We work, it is true, in speculative Masonry only, but our ancient brethren wrought in both operative and speculative; and it is now well understood that the two branches are widely apart in design and in character—the one a mere useful art, intended for the protection and convenience of man and the gratification of his physical wants, the other a profound science, entering into abstruse investigations of the soul and a future existence, and originating in the craving need of humanity to know something that is above and beyond the mere outward life that surrounds us with its gross atmosphere here below.
— from The Symbolism of Freemasonry Illustrating and Explaining Its Science and Philosophy, Its Legends, Myths and Symbols by Albert Gallatin Mackey

Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost, This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared, Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand,
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 Elia and The Last Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb

Madame Quesnel, meanwhile, was expressing to Madame St. Aubert her astonishment, that she could bear to pass her life in this remote corner of the world, as she called it, and describing, from a wish, probably, of exciting envy, the splendour of the balls, banquets, and processions which had just been given by the court, in honour of the nuptials of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain, the sister of the Queen.
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Though the requirements of life in early Vedic times were still primitive enough to enable every man more or less to supply his own wants, the beginnings of various trades and industries can be clearly traced in the Rigveda .
— from A History of Sanskrit Literature by Arthur Anthony Macdonell

During this moment of leisure they seemed all to be engaged in staring with astonishment at him.
— from The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War by Stephen Crane

but, whether more or less, ‘tis still dark, and Cimmerian darkness.
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne

All our perceptions, according to him, consist in a partial participation in God's perceptions, and it is because of this participation that different people see more or less the same tree.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell

[266] "The usual mode of lessening the shock of disappointment or disesteem is to contract, if possible, a low estimate of the persons that inflict it.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James

I helped to hang my neighbors for that it were peril to my own life to show lack of zeal in the master’s cause; the others helped for none other reason.
— from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson Abridged and edited, with an introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood by James Boswell

LINENOTES: Motto —2 Moon] one Letter to S. [4] There will be, &c. Letter to S. DEJECTION: AN ODE, WRITTEN APRIL 4, 1802.
— from The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol 2 (of 2) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“For God’s sake, write me one line to say if you are still at Birmingham, and where I can find you there!
— from No Name by Wilkie Collins

In doing this, Hugh had used much discretion, for he expected that there would be more or less trouble, since drivers and chauffeurs had become so accustomed to having their own way that they would object strenuously to any interference.
— from The Boy Scouts for Home Protection by Robert Shaler

Thence along Punchbowl Drive in a northeasterly direction 900 feet; thence due east 840 feet (more or less) to the boundary of the land of Kalawahine; thence along boundary of the land of Kalawahine 1040 feet (more or less) to south angle of said land; thence S. 78° 30' W. true 397 feet (more or less) to Punchbowl Drive: N. 84° 50' W. true 245 feet along Punchbowl Drive to initial point.
— from A Supplement to A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents by William McKinley

A fine black warp of cotton is used, with twenty to twenty-five threads per inch (more or less, to suit the fabric required), and twelve to sixteen shots per inch of the chenille weft are used, which must also be varied to suit circumstances and the thickness of the weft used.
— from Jacquard Weaving and Designing by T. F. Bell

This method of lumping together several different parts of speech under the notion of one, and calling the whole an " adverbial phrase ," a " substantive phrase ," or an " interjectional phrase ," is but a forced put, by which some grammarians would dodge certain difficulties which they know not how to meet.
— from The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown

Not even the nuns, we will venture to say, who in former times used here to offer up prayers to heaven, were impressed with a deeper sense of the heavenly than was this somewhat worldly assembly by the magnificent music of Liszt, that seemed indeed to disclose things beyond this earth.
— from Franz Liszt by James Huneker

They forget that home has a sweet poetry of its own, created out of the simplest materials, yet, haunting, more or less, the secret recesses of every human heart; it is divided into a thousand separate poems, which should be full of individual interest, little quiet touches of feeling and golden recollections, which, in the heart of a truly noble man, are interwoven with his very being.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

every man ingaged either in hunting or Collecting & packing the meat to Camp 5th Day Dispatched one of the party our Interpeter & 2 french men with the 3 horses loaded with the best of the meat to the fort 44 miles Distant, the remaining meat I had packed on the 2 Slays & drawn down to the next point about 3 miles below, at this place I had all the meat Collected which was killed yesterday & had escaped the wolves, Raven & Magpie, (which are verry noumerous about this Place) and put into a close pen made of logs to secure it from the wolves & birds & proceeded on to a large bottom nearly opposit the Chisscheter (heart) River, in this bottom we found but little game, Great No. of wolves, on the hills Saw Several parsels of Buffalow.—Camped.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark