“I am dragged in spite of myself in this damn Africa business; a toy which, it is true, will hurt no one; which excites geographers, but which will make people laugh here.”

Cain (1821), Act III, sc. i.

Introduction http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/frankenstein/1831v1/intro.html to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein

1880s, 1884
Source: Quote from Letter 355, from Nuenen The Netherlands, January 1884; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, page: Catalog: Dutch Period 2. - Weaver

Ein Wahn, der mich beglückt,
Ist eine Wahrheit werth, die mich zu Boden drückt.
Idris, ein heroisch-comisches Gedicht, Song 3, line 79 (1768); translation from Harry T. Reis and Caryl E. Rusbult (eds.) Close Relationships (New York: Psychology Press, 2004) p. 321.

Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)

Source: Garima Sharma My husband is very calm and that is very annoying, says Sania Mirza http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/tennis/interviews/My-husband-is-very-calm-and-that-is-very-annoying-says-Sania-Mirza/articleshow/17533676.cms, The Times of India, 8 December 2012

Recreation (1919)
Context: I am not attempting here a full appreciation of Colonel Roosevelt. He will be known for all time as one of the great men of America. I am only giving you this personal recollection as a little contribution to his memory, as one that I can make from personal knowledge and which is now known only to myself. His conversation about birds was made interesting by quotations from poets. He talked also about politics, and in the whole of his conversation about them there was nothing but the motive of public spirit and patriotism. I saw enough of him to know that to be with him was to be stimulated in the best sense of the word for the work of life. Perhaps it is not yet realised how great he was in the matter of knowledge as well as in action. Everybody knows that he was a great man of action in the fullest sense of the word. The Press has always proclaimed that. It is less often that a tribute is paid to him as a man of knowledge as well as a man of action. Two of your greatest experts in natural history told me the other day that Colonel Roosevelt could, in that department of knowledge, hold his own with experts. His knowledge of literature was also very great, and it was knowledge of the best. It is seldom that you find so great a man of action who was also a man of such wide and accurate knowledge. I happened to be impressed by his knowledge of natural history and literature and to have had first-hand evidence of both, but I gather from others that there were other fields of knowledge in which he was also remarkable.

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Source: Space Opera (1965), Chapter 12 (p. 127)