved her with her own hands earn the bread she would eat and sustain her life by spinning wool, she was not therefor of so poor a spirit but that she dared to admit into her heart Love, which,—by means of the pleasing words and fashions of a youth of no greater account than herself, who went giving wool to spin for a master of his, a wool-monger,—had long made a show of wishing to enter there.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

But the summer before mentioned (A.D. 999), where King Olaf Trygvason had ruled four years over Norway, Gudrod came to the country, and had many ships of war with him.
— from Heimskringla; Or, The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson

So the Yabim of New Guinea believe that the spirit of a murdered man pursues his murderer and seeks to do him a mischief.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer

"'What is it, Emelyanoushka?' "'Nothing, Astafy Ivanovitch, I—sort of——' "'Won't you drink it?' "'Well, Astafy Ivanovitch, I'm not—sort of—going to drink any more, Astafy Ivanovitch.' "'Do you mean you've given it up altogether, Emelyanoushka, or are you only not going to drink to-day?'
— from Short Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Yes or no?” George replied: “It happened like this, if it happened at all.
— from A Room with a View by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

I shall be sorry if that vol comes out, as it necessarily must do, unless you print those very schoolboyish verses I sent you on not getting leave to come down to Bristol last Summer.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5 The Letters of Charles and Mary Lamb, 1796-1820 by Charles Lamb

Yes or no; give me a decisive answer, or consider yourself discharged on the spot.
— from Pillars of Society by Henrik Ibsen

At length, however, when he perceived that the noblest and the most wealthy of the land were [314] rejected equally with all others, he grew angry, and thus addressed her:— "Hitherto I have left you at full liberty to make your own selection; but, as I observe that you reject all indiscriminately, and that the most eligible suitors are yet in your opinion not good enough for you, I shall no longer permit such conduct.
— from Fairy Tales From all Nations by Anthony R. (Anthony Reubens) Montalba

[993] Others, as the Lords Marny and Darcy, were scant (p. 356) well-born gentlemen, and yet of no great lands till they were promoted by us.
— from Henry VIII. by A. F. (Albert Frederick) Pollard

One young officer, now General Bewicke Copley, [6] was attached to the 19th from another regiment in order to study their methods.
— from Sir John French: An Authentic Biography by Cecil Chisholm

At this moment a young officer named Gudovitch, who was really loyal to the newly created Czar, burst into the banquet-hall, booted and spurred and his eyes aflame with indignation.
— from Famous Affinities of History: The Romance of Devotion. Vol 1-4, Complete by Lyndon Orr

So will you." Odeon nodded grimly.
— from The Alembic Plot: A Terran Empire novel by Ann Wilson

Some demon, equally cowardly and malignant, must have poisoned your own naturally generous mind.
— from Willy Reilly The Works of William Carleton, Volume One by William Carleton

Yes or no?" "Give me that key."
— from The Guarded Heights by Wadsworth Camp