This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment’s hesitation about doing what he ought to do.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

The majority is principally composed of peaceful citizens who, either by inclination or by interest, are sincerely desirous of the welfare of their country.
— from Democracy in America — Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville

With what color of propriety could the force necessary for defense be limited by those who cannot limit the force of offense?
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

The college of petty canons there was founded by King Richard II.
— from The Survey of London by John Stow

In the language of the late Chief Justice Nelson of New York: "No case or principle can be found, or if found can be maintained, subjecting an individual to liability for [95] an act done without fault on his part....
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Now came the next measure to protect the citizen's right to vote, which proposed to guard against any discrimination on account of race, of color, of previous condition, but by the omission of the one word "sex," all women still were left disfranchised.
— from The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years by Ida Husted Harper

frumsceaft f. first creation, origin, primeval condition , B : creature : home .
— from A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary For the Use of Students by J. R. Clark (John R. Clark) Hall

In England, the judges at nisi prius express their opinions freely on the value and weight of the evidence, and the judges in banc, by consent of parties, constantly draw inferences of fact.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

center of gravity, center of pressure, center of percussion, center of oscillation, center of buoyancy &c.; metacenter[obs3].
— from Roget's Thesaurus by Peter Mark Roget

All we know is that some unknown person in Paris has in his or her possession a deadly compound capable of producing catalepsy and subsequent death in a manner most swift and secret.
— from Her Majesty's Minister by William Le Queux

Not a curtain, not a chair or painting could be seen.
— from Maezli: A Story of the Swiss Valleys by Johanna Spyri

These phases of transformation are not only related in a chronological way, so as to be obvious when we examine the ideas of society at epochs of a few years or of centuries apart—they exist also contemporaneously in different nations or in different social grades of the same nation, according as the class of persons considered has made a greater or less intellectual progress.
— from History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2) Revised Edition by John William Draper

The Aloha was bounding briskly forward, a solitary speck on the bosom of darkening purple, and the men sitting in the companionship of silence, which all the world praises and seldom attains, had been engaging in that most entertaining of pastimes, the comparison of present comfort with past toil.
— from Romance Island by Zona Gale

“Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness.
— from The Time Machine by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Mr. Glaisher has not failed to notice the great difference shown by the observations made when the sky was overclouded as compared with those under a clear or partially clear sky, and has given a table showing that the mean results up to a height of 4000 feet above the sea show a nearly uniform decline of 1° Fahr.
— from Notes of a naturalist in South America by John Ball

That the body could be rendered insensible to pain by the inhalation of a gas or vapor, capable of producing certain effects upon the organism.
— from The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 by Various

As in these, as well as in all other collections of public charity, it was necessary to arrange matters so that the public might safely place the most perfect confidence in those who were charged with these details; the collections were made in a manner in which it was EVIDENTLY IMPOSSIBLE for those employed in making them to defraud the poor of any part of that which their charitable and more opulent fellow-citizens designed for their relief.—And to this circumstance principally it may, I believe, be attributed, that these donations have for such a length of time (more than five years,) continued to be so considerable.
— from Essays; Political, Economical, and Philosophical — Volume 1 by Rumford, Benjamin, Graf von

His insinuations, therefore, in regard to Sir Henry Dacre, passed by as empty air, at least for the time; but all had, nevertheless, a strong conviction on their minds, that the doubts he had attempted to raise would rankle deep in the heart of their unhappy object, and poison the whole course of his existence, unless some fortunate event were to bring to light the real circumstances of poor Catherine Beauchamp's death.
— from Agincourt: A Romance The Works of G. P. R. James, Volume XX by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James