That is the law of nature, and no power can abrogate it; those who have fettered it by so many legal restrictions have given heed rather to the outward show of order than to the happiness of marriage or the morals of the citizen.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The method is this: in an acre of ground you bury, at six inches distance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest; then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where, in a few days, they will root up the whole ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their dung: it is true, upon experiment, they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift

The acclamations of the people seated him once more on the archiepiscopal throne; and he wisely accepted, or anticipated, the invitation of Jovian.
— 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

One cannot bring about any great movement without first kindling a sacred fire in the hearts of men; one cannot move masses of people merely by appealing to self-interest; they must have a cause to fight for, a cause that is not entirely their own.
— from Secret Societies And Subversive Movements by Nesta Helen Webster

A sentiment or fear or indignation prompted him, while it was yet time, to affect the glory of a voluntary abdication: 52 his wish, or at least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honor from Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and, after a short pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as the lawful bishops of Constantinople.
— 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

This mark of her love should be connected with some kind of pleasure that may have been practised by him, such as his way of kissing her, or manner of having connection with her.
— from The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana Translated From the Sanscrit in Seven Parts With Preface, Introduction and Concluding Remarks by Vatsyayana

καὶ ἐκμανθάνοντες; (But the Homer of myths, or their Thucydides, or Plato, or whatever we must call him, was Aesop of Samos, who was a slave by the accident of birth rather than by temperament, and he proved his sagacity by this very use of fable.
— from The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 2 by Emperor of Rome Julian

But though the desire of the happiness or misery of others, according to the love or hatred we bear them, be an arbitrary and original instinct implanted in our nature, we find it may be counterfeited on many occasions, and may arise from secondary principles.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume

He staid and dined with me, and we had a good surloyne of rost beefe, the first that ever I had of my own buying since I kept house; and after dinner he and I to the Temple, and there showed Mr. Smallwood my papers, who likes them well, and so I left them with him, and went with Mr. Moore to Gray’s Inn to his chamber, and there he shewed me his old Camden’s “Britannica”, which I intend to buy of him, and so took it away with me, and left it at St. Paul’s Churchyard to be bound, and so home and to the office all the afternoon; it being the first afternoon that we have sat, which we are now to do always, so long as the Parliament sits, who this day have voted the King L 120,000 [A mistake.
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

If we take this relation as the basis of our estimate of the moon's age, we shall find that, even if the moon's existence as a planet began simultaneously with the earth's instead of many millions of years earlier, even if the moon was then as hot as the earth instead of being so much cooler that many millions of years would be required for the earth to cool to the same temperature—making, I say, these assumptions, which probably correspond to the omission of hundreds of millions of years in our estimate of the moon's age, we shall still find the moon to be hundreds of millions of years older than the earth.
— from The Library Magazine of Select Foreign Literature All volumes by Various

[Pg 6] about a translation I once made of the "Heptameron" of Margaret of Navarre.
— from Far Off Things by Arthur Machen

The Londoners, who constituted a party by themselves, sat at a table extending about half-way along the ample room; whilst two or three smaller tables were occupied by those parties who had sought the hostel on matters of business, and who transacted their affairs or enjoyed themselves apart from the rest.
— from William Shakespeare as He Lived: An Historical Tale by Henry Curling

Marxian socialism explains the history of mankind on the naturalistic theory that it has been determined during every period by the existing system for supplying the materialistic necessities of life.
— from Communism and Christianism Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View by William Montgomery Brown

The decease of him, from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy.
— from Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) Edited with notes and Introductory Account of her life and writings by Hester Lynch Piozzi

But if you see me among the beggars in the street, or by the well, take no heed of me, only I will salute you as a beggar who has been kindly treated by a Queen.'
— from Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang

The desire is gratified by the sale of a useful and indispensable tool; and thus, by degrees, he exits off his own means of subsistence.
— from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847 by Various

Even if all the lower walls were in the hands of my own men, some of the Chelahs would be sure to manage to desert, and give information as to all the defences."
— from The Tiger of Mysore: A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib by G. A. (George Alfred) Henty

On his amiable side—a full hemisphere or more of the man—it sums him up completely.
— from French Classics by William Cleaver Wilkinson