"Petrifaction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... process so slow that the life-time of a human being hardly counts in the calculation. There is something sublime in the contemplation of this steady persistence of Nature, this undeviating march to a goal; and as we gaze upon the embryo stages of the petrifaction, stalagmite patiently lifting itself upward, stalactite as patiently bending down to the remote but inevitable union, we might almost fancy them sentient agents in the marvellous transformation. The stamens of a passion-flower do not more eagerly, ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Man was quenched, the passion for civic equality survived only as the gibbering ghost of what it had been in 1790, and the consolidation of revolutionary France was effected by a process nearly akin to petrifaction. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Weltschmerz in that latent form which is the more appealing; and discouraging questions arise as to the end of old Double; and Argan in his nightcap is the tragic figure of Monomania; and human nature shudders at the petrifaction of the intellect of Mr. F.'s aunt. Et patati, ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... time in every sect, party, or institution when it stops growing, its arteries harden, its young men see no visions, its old men dream no dreams; it lives in the past and desperately tries to perpetuate the past. In politics when this process of petrifaction is reached, we call it Bourbonism, and the sure sign of the Bourbon is that, being unconscious that he is the victim of sclerosis, he sees no reason for seeking a cure. Unable to adjust himself to change and new conditions he ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... thicket, and muttering to himself, "There ain't no speckerlation there." And when the way became altogether inscrutable,—"Waal, this is a reg'lar random scoot of a rigmarole." As some one remarked, "The dictionary in his hands is like clay in the hands of the potter." "A petrifaction was a kind of a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... quartz, adamant, shale, flag, flagstone, cobblestone, rubble, brash, shingle; monolith, polyolith; cairn, muller, merestone; cromlech; madstone, snakestone; aerolite, meteorite; (of fruit) endocarp, pit, nut, putamen. Associated Words: petrify, petrifaction, lithology, lithography, lithic, lapidary, lithoglypher, lithoglyptic, litholatry, lapidescence, lapidescent, lapidify, lapillation, lapidification, lapidific, lapilli, catapult, quarry, petrography, lapidist, petrology, geology, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... thing came at her. Into the rushing of her ears broke thudding sounds. The thing leaped up. A horrible petrifaction suddenly made stone of Carley. Then she saw a gray mantlelike object cast aside to disclose the dark ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... and where depend on life's minute? Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter Our first step out of the gulf or in it? 140 Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, Man's face, have no more play and action Than joy which is crystallized forever, Or grief, an eternal petrifaction? ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... petrified propriety exactly means," said Russell: "but let it mean what it may, it is nothing to the present purpose; for the question is not about the propriety of Lady Sarah Lidhurst's conduct, but of yours. Now, allowing you to call her ladyship a petrifaction, or an automaton, or by whatever other name you please, still, I apprehend, that she is in reality a human creature, and a woman; and I conceive it is the duty of a man of honour or honesty ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... hope not. Organization means creed, and creed means petrifaction and tyranny. I believe in individuality. I will not join any society ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... What he dreads in space is that the heart should be possessed by it, and transformed into it. He dreads that the imagination should be fascinated by the homogeneous and static, hypnotised by geometry, and actually lost in Auseinandersein. This would be a real death and petrifaction of consciousness, frozen into contemplation of a monotonous infinite void. What is warm and desirable is rather the sense of variety and succession, as if all visions radiated from the occupied focus or hearth of the self. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... jingling of words that never touch the heart, but leave the individual ready to throw stones and light brands of torture: a case-hardening of the affections and the aspirations, that wraps the soul like the bandages of the mummied Pharaohs, a mere petrifaction. ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... yes," exclaimed Charles-Norton, recovering from his momentary petrifaction; "come in, make yourself at home, have a chair, ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper |
