And you will see how truly I spoke of myself just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that all the relations I hold with my fellow-creatures are mere business relations, when you reflect that I have never seen you since.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Nor did it quit me when, late at night, I sat in the deserted parlour, lighted only by the glimmering coal-fire and the moon, striving to picture forth imaginary scenes, which, the next day, might flow out on the brightening page in many-hued description.
— from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I know not from what Arabic writer the African derived his Goths; but the fact, though new, is so interesting and so probable, that I will accept it on the slightest authority.]
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

Yes, I remember, he said, but do not suppose that I approve of what you are saying or have no answer; if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer 'Very good,' as they say to story-telling old women, and will nod 'Yes' and 'No.' Certainly not, I said, if contrary to your real opinion.
— from The Republic by Plato

But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing—at least, what untattooed parts might remain—I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

But the next important step in the bibliography of Polybius was the publication of the great edition of Schweighaeuser, Leipsic, 1789-1795, in nine volumes, with a new Latin translation,—founded, however, to a great extent on Casaubon,—a new recension of the text, and still farther additions to the fragments; accompanied also by an excellent Lexicon and Onomasticon.
— from The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) by Polybius

‘No, Ilusha,’ said I, ‘I would not take money from him for anything.’
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But now, I swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

"Ladies and gentlemen, America is fighting a war on many fronts, but nowhere is she in more grave danger than she is here, at home.
— from Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

like thrée miles beneath Abergele, and is not onelie called Gele (as the name it selfe importeth) but also noted to take his course through the Canges.
— from Chronicles (1 of 6): The Description of Britaine by William Harrison

If we find ourselves increasing beyond example in numbers, in strength, in wealth, in knowledge, in everything which promotes human and social happiness, let us ever remember our dependence for all these on the protection and merciful dispensations of Divine Providence.
— from State of the Union Addresses by John Tyler

That they were murdered would be the natural inference, since in event of their being treacherously sent to England some record must have been found regarding them.
— from With Porter in the Essex A Story of His Famous Cruise in the Southern Waters During the War of 1812 by James Otis

I remember, now, I set it there last morning; but the water washed many things out of my brains, and some things into them—and I forgot it like a goose.’
— from Yeast: a Problem by Charles Kingsley

“I sold the nugget to Zahn for six-pound-ten, and, when next I see it, the Sergeant’s got it.
— from The Tale of Timber Town by Alfred A. (Alfred Augustus) Grace

The sixth of these articles ordains that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
— from The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1 by Jefferson Davis

I have already referred to my Indian guides carrying away with them pieces of the pipestone rock on Neepigon river; and Paul Kane, the artist, during his travels, when on Athabaska river, near its source in the Rocky Mountains, observed his Assiniboin guides select a favourite bluish jasper from among the water-worn stones in the bed of the river, to carry home for the purpose of pipe manufacture, although they were then fully 500 miles from their lodges.
— from The Lost Atlantis and Other Ethnographic Studies by Wilson, Daniel, Sir

I never was very fond of her; and now, if she is to grow up into a coffee wife, why—" "But, dear Munter," said Mrs. Frank, "you are not in a good humour to-day."
— from The Home; Or, Life in Sweden by Fredrika Bremer

Not, in truth, that I ever saw any edifice whatever reflected in its turbid breast, when the sylvan stream, as we beheld it now, is swollen into the Thames at London.
— from Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches by Nathaniel Hawthorne