We are all of us more or less unwilling to be brought into the world.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

It is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the secret that is upon him.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Some subsequent formularies represent the manner in which he supposes this distribution is made in different states of restraint and regulation; in which, either the class of proprietors, or the barren and unproductive class, is more favoured than the class of cultivators; and in which either the one or the other encroaches, more or less, upon the share which ought properly to belong to this productive class.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Sing to your fledglings again, Mother, oh lift up your head!
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

But those speeches are not improper, because they signifie the power of Gods Word: no more therefore is it improper, to command Madnesse, or Lunacy (under the appellation of Devils, by which they were then commonly understood,) to depart out of a mans body.
— from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually was, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin, of which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop, as we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him mad as yet.
— from Bleak House by Charles Dickens

To this he gave the more or less unexpected reply, “Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.”
— from The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

Zeena did not move or look up when he entered, and after a moment he asked: “Where's Mattie?”
— from Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time.' Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with great surprise.
— from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

From him he learns that, in pursuance of some musty old law unearthed by Friedrich, he is to suffer the penalty of death for a certain love escapade in which he is involved.
— from My Life — Volume 1 by Richard Wagner

PINETTI has a SYMPATHETIC LIGHT, which he extinguishes at command—Mr. PITT’s method of leaving us in the dark is by BLOCKING UP our WINDOWS!
— from The Rolliad, in Two Parts Probationary Odes for the Laureatship & Political Eclogues by Joseph Richardson

Ordinarily, when stools have been frequent for a prolonged period, the case is considered more or less unamenable to treatment.
— from Psychotherapy Including the History of the Use of Mental Influence, Directly and Indirectly, in Healing and the Principles for the Application of Energies Derived from the Mind to the Treatment of Disease by James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

but had felt its mighty power, and not a man, woman, or even child but had come more or less under its influence.
— from The Man from Glengarry: A Tale of the Ottawa by Ralph Connor

But, in such cases, of course the fire has been more or less under control throughout the voyage; with us, it is increasing day by day, and I tell you I am convinced there is an aperture somewhere which has escaped our notice."
— from The Survivors of the Chancellor by Jules Verne

"This place had been more or less uninhabited for a century, except by a farm-hind, when he determined to use it as a shooting-box.
— from The Lonely Stronghold by Reynolds, Baillie, Mrs.

This he takes to his accustomed spot, an old hoarding of ancient date, where he is allowed by sufferance of the authorities; when the hoarding is removed, the old man will lose his means of living unless he find another haunt.
— from Highways and Byways in London by Emily Constance Baird Cook

There will soon be no reason why the coarse products of a great part of the earth should be sent all the way to a small northern country to be returned in a more or less ugly and adulterate manufactured condition.
— from The New Spirit Third Edition by Havelock Ellis

For such praise raises a suspicion in our minds ( pace the late Dr. Arnold and his following) that the praiser’s attention must have been arrested by sincerity, as by something more or less unfamiliar to himself.
— from Life and Habit by Samuel Butler

d talk more or less uninterruptedly, with only pertinent questions thrown in, and without having to react so much to the emotional tensions between us.
— from Exile from Space by Judith Merril

It is often brought as a reproach against the General Post Office that while it occasionally fails to deliver a letter which is only slightly incorrect in its address, it frequently succeeds if the address is entirely wrong or is more or less unintelligible to the average reader.
— from The Post Office and Its Story An interesting account of the activities of a great government department by Edward Bennett