140 `And though ye Troians with us Grekes wrothe Han many a day be, alwey yet, pardee, O god of love in sooth we serven bothe.
— from Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer

After coffee had been served we were on the point of going out for a stroll, when who should come in but the prince.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

To let fall, with design, a piece of gold or silver, in order to draw in and cheat the person who sees it picked up; the piece so dropped is called a dropt cog.
— from 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose

A prodigiously stout man with a very smiling face and a great heavy chin which rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat sat at her elbow with a pair of glasses on his nose, looking very earnestly at the ladies who entered.
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Far more. ATHENIAN: Suppose the case of a physician who is willing and able to cure some living thing as a whole—how will the whole fare at his hands if he takes care only of the greater and neglects the parts which are lesser? CLEINIAS: Decidedly not well. ATHENIAN: No better would be the result with pilots or generals, or householders or statesmen, or any other such class, if they neglected the small and regarded only the great—as the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.
— from Laws by Plato

“Think of a secret of this kind having been intrusted for three weeks to a penniless orphan girl of twelve and an eccentric schoolboy of ten, and undivulged except when a proper occasion offered.”
— from The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers by Bret Harte

He began by making an orifice in a piece of gold, or by perforating a gem, because these substances are not worn by the action of water, and do not collect dirt so as to get stopped up.
— from The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio

Had not the presence of an object, instantly excited the idea of those objects, commonly conjoined with it, all our knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of our memory and senses; and we should never have been able to adjust means to ends, or employ our natural powers, either to the producing of good, or avoiding of evil.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

The churches were renewed and embellished: near four thousand pounds of silver were consecrated to repair the losses of St. Peter; and his sanctuary was decorated with a plate of gold of the weight of two hundred and sixteen pounds, embossed with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a string of pearls.
— 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

They dare not turn aside; but the penalty of going on was to offer two cheeks to the smiter.
— from The Battle of the Marne by G. H. (George Herbert) Perris

She would wait, if he pleased, in the pleasant old garden, of which she caught a glimpse through the open door.
— from Honey-Sweet by Edna Henry Lee Turpin

"Instead of going home as I had planned, in order to get strength for a wider range of work, I shall stay on and enjoy the privilege of going over ground impossible for my poor limbs."
— from Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary by W. P. (William Pringle) Livingstone

One evening in May, while watching a pair of Golden Orioles to their nest, I witnessed a rather curious eviction.
— from Wild Spain (España agreste) Records of Sport with Rifle, Rod, and Gun, Natural History Exploration by Abel Chapman

Modern zoology recognises not merely the four types of Cuvier, but seventeen different styles, “phyla,” or groups of forms, to derive one of which from another is hopeless.
— from Naturalism and Religion by Rudolf Otto

AVERAGE PERIODS OF GESTATION OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS Mare 11 months Ass 12 months Cow 9 months Sheep 5 months Goat 5 months Sow 3-1/2 months Bitch 9 weeks Cat 8 weeks AVERAGE PERIOD OF INCUBATION Chicken 20 to 22 days Geese 28 to 34 days Duck 28 to 30 days Turkey 27 to 29 days Pigeon 18 days Guinea Fowl 28 days Pheasant 25 days Ostrich 40 to 42 days Canary Bird 14 days VETERINARY FACTS AND ADVICE TO REMEMBER 1. Cleanliness of body and surroundings is a necessity in the treatment of animals.
— from The Veterinarian by Charles James Korinek

Turn as you choose, it is either a water-fall at a new angle, a cliff in profile, a reflection in river or lake—the sudden appearance of the supreme peak of all, or ravine, cañon, cavern, pine opening, grove or prairie.
— from In the Footprints of the Padres by Charles Warren Stoddard

"If you have heard anything of him, as I suppose you have, it can but be that he has persecuted me in a most unmanly manner; insulted my poor father not long before his death, and deprived me of the power of going out of our house in Northumberland without distress and annoyance."
— from Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Volumes I and II by G. P. R. (George Payne Rainsford) James

The state of the ice around the ship, however, was still far from being so favorable as to give us any prospect of getting out just at present.
— from Farthest North, Vol. II Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 by Fridtjof Nansen

Sometimes the child has had a great father, but a very ordinary mother; or both parents may have been great, while the mother may have been placed under the most disadvantageous surroundings, and subjected to the most unfavorable conditions during the period of gestation; or, after the birth of the child, it may have been turned over to the degenerating influences of diseased and corrupting servants; or it might be that the child had inherited the real character of a father whose reputation was great, but whose character was ordinary.
— from What a Young Husband Ought to Know by Sylvanus Stall