Medini who was a great talker and a dreadful liar thought to persuade me by shewing me a number of open letters, commending him in pompous terms to the best houses in Florence.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

The public seems to know this very well, theoretically, but in practice no wife applies this theory when her drunken husband comes home; in practice the policeman looks after the drunkard, in practice the peasant and the master quarrel with the drunken servant and the apprentice,—and then everybody wonders when suddenly superiors are hurt, maimed, and otherwise opposed.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross

The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such remarks, acted as if she did not hear them, and continued her intermittent private words of tender trifles to the sleeping and waking child, who was just big enough to be placed for a moment on the bench beside her when she wished to ease her arms.
— from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

pressure to conform, herd instinct, peer pressure.
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

If you send cake, have it put in a white box, and place the note outside the cover, tying it fast with white satin ribbon.
— from The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society by Florence Hartley

honest old Dobbin mumbled to George, when he came back from Rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her in perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

But if any one contends that those days of the tree of life mentioned by the prophet Isaiah are the present times of the Church of Christ, and that Christ Himself is prophetically called the Tree of Life, because He is Wisdom, and of wisdom Solomon says, "It is a tree of life to all who embrace it;" [823] and if they maintain that our first parents did not pass years in paradise, but were driven from it so soon that none of their children were begotten there, and that therefore that time cannot be alluded to in words which run, "as in the primitive days, and as in former years," I forbear entering on this question, lest by discussing everything I become prolix, and leave the whole subject in uncertainty.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

The postwar studies of [Pg 297] RAND Corporation have in part been released in unclassified form and add to our knowledge not only of propaganda but of mankind.
— from Psychological Warfare by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger

She walked upright and light by the side of the tall man, whose long shapeless coat hung in perpendicular folds from the stooping shoulders, whose feet moved slowly.
— from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette , in an issue published in 1734, has this advertisement: All persons who are indebted to Henry Flower, late postmaster of Pennsylvania, for Postage of Letters or otherwise, are desir'd to pay the same to him at the old Coffee House in Philadelphia.
— from All About Coffee by William H. (William Harrison) Ukers

Aside from his business in that connection he is president of the Ross Realty Company, Ltd., and as such figures prominently in real-estate circles, negotiating and managing many important property transfers.
— from Montreal from 1535 to 1914. Vol. 3. Biographical by William H. (William Henry) Atherton

It is singular that in times of difficulty and danger, when a clear head is particularly necessary, men who have charge of property, and the lives of their fellow-men, are prone to consult the rum bottle, which always produces an effect precisely the reverse of what is desired.
— from Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser Martingale by John Sherburne Sleeper

CONCLUSION 'History is philosophy teaching by examples.'
— from Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries by John Horace Round

Much facile propaganda has been made by the device of crediting him in person with every religious 137 utterance found in his plays—even in the portions which analytical criticism proves to have come from other hands.
— from Montaigne and Shakspere by J. M. (John Mackinnon) Robertson

He was accompanied by two Dutchmen, who were very inquisitive to know who had directed us into this road, saying it must have been one of the natives, and if they knew him, they would cut him in pieces before our faces.
— from A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08 by Robert Kerr

2. The omnipotence of the Creator suggested a specious and respectful solution of the likeness of the Father and the Son; and faith might humbly receive what reason could not presume to deny, that the Supreme God might communicate his infinite perfections, and create a being similar only to himself.
— from History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 2 by Edward Gibbon

But his friend does not seem to sympathize with the cheerful feelings of his comrade; he is pale, and there is terror on his face; and you may see that the journal in his hand trembles like a leaf.
— from Lucretia — Volume 03 by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron

Coleridge had, indeed, praised him generously enough, but the author of "The Ode to Duty" knew nothing of the enthusiastic partisanship which was to be his lot in the later years of his life, and for more than a quarter of a century after his death.
— from Victorian Literature: Sixty Years of Books and Bookmen by Clement King Shorter