] I had only need of what was sufficient to content me: which nevertheless is a government of soul, to take it right, equally difficult in all sorts of conditions, and that, of custom, we see more easily found in want than in abundance:
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

For if the soul live in eternal punishments, by which also those unclean spirits shall be tormented, that is rather eternal death than eternal life.
— from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo

The two thoughts, the two instants, remain existentially different; were they not two they could not come from different quarters to unite in one meaning and to behold one object in distinct and conspiring acts of apprehension.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Not such, my friend, the servants of their feast: A blooming train in rich embroidery dress'd, With earth's whole tribute the bright table bends, And smiling round celestial youth attends.
— from The Odyssey by Homer

But the transition from a commonplace nature to one that is richly endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap over a certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and thus must the sudden change with the clerk strike the reader.
— from Andersen's Fairy Tales by H. C. (Hans Christian) Andersen

Her intelligent eyes took in relentlessly every detail of Ellen's costume and Ellen felt them at their work.
— from Home Fires in France by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

My barren gaze can never know what throes Such boons of beauty waken, tho' I rise Each day a-tremble with the ruthless hope That light will pierce my useless lids—then grope
— from Song-Surf by Cale Young Rice

Let me not forget to add, that it rains every day, that it blows every night, and that it rolls through the twenty-four hours till the whole world seems as if turned bottom upwards, clinging with its nails to chaos, and fearing to launch away.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 19, May, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

In order to this, I ramble every day, wrapped up in my serigee and asmack , about Constantinople, and amuse myself with seeing all that is curious in it.
— from Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e Written during Her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa to Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in Different Parts of Europe by Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady

[51] the three industries require entirely different soils and altitudes.
— from A Journey in Southeastern Mexico by Henry Howard Harper

The reader who is not familiar with this country may find it strange that in reporting earthquake damages so much emphasis appears to be laid on the harm done to churches and conventos .
— from Catalogue of Violent and Destructive Earthquakes in the Philippines With an Appendix: Earthquakes in the Marianas Islands 1599-1909 by Miguel Saderra Masó

Some critics hold that Eucken does this; the reader must judge for himself, but in doing so it will be well to remember that before trusting to intuitive revelation, Eucken demands the setting of one's face towards the highest and best.
— from Rudolph Eucken : a philosophy of life by Abel J. (Abel John) Jones

[194] "Why go so far for the proof of a phenomenon that is repeated every day under our own eyes, and of which every Parisian may convince himself, without venturing beyond the Bois de Boulogne or the forest of Meudon?
— from Man and Nature; Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action by George P. (George Perkins) Marsh