He hoped, by means of loyal excuses, to make a friend of Athos, whose lordly air and austere bearing pleased him much.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place the man’s action occupies in time.
— from War and Peace by Tolstoy, Leo, graf

Senator Dilworthy made one little effort through his protege the embryo banker to recover it, but there being no notes of hand or, other memoranda to support the claim, it failed.
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Charles Dudley Warner

2 a unit of dry measure for unhusked rice more or less equal to ​5⁄7​ of a bushel, with a good deal of local variation.
— from A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan by John U. Wolff

This new sentiment and opinion is public, and social, and the evidence of this is the fact that it imposes itself upon the individuals concerned as something more or less external to them.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. (Ernest Watson) Burgess

It does not follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours.”
— from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Drangæ resemble the Persians in all other respects in their mode of life, except that they have little wine.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 3 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

The profoundly earnest way in which we criticise and narrowly consider every part of a woman, while she on her part considers us; the scrupulously careful way we scrutinise, a woman who is beginning to please us; the fickleness of our choice; the strained attention with which a man watches his fiancée ; the care he takes not to be deceived in any trait; and the great importance he attaches to every more or less essential trait,—all this is quite in keeping with the importance of the end.
— from Essays of Schopenhauer by Arthur Schopenhauer

But when the demand rises beyond what this quantity can supply, when it becomes necessary to raise food on purpose for feeding and fattening hogs, in the same manner as for feeding and fattening other cattle, the price necessarily rises, and becomes proportionably either higher or lower than that of other butcher's meat, according as the nature of the country, and the state of its agriculture, happen to render the feeding of hogs more or less expensive than that of other cattle.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, learning everything that was taught her with surprising quickness.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Sir Jeffrey Amherst had recently resigned his office of commander-in-chief; and General Gage, a man of less efficiency than his predecessor, was appointed to succeed him.
— from The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War after the Conquest of Canada by Francis Parkman

We are told by Fitz Stephen, in the twelfth century, that on the holidays during the summer season, the young men of London exercised themselves in the fields with "leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, casting the stone, playing with the ball, and fighting with their shields."
— from The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England Including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles from the Earliest Period to the Present Time by Joseph Strutt

If dat which needs no splainin’ may be made de subjec’ of splainatory logic, widout on de oder han’ rejucin’ de speaker to de distressin’ condishun of hyperbolus, I shall, in a brefe space of time, more or less, egshibit to dis orgunce de close anallumgy dat exists betwixt de avowal u, and de pussonal pronoun “you.”
— from K. K. K. Sketches, Humorous and Didactic Treating the More Important Events of the Ku-Klux-Klan Movement in the South. With a Discussion of the Causes which gave Rise to it, and the Social and Political Issues Emanating from it. by James Melville Beard

There was also the fact of his being concerned in effecting an insurance upon the life of Walter Palmer for £13,000, when he knew that Walter Palmer had no means of livelihood except through an allowance from William Palmer or his mother.
— from The Most Extraordinary Trial of William Palmer, for the Rugeley Poisonings, which lasted Twelve Days by Anonymous

Raymond made one last effort to assert himself.
— from Flower of the Gorse by Louis Tracy

Haply it may: yet in this humble tower, The mimicry of loftier edifice, There lives a silent spirit, that confers
— from The Isle of Palms, and Other Poems by John Wilson

There are certainly other materials in the cacao bean, such as fat, which by more or less enveloping the starch, prevent access of water to the starch granules and thus hinder gelatinisation; or again, the albumen and cacao-red may exert some retarding influence on the iodine reaction, especially if the iodine solution used is very dilute .
— from The Manufacture of Chocolate and other Cacao Preparations by Paul Zipperer