In the same way, individuals may escape ninety-nine times, and receive the death-blow at the hundredth; because bodies are sometimes in a state to reject the infection of malady, and at others, thirsty to imbibe it.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

This night we had each of us a letter from Captain Teddiman from the Streights, of a peace made upon good terms, by Sir J. Lawson, with the Argier men, which is most excellent news?
— from The Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete by Samuel Pepys

And how far the civil magistrate is to exert his power in punishing heretics, I shall not at present determine, or whether the word extirpate in our solemn league and covenant extends to the temporal or spiritual sword, only there are different sentiments and expositions, yet sure I am that according to the very nature of things that which is morally good (being a commanded duty) needs no toleration; and that which is morally evil no mortal on earth can lawfully grant an immunity unto: And betwixt these there is no medium in point of truth and duty.
— from Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) A Brief Historical Account of the Lives, Characters, and Memorable Transactions of the Most Eminent Scots Worthies by John Howie

[Pg 169] gasping mother, but snatched from me as it has been by the cruellest of whelks, it may even now lie helpless in the grasp of the ravenous brute, as it ruthlessly sups off its delicate limbs.
— from Bill the Minder by W. Heath (William Heath) Robinson

"The next book I laid my hand on was The Parish Girl which interested me enough not to be able to quit it till it was read over, though the author has fallen into the common mistake of romance-writers; intending a virtuous character, and not knowing how to draw it; the first step of his heroine (leaving her patroness's house) being altogether absurd and ridiculous, justly entitling her to all the misfortunes she met with.
— from Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) by Lewis Melville

But that instinctive genius which leads great men by paths which inferior minds either never enter upon or never finish, raised him above the influence of the doubts which a cold and narrow prudence would oppose to his views; and, without being able to convince his generals, he felt the correctness of his calculations in a conviction indistinct, indeed, but not on that account less indubitable.
— from History of the Revolt of the Netherlands — Volume 04 by Friedrich Schiller

But keep yourself to yourself—that Miss Nugent (who is no more Miss Nugent, they say, but Miss Reynolds, and has a new-found grandfather, and is a big heiress, which she did not want in my eyes, nor in my young lord’s), I’ve a notion, will be sometime, and may be sooner than is expected, my Lady Viscountess Colambre—so haste to the wedding.
— from Tales and Novels — Volume 06 by Maria Edgeworth

But oh, what witchcraft of a stronger kind, Or cause too deep for human search to find, Makes earth-born weeds imperial man enslave, Not little souls, but e’en the wise and brave?
— from St Nicotine of the Peace Pipe by Edward Vincent Heward

And what is most evidently not novel with Shakespeare in his later romantic comedies,—the consistent dramatic interaction between crisis and character,—is precisely what the 'Beaumont-Fletcher romances' do not always possess.
— from Francis Beaumont: Dramatist A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean, And of His Association with John Fletcher by Charles Mills Gayley

Well, if mere external necessity can surmount these natural barriers, may not a determined will, backed by a strong sense of moral obligation, do the same?
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 94, August, 1865 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

Lastly, and for a high worthiness, in my estimate, note that it is wild , of the wildest, and proud in pure descent of race; submitting itself to no follies of the cur-breeding florist.
— from Proserpina, Volume 2 Studies of Wayside Flowers, While the Air was Yet Pure Among the Alps and in the Scotland and England Which My Father Knew by John Ruskin

This the reader sees is suitable to the idea of the great work proposed; which was, out of the old remains of Grecian art, to compose a new one, that should comprize the virtues of them all: as, in fact, the Aeneïd is known to unite in itself whatever is most excellent, not in Homer only, but, universally, in the wits of Greece.
— from The Works of Richard Hurd, Volume 1 (of 8) by Richard Hurd