Is anything good ever done absolutely without an egoistic motive?
— from The Basis of Morality by Arthur Schopenhauer

But still the house affairs would draw her thence; Which ever as she could with haste despatch, She'd come again, and with a greedy ear Devour up my discourse; which I observing, Took once a pliant hour; and found good means To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, Whereof by parcels she had something heard, But not intentively; I did consent; And often did beguile her of her tears, When I did speak of some distressful stroke
— from Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare

As long as there was any reasonable hope of success in the business he had in hand, nothing was too adventurous or too dangerous for him to attempt; and if any general ever did so, he put every chance of victory to the fullest proof.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

A great endowment, doubled by great good for tune, raises men like these into supreme representatives of mankind.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Zweierlei Arten giebt es, die treffende Wahrheit zu sagen; / Oeffentlich immer
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

How still my Lord Chancellor is, not daring to do or say any thing to displease the Parliament; that the Parliament is in a very ill humour, and grows every day more and more so; and that the unskilfulness of the Court, and their difference among one another, is the occasion of all not agreeing in what they would have, and so they give leisure and occasion to the other part to run away with what the Court would not have.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And Sir Ethelred, hearing it on the lips of his wife and girls every day (mostly at breakfast-time), had conferred upon it the dignity of unsmiling adoption.
— from The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad

We had a good English dinner, and afterwards the lady proposed a game of faro.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

And, natheles, men say there commonly, that the earth hath so been cloven sith the time that our Lady was there buried; and yet men say there, that it waxeth and groweth every day, without doubt.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Mandeville, John, Sir

This, though it is but cold water mingled with oatmeal, yet makes a good enough dish for a hungry man; and where there are no means of making fire, or (as in our case) good reason for not making one, it is the chief stand-by of those who have taken to the heather.
— from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Among the Battas of Sumatra, "It is one of the morning duties of women and girls, even down to children of four and five years old, to bring drinking-water in the gargitis , a water-vessel made of a thick stalk of bamboo.
— from The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

When Johnson, in the autumn of 1773, visited the ancestral seat of his friend, Boswell, 'in the glow of what, I am sensible, will in a commercial age be considered as a genealogical enthusiasm,' did not {11} forget to remind his illustrious Mentor of his relationship to the Royal Personage, George the Third, 'whose pension had given Johnson comfort and independence.
— from James Boswell by W. Keith (William Keith) Leask

[p]; and gaining every day new partisans by his bounty and affability, he proceeded in a more silent and therefore a more dangerous manner, to the increase of his authority.
— from The History of England, Volume I From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 by David Hume

She also gib 'em dried watermelon seeds to git rid of de grabel in de kidneys.
— from Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume I, Alabama Narratives by United States. Work Projects Administration

The commercial, manufacturing, and navigating interests are all to a great extent dependent on the agricultural.
— from State of the Union Addresses by Millard Fillmore

Yes, the world is getting better, nobler and grander every day.
— from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. Interviews by Robert Green Ingersoll

When a German ever did anything great it was done at a time of danger, or when his courage was high, with his teeth firmly set and his prudence on the alert, and often enough in a fit of generosity.—Intercourse with these Germans is indeed advisable, for almost every one of them has something to give, if we can only understand how to make him find it, or rather recover it (for he is very untidy in storing away his knowledge).
— from The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I fear to see all Germany erelong deluged with blood.
— from History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, Volume 3 by J. H. (Jean Henri) Merle d'Aubigné

"I am glad everybody does not tell stories."
— from On the Lightship by Herman Knickerbocker Vielé

Between that and the grave we found another grave, evidently dug with a spade or shovel, and a lot of human hair of two colours, that had become decomposed in the skin of the skull and fallen off in flakes, some of which I have also taken.
— from Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia From Melbourne To The Gulf Of Carpentaria by William John Wills