Indeed peevishness and querulousness are altogether alien to friendship and social life: but when goodwill bestows praise ungrudgingly and readily upon good actions, people endure also easily and without pain admonition and plainspeaking, believing and continuing to love the person who took such pleasure in praising, as if now he only blamed out of necessity.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

Here, good Woman, you shall see the hands of both of us.
— from The Monk: A Romance by M. G. (Matthew Gregory) Lewis

Behind them followed other Companions of the Temple, with a long train of esquires and pages clad in black, aspirants to the honour of being one day Knights of the Order.
— from Ivanhoe: A Romance by Walter Scott

The little book loses none of its interest through the criticism which finds in it only a traditional subject, handed on by one people to another; for after passing thus from hand to hand, its outline is still clear, its surface untarnished; and, like many other stories, books, literary and artistic conceptions of the middle age, it has come to have in this way a sort of personal history, almost as full of risk and adventure as that of its own heroes.
— from The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater

Semyon’s regiment had once been on the firing line.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of 233 Short Stories of Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or 582 less honourable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless—how shall we know who speaks truly?
— from The Republic of Plato by Plato

The titles of honour once bestowed on a fabled world are thus applied to the real world by right of inheritance.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana

Plenty, then, and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches no more than glory or health have other beauty or pleasure than he lends them by whom they are possessed.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

Dick felt as the man does who is in full view of the rifles of unscrupulous marauders, without cover for many yards, uncertain whether to expect a hail of bullets or not.
— from With Wolseley to Kumasi: A Tale of the First Ashanti War by F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton

There is only three things that stand out in my mind at the time it happened that I can verify what they say, and that is the one night that I was there by myself and Mr. Howard Price got the last customer that came in and took him down there, and he said that he thought it was Lee Harvey Oswald because of the rifle, it being an Italian rifle with this scope on it, and he remembered the gun.
— from Warren Commission (10 of 26): Hearings Vol. X (of 15) by United States. Warren Commission

On the opposite side of the apartment was a wooden partition, evidently new, which seemed to separate what had once been one large chamber into two, with a door of communication between them.
— from Richelieu: A Tale of France, v. 3/3 by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

It was always held out by our church, when the object was conciliation, that the liturgy was essentially the same with the mass-book.
— from Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 1 of 3 by Henry Hallam

Soon, therefore, he was rich, for a fisher; and that was heard of by other fishers from far off, and they drew to Grimsby, so that the town spread, and Witlaf the good thane said that it was a lucky day which drove us to his shore, for he waxed rich with dues that they were willing to pay.
— from Havelok the Dane A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln by Charles W. (Charles Watts) Whistler

Some of these were in earthenware pots, generally broken; others lay strewn here and there; while a heap in the centre showed that some form had originally been observed in their disposition.
— from The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, And Explorations of the Nile Sources by Baker, Samuel White, Sir

The auto was to be kept in a public garage until Mrs. Billette could have one built on her own premises, and, leaving her machine with the man in charge, Mollie walked home.
— from The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car; Or, The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley by Laura Lee Hope

With injunctions from H. to "hold on by our eyelids," and "'ware holes" where the path had given way, we proceeded along this track about three feet wide, whence descended a sheer precipice of at least 2,000 feet.
— from On the Equator by Harry De Windt

Just imagine how surprised people were, when, the hearings in his office being over, he sent the Charter up to the Assembly in Albany, with the information that he disapproved of it and would not sign it; or, in other words, that he vetoed it.
— from The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls by Various

First, because on many accounts they might suspect you of flying to me; secondly, because we are here much nearer to the gate, and, thirdly, for a reason, Eugenie, that you would scarcely suspect, which is, that I did not choose any of the gossiping fraternity should say they had seen two gay-looking youths enter the house of Beatrice of Ferrara at night, and remain there till morning shone.
— from One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James