We live on nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must come through my hands.
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

“Your signs,” said he, “are very good inasmuch as they clearly and simply determine the length of notes, exactly represent intervals, and show the simple in the double note, which the common notation does not do; but they are objectionable on account of their requiring an operation of the mind, which cannot always accompany the rapidity of execution.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The same causes which gradually raise the price of butcher's meat, the increase of the demand, and, in consequence of the improvement of the country, the diminution of the quantity which can be fed at little or no expense, raise, in the same manner, that of the produce of the dairy, of which the price naturally connects with that of butcher's meat, or with the expense of feeding cattle.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

It is as though one "tapped a level of new energy," revealing hidden stores of unexpected power.
— from How to Use Your Mind A Psychology of Study: Being a Manual for the Use of Students and Teachers in the Administration of Supervised Study by Harry Dexter Kitson

“It happens, fortunately, that by the laws of natural evaporation, rain is precipitated in greater quantities on elevated summits than on the intermediate valleys, so that the moving power, in this case, accommodates itself to the exigencies of intercommunication.”— Dr. Lardner’s “Handbook of Natural Philosophy.”
— from A Treatise on Meteorological Instruments Explanatory of Their Scientific Principles, Method of Construction, and Practical Utility by Enrico Angelo Lodovico Negretti

[Pg 252] Even a glance at this long list of new elements reveals certain analogies between one series of transformations and another.
— from An Introduction to the History of Science by Walter Libby

And that swing back to recollection of their school-days produced in Adrian a salutary lessening of nervous excitement, restoring his self-confidence, focusing his outlook, both on events and persons to a normal perspective.
— from Adrian Savage: A Novel by Lucas Malet

Fruit large to very large, ovate, nearly equally rounded at its two poles; skin thin and rough, yellow, much russeted; flesh white, very fine, melting, very juicy, with a slightly vinous and sweet flavor, perfumed; very good; Jan. to Mar.
— from The Pears of New York by U. P. Hedrick

Horace was the son of a freedman, with no financial or social backing save that which he won by his own genius; Persius was, like Lucilius, of noble equestrian rank, rich, and related by birth to some of the first men of his time.
— from Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman by Frank Justus Miller

Each hammock, it may be mentioned, has a separate number painted neatly upon it on a small, white, oval patch, near one of the corners; so that, when they are all stowed in the nettings, a uniform line of numbers extends round the ship, and the hammock of any man who may be taken ill can be found by his messmates in a moment.
— from The Lieutenant and Commander Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from Fragments of Voyages and Travels by Basil Hall

He scoffs at kings and priests, certainly; he scoffs at Napoleon; he scoffs at the pompous self-righteousness of his own race; he scoffs at religion and sex and morality in that humorous, careless, indifferent "public-school" way which is so salutary and refreshing; but when you ask for any serious devotion to the cause of Liberty, for any definite Utopian outlines of what is to be built up in the world's future, you get little or nothing, except resounding generalities and conventional rhetoric.
— from Suspended Judgments: Essays on Books and Sensations by John Cowper Powys