| 1. | We commented adversely upon the imbecility of that telegraphic style. - from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad |
| 2. | It was not painful to behold this look for, though dim, it had not the imbecility of decaying age. - from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne |
| 3. | Such large virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have imparted potency. - from Moby Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville |