16 The popular imagination, however, was more easily moved on seeing five brushes kept at work and all at once by the muscles in the fingers, toes and mouth of one man.
— from The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji by William Elliot Griffis

The King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was sitting with him in his arms after the most effectual method of supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians not long afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say, but sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander's dominions, as he wished to go to the Persian king.
— from The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

[52] How opposite to the beneficence of the Rajput prince, who, when the most efficient means of self-defence lay in the destruction of the resources of his enemy, feeling for the miseries of the suffering population of his persecutor, recalled his son in the midst of victory!
— from Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, v. 1 of 3 or the Central and Western Rajput States of India by James Tod

The indifference and contempt of the sovereign would have been, perhaps, the most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if the popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism, could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind.
— 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

But all of those philosophers seem to have been ignorant that we are all in reality two-fold and composite, though they did not recognize it, and only saw the more evident mixture of soul and body.
— from Plutarch's Morals by Plutarch

My Eppie Macnab O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie Macnab?
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

From a deficiency in this particular, one of two evils must ensue; either the people must be subjected to continual plunder, as a substitute for a more eligible mode of supplying the public wants, or the government must sink into a fatal atrophy, and, in a short course of time, perish.
— from The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton

All the inmates of the house appeared to me either mad or stupid, for I could not, for the life of me, imagine that diabolical spirits were dwelling in Bettina’s body.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova

They filled their Mercury with absurdities and the most stupid hypocrisy, which, although, it makes every man of sense laugh, animated the people against me.
— from The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau — Complete by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I think it offers to us one of the most efficacious means of spreading true gospel teaching.
— from Miss Mackenzie by Anthony Trollope

We unite our voices with those of all Catholics, speaking through the mouths of the most eminent men of science, to condemn this monstrous birth engendered by error and lies.”
— from Spain from Within by Rafael Shaw

I think it must have been roughly about the time of the publication of the Origin of Species that my earliest memories of Sir Joseph Hooker refer.
— from Springtime and Other Essays by Darwin, Francis, Sir

The present article prohibits the United States from resorting to the best means not only of preventing war, but the most efficacious means of supporting it.
— from Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 1 (of 16) by United States. Congress

Means to send Ben Franklin to college.—Just then the first bell rang for church, and my friend, who, I understand, has become a most exemplary member of society, said he must be off to get ready for meetin', and told the young one to "shake dada," which he did with his closed fist, in a somewhat menacing manner.
— from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 26, December, 1859 A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics by Various

The present chapter will deal with an even more effective means of securing an attitude of industry since it appeals to three of the most fundamental and irresistible of man's instincts.
— from Increasing Human Efficiency in Business A Contribution to the Psychology of Business by Walter Dill Scott

[210] From the commencement of the controversy, the opinion seems to have prevailed in all the colonies, that the most effectual means of succeeding in the struggle in which they were engaged, were those which would interest the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain in their favour.
— from The Life of George Washington: A Linked Index to the Project Gutenberg Editions by John Marshall

These chairs are said to have been invented by a very eminent surgeon, and are intended, either to prevent distortion, by some supposed operation on the spine, or as the most effectual means of supporting the body.
— from The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and the Arts, July-December, 1827 by Various

Holding gentleness to be, with a disposition like that of Byron, the most effectual means of success
— from Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 With His Letters and Journals by Thomas Moore