So that the greatest advantage I derived from the study consisted in this, that, observing many things which, however extravagant and ridiculous to our apprehension, are yet by common consent received and approved by other great nations, I learned to entertain too decided a belief in regard to nothing of the truth of which I had been persuaded merely by example and custom; and thus I gradually extricated myself from many errors powerful enough to darken our natural intelligence, and incapacitate us in great measure from listening to reason.
— from Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences by René Descartes

Or has anything happened?" Princess Parizade did not answer directly, but at length she raised her eyes, and replied that there was nothing wrong.
— from The Arabian Nights Entertainments by Andrew Lang

In this interim, Origen obtained his enlargement, and, retiring to Tyre, he there remained till his death, which happened when he was in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs by John Foxe

There he encamped and resolved to blockade the inner city; for Hegesistratus, to whom the king Darius had entrusted the command of the garrison in Miletus, kept on sending 54 letters before this to Alexander, offering to surrender Miletus to him.
— from The Anabasis of Alexander or, The History of the Wars and Conquests of Alexander the Great by Arrian

They thought the officials should have been chosen from among themselves from among prominent citizens who had earned a right to such promotion, and who would be in sympathy with the populace and likewise thoroughly acquainted with the needs of the Territory.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain

Thus in the morning—especially if she had eaten anything rich the day before—she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the handiest pretext Belóva’s deafness.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

He dreaded the busy scandal of the capital, and the indiscreet fondness of the wife of Belisarius; escaped from her embraces, and retiring to Ephesus, shaved his head, and took refuge in the sanctuary of a monastic life.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

I was right; but she had stood by me most helpfully in the castle, and had mightily supported and reinforced me with gigantic foolishnesses which were worth more for the occasion than wisdoms double their size; so I thought she had earned a right to work her mill for a while, if she wanted to, and I felt not a pang when she started it up: “Now turn we unto Sir Marhaus that rode with the damsel of thirty winter of age southward—” “Are you going to see if you can work up another half-stretch on the trail of the cowboys, Sandy?”
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Here he is!” He raised his eyes, and recognized that wretched child who had come to him one morning, the elder of the Thénardier daughters, Éponine; he knew her name now.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

We have an allusion to this strange custom in Mencius (VI, i, ch. 5), showing how a junior member of a family, when chosen to represent one of his ancestors, was for the time exalted above his elders, and received the demonstrations of reverence due to the ancestor.
— from The Shih King, or, Book of Poetry From the Sacred Books of the East Volume 3 by James Legge

Sometimes I lace her up so that her eyes are ready to start from her head, and she says, "Tighter," till my hands tingle.
— from Redemption and two other plays by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Let him keep his own frailty ever before his eyes and remember that the bruised reed must not be broken.
— from St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries by Benedict, Saint, Abbot of Monte Cassino

[Pg 195] What wonder that a land where Nature has thus succumbed wholesale to culture, should exasperate the man who has earned a right to be morbid, or that he should cry aloud in his despair, "I am tired of civilised Europe, and I want to see a wild country if I can."
— from Garden-Craft Old and New by John Dando Sedding

Several decades have passed since Leuckart proved in how exact a relation the proportion of volume and surface stood to the degree of organization 655 of an animal.
— from Studies in the Theory of Descent, Volume II by August Weismann

Early in the morning the warriors started, and, delighted with his eloquence and readiness to go against his own tribe, they elected him chief of the expedition.
— from Myths of the Iroquois. (1883 N 02 / 1880-1881 (pages 47-116)) by Erminnie A. (Erminnie Adele) Smith

He bowed over his horse’s neck, drew down his hat over his eyes, and replied, “To Maisons.”
— from Samuel Brohl and Company by Victor Cherbuliez

It was agreed upon that Madame de Camors should remain in the country until her health was reestablished: only her husband expressed the desire that she should reside ordinarily on his estate at Reuilly, the chateau on which had recently been restored with the greatest taste.
— from Monsieur de Camors — Complete by Octave Feuillet

But his kinsman, Gregory V., whom he placed on the pontifical throne, was very soon compelled by the Romans to fly; his excommunications and religious thunders were turned into derision by them; they were too well acquainted with the true nature of those terrors; they were living behind the scenes.
— from History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) Revised Edition by John William Draper