Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

"As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs."

John Woolman, Journal, c. 1750

“In the time of trading I had an opportunity of seeing that the too liberal use of spirituous liquors and the custom of wearing too costly apparel led some people into great inconveniences; and that these two things appear to be often connected with each other."

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 31, 1788

“Imagination may range at pleasure till it gets bewildered amidst the labyrinths of an enchanted castle, and knows not on which side to turn to extricate itself from the perplexities in to which it has so rashly adventured.”

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper No. 7, 1787

“[Delinquencies in payment result from] the reluctance with which men commonly part with money for purposes that have outlived the exigencies which produced them and interfere with the supply of immediate wants."

G. Cochrane, Letter to Unk., 1766

"I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode."

Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, 1880

"Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850

“Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world.”

Submitted by Susan Fehsenfeld. Thanks, Susan!

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843

"If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind."

Benjamin Franklin, a letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels, 1781

"He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some Time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses; and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report, he may any where give Vent to his Griefs, unnoticed."

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Chase v. City of Lowell, 1889

"The plaintiff was injured, while traveling in a public street in Lowell, by the falling upon him of a shade tree growing in the street."

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Doherty v. Town of Ayer, 1908

"He then got a horse, and with the help of laborers who shoveled sand from in front of the wheels, and with the use of his engine, and the pulling of the horse and the men, he got the machine out of the sandy place. In doing this he broke the automobile."