What is mere?

Famous quotes containing the word mere:

“His poor, crazy, deformed body was a mere Pandora’s box, containing all the physical ills that ever afflicted humanity. This, perhaps, whetted the edge of his satire, and may in some degree excuse it.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

“Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts,—a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

“There is a difference between eating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)