For the execution of this undertaking not more than half an hour was required.
— from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

It was in this park that that fellow with an unpronounceable name made the attempt upon the Russian Czar’s life last spring with a pistol.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

But, on the other hand, these branches of knowledge show us nothing more than mere connections, relations of one idea to another, form devoid of all content.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer

When they had all sat down and begun a light preliminary conversation, K. was disconcerted to notice that he understood no more than fragments of what the Italian said.
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka

But if any extreme disturbance (as sometimes it happens) possesses our whole mind, as when the pain of the rack, an impetuous uneasiness, as of love, anger, or any other violent passion, running away with us, allows us not the liberty of thought, and we are not masters enough of our own minds to consider thoroughly and examine fairly;—God, who knows our frailty, pities our weakness, and requires of us no more than we are able to do, and sees what was and what was not in our power, will judge as a kind and merciful Father.
— from An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1 MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2 by John Locke

I have sometimes thought that the story of Homer’s blindness might be really an artistic myth, created in critical days, and serving to remind us, not merely that the great poet is always a seer, seeing less with the eyes of the body than he does with the eyes of the soul, but that he is a true singer also, building his song out of music, repeating each line over and over again to himself till he has caught the secret of its melody, chaunting in darkness the words that are winged with light.
— from Intentions by Oscar Wilde

Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse, The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt— Of guilt, perhaps, when we've involved others, The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us; Nay more, that very love their cause of ruin!
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns

about noon we reached a little stream about 8 miles on the portage where we halted and dined; we were obliged here to renew both axeltrees and the tongues and howns of one set of wheels which took us no more than 2 hours.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark

“Seditious pasquinades have been found; didn’t you know about them?” “Where?” “In the University.” “Nothing more than that?” “Whew!
— from The Reign of Greed by José Rizal

The only conception which represents a priori this empirical content of phenomena is the conception of a thing in general; and the a priori synthetical cognition of this conception can give us nothing more than the rule for the synthesis of that which may be contained in the corresponding a posteriori perception; it is utterly inadequate to present an a priori intuition of the real object, which must necessarily be empirical.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant

For that reason the writer prefers to use not more than two lines, with the [Pg 225] possibility of delivering the sewage alternately in the one and the other.
— from Rural Hygiene by Henry N. (Henry Neely) Ogden

He awoke with a settled determination to do his utmost, not merely to find the hakim, but to prove to Fazl Hak and to Hodson Sahib that he was worthy of the mission entrusted to him.
— from Barclay of the Guides by Herbert Strang

A loud or a low, a grave or an acute sound prolonged expresses to us no more than the continuance of the quality which is generally signified by such sounds.
— from Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman by Alexander Walker

KILRONAN BAY The steamer plodded on at her ten miles an hour, the pig families below uttered no more than an occasional yell of fractiousness or dolour, and a party of Aran women sat and conversed under their red shawls with that unflagging zest and seemingly inexhaustible supply of material that may well be the envy of the cultured.
— from Some Irish Yesterdays by E. Oe. (Edith Oenone) Somerville

It was not until nearly midnight that I was back at the hotel in Hull.
— from Spies of the Kaiser: Plotting the Downfall of England by William Le Queux

For centuries it has condemned itself to use no more than a modicum of its spiritual resources.
— from The Forerunners by Romain Rolland

The Oneida company began to set up new machinery, to seek wider markets, to advertise and fight competitors.
— from The Future in America: A Search After Realities by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

But let us now move the stick, and see what will be the consequence."
— from The History of Sandford and Merton by Thomas Day

This takes time, and there is usually not much time to spare in cavalry skirmishing.
— from The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War by Winston Churchill

The Chancellor summoned and presided over meetings of the masters and came to be elected by indirect vote by the masters who had schools, usually no more than a room or hall with a central hearth which was hired for lectures.
— from Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776 by S. A. Reilly