The company being gone I walked home with great content as I can be in for seeing the greatest rarity, and yet a little troubled that I should see them before my wife’s coming home, I having made a promise that I would not, nor did I do it industriously and by design, but by chance only.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

I shall never forget what enemies your learning, and what envy your glory, raised against you.
— from Letters of Abelard and Heloise To which is prefix'd a particular account of their lives, amours, and misfortunes by Héloïse

This brings us to the golden rule, "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them" and they will do better by you than if you always treated them as if you wanted to get the most you could out of them for the least return.
— from The Art of Money Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum

What poor weak creatures are we, so fertile in good resolutions and yet so unfruitful of results, planting whole acres with fair promises, but when the tender shoots pierce the ground turning our back upon the crop as if it didn’t belong to us!
— from Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood

The same determined patriots and good republicans as yesterday and the day before, and to-morrow and the day after.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

And your ‘gettin’ religion,’ as you call it, arter all, is too p’isin mean for any crittur;—run up a bill with the devil all your life, and then sneak out when pay time comes!
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

"But notwithstanding this per totam curiam, the defendant shall be charged on his general receipt at York, according to Southcote's Case.
— from The Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes

“I would rather choose this,” said Egremont, and he pointed to the portrait of a saint by Allori: the face of a beautiful young girl, radiant and yet solemn, with rich tresses of golden brown hair, and large eyes dark as night, fringed with ebon lashes that hung upon the glowing cheek.
— from Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield

To which the goddess rejoined, “Ask your husband what the reason of his melancholy is, and let me know it.”
— from Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Day

She is as natural and simple as a girl can be, and doesn’t throw Greek roots at you, nor try to convince you of the difference between the songs of the troubadours and the sonnets of Petrarch.
— from Mrs. Falchion, Complete by Gilbert Parker

I think that of all who may be drawn there are probably not ten who can give as good reasons as you for staying at home.
— from The Conscript: A Story of the French war of 1813 by Erckmann-Chatrian

Now, the reader must remember that these were highly respectable women, of some education, and in every way of good repute; and yet they had no idea at all that there was anything silly or wrong about their superstition, of which they made no secret, and which was reported to us immediately afterwards by one who was present.
— from Nether Lochaber The Natural History, Legends, and Folk-lore of the West Highlands by Stewart, Alexander, Rev.

You are bound with a golden ring, And your captor, like some grim knight, Will lock you up in the deepest cell Of his heart, and hide you from sight.
— from Poems by Marietta Holley

"And since then I have been a very wild, wayward, disobedient girl; repaying all your kindness with ingratitude, have I not?" "Why, Georgey!"
— from The Actress' Daughter: A Novel by May Agnes Fleming

And be quick about it before you begin to grow rotund, and your hair—— Ah, how time passes!
— from A Wedding Trip by Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de