In spite of his gray head and wrinkled brow, he was quite like a child in all matters save what had some reference to his own business; he seemed, unless my fancy misled me, to view mankind in no other relation than as people in want of tombstones, and his literary attainments evidently comprehended very little either of prose or poetry which had not at one time or other been inscribed on slate or marble.
— from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

You, who win money and revenge, at the same time and by the same process, and who are, at all events, sure of money, if not of revenge; or I, who am only sure of spending money in any case, and can but win bare revenge at last?’ As Mr. Squeers could only answer this proposition by shrugs and smiles, Ralph bade him be silent, and thankful that he was so well off; and then, fixing his eyes steadily upon him, proceeded to say: First, that Nicholas had thwarted him in a plan he had formed for the disposal in marriage of a certain young lady, and had, in the confusion attendant on her father’s sudden death, secured that lady himself, and borne her off in triumph.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

If I find myself in need of right-down cash—well, there’s always an African laundress and an outhouse, and I am very frank and bon enfant about plenty of sugar on the little fried cake afterwards. . . .
— from Bliss, and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
— from A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens

As the profit of this would on my part have been a theft committed upon Rey, to whom I had sold the manuscript, I not only refused to accept the present intended me, without his consent, which he very generously gave, but persisted upon dividing with him the hundred pistoles (a thousand livres—forty pounds), the amount of it but of which he would not receive anything.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

And being, from the emotions he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
— from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I saw that the cook was an artist more in need of restraint than encouragement.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

Soon our union became closer, and her sighs and the ardour of her surrender shewed me that her passion was more in need of relief than mine.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

About one P.M., not hearing from Wallace and being much in need of reinforcements, I sent two more of my staff, Colonel McPherson and Captain Rowley, to bring him up with his division.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson) Grant

TWO FINE OBELISKS IN THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK—A LITTLE TOPSY-TURVY LOOKING AND VERY MUCH IN NEED OF REPAIRS THIS IS WHERE "RAM" FELL DOWN AND HAS NEVER SINCE BEEN "LIFTED."
— from A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel by Samuel G. (Samuel Gamble) Bayne

"The slogan, 'Religion is a private matter,' is not of Russian origin.
— from The Red Conspiracy by Joseph J. Mereto

All the wealth and talent of the country would become enlisted in the service of these rival associations; and both would at length become so compact, so well organized, so powerful, and yet always so much in need of recruits, [Pg 212] that a private person would be nearly or quite unable to obtain justice in the most paltry suit with his neighbor, except on the condition of joining one of these great litigating associations, who would agree to carry through his cause, on condition of his assisting them to carry through all the others, good and bad, which they had already undertaken.
— from An Essay on the Trial by Jury by Lysander Spooner

In this moment what little freedom that had remained in America had been given up in the face of the seemingly more important necessity of remaining alive.
— from Doomsday Eve by Robert Moore Williams

Relationships The large genus Coluber is much in need of revision.
— from Natural History of the Racer Coluber constrictor by Henry S. (Henry Sheldon) Fitch

TWO FINE OBELISKS IN THE TEMPLE OF KARNAK—A LITTLE TOPSY-TURVY LOOKING AND VERY MUCH IN NEED OF REPAIRS I am reluctant to leave Egypt without saying a word about the "teep," as this land is the very home, the embodiment—the Gibraltar, so to speak, of the wide-open palm for services rendered—or even when they are not rendered.
— from A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel by Samuel G. (Samuel Gamble) Bayne

As a lodger, seeing that she paid a specified weekly sum for her shelter and maintenance; in no other respect could the wretched title apply to her.
— from In the Year of Jubilee by George Gissing

A year of more than ordinarily fatiguing Eastern travel had left me in need of rest, and I had resolved to allow myself a month's sketching in Venice and its neighbourhood before turning my face homeward.
— from A Night on the Borders of the Black Forest by Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards

A season of dressmaking had already begun in the house, but Sue and Becky were most in need of respectable raiment, and so Phœbe’s turn had not yet arrived.
— from The Daring Twins: A Story for Young Folk by L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

This is frankly the reason: I am old; I stand more in need of repose than of agitation, and I will begin nothing that I cannot, easily finish.
— from Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. and of the Regency — Volume 01 by Orléans, Charlotte-Elisabeth, duchesse d'