When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life itself, but in “the beyond”—in nothingness —then one has taken away its centre of gravity altogether.
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

All we have now to do is to substitute general ideas for particular, and to enlarge these ideas by means of numerous examples, so as to make the child understand the game of business itself, brought home to him by means of particular instances of natural history with regard to the special products of each country, by particular instances of the arts and sciences which concern navigation and the difficulties of transport, greater or less in proportion to the distance between places, the position of land, seas, rivers, etc.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I add that—while England is among the greatest of lands in political freedom, or the idea of it, and in stalwart personal character, &c.—the spirit of English literature is not great, at least is not greatest—and its products are no models for us.
— from Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman

Suppose, for instance, that the fact, which the testimony endeavours to establish, partakes of the extraordinary and the marvellous; in that case, the evidence, resulting from the testimony, admits of a diminution, greater or less, in proportion as the fact is more or less unusual.
— from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume

In other words, he will endeavour not to hate him (III. xli.), and not to affect him painfully; this endeavour (III. xxxvii.) will be greater or less in proportion to the emotion from which it arises.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza

The difficulty of getting payment from our different sugar colonies has been greater or less in proportion, not so much to the extent of the balances respectively due from them, as to the quantity of uncultivated land which they contained; that is, to the greater or smaller temptation which the planters have been under of over-trading, or of undertaking the settlement and plantation of greater quantities of waste land than suited the extent of their capitals.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

But Lidia Ivanovna’s help was none the less real; she gave Alexey Alexandrovitch moral support in the consciousness of her love and respect for him, and still more, as it was soothing to her to believe, in that she almost turned him to Christianity—that is, from an indifferent and apathetic believer she turned him into an ardent and steadfast adherent of the new interpretation of Christian doctrine, which had been gaining ground of late in Petersburg.
— from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

So, God of Life, I pray of Thee Ears to hear and eyes to see.
— from Peregrine's Progress by Jeffery Farnol

3 Sir J. Evans, Ancient Stone Implements , ch. xxiii. 4 Worthington Smith, quoted by W. Whitaker, Geology of London , i. p. 345.
— from Early London: Prehistoric, Roman, Saxon and Norman by Walter Besant

We approach God, or Life, in proportion to our spirituality, our fidel- ity to Truth and Love; and in that ratio we know all 95:9 human need and are able to discern the thought of the sick and the sinning for the purpose of healing them.
— from Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy

About the same time the Long Parliament passed an act declaring 2,500,000 acres of the property of Irish recusants forfeited to the State, and guaranteeing to all English "adventurers" contributing to the expenses of the war, and all soldiers serving in it, grants of land in proportion to their service and contribution.
— from A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics - Volume 2 by Thomas D'Arcy McGee

Though the nominal value of the same quantity of gold and silver, whether paid by weight or coin will be greater or less, in proportion to the abundance or scarcity of the things for which there is a general demand.
— from The Rights of War and Peace by Hugo Grotius

"So we are—or will be as soon as we get our lumber in place for sluices.
— from The Pike's Peak Rush; Or, Terry in the New Gold Fields by Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand) Sabin

The finished glaze of life in Paris is less invariable; and the full tide of trade around the Bank of England is not so inexorably powerful."
— from America, Volume 4 (of 6) by Joel Cook

I pray God we may not be, and that we shall soon see them come marching home again to tell us that the trouble, whatever it is, is over, and that we may go on living in peace as we did before.
— from The Belgian Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins