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Crushing   /krˈəʃɪŋ/   Listen
Crushing

adjective
1.
Physically or spiritually devastating; often used in combination.  Synonym: devastating.  "A crushing rejection" , "Bone-crushing"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Crushing" Quotes from Famous Books



... done by a man who cannot afford to fail—one whose whole unique position depends upon the fact that all he does must succeed. A great brain and a huge organization have been turned to the extinction of one man. It is crushing the nut with the hammer—an absurd extravagance of energy—but the nut is very effectually ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... decline when she had but lately obtained a commanding position. Hiram's energy diverted these evils: he did not choose that his kingdom should be dismembered, if he could anyhow help it; and, offering a firm and strenuous opposition to the revolt, he succeeded in crushing it, and maintaining the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... disaster saved us from ultimate defeat. We had started out from Nashville on an offensive campaign, probably with no intention of going beyond Murfreesboro', in midwinter, but still with the expectation of delivering a crushing blow should the enemy accept our challenge to battle. He met us with a plan of attack almost the counterpart of our own. In the execution of his plan he had many advantages, not the least of which was his intimate knowledge of the ground, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan

... shield was burnt away by the flames, so that he was forced to take refuge behind Beowulf's iron shield; and this time when Beowulf struck with his sword, it was shivered to pieces. Then the dragon flung himself upon him and caught him up in his arms, crushing him till he lay senseless and ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... risen hastily, folded the will as best she could, in four, in eight folds, and crushing it together in her hand, went quietly from the room, which ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various

... children, robbed of their property, driven from their homes, dragged to the galleys, plunged into dungeons, broken upon the wheel, hanged upon scaffolds, rose in several places in the most desperate insurrectionary bands. And the man who was thus crushing beneath the heel of his armies the quivering hearts of the Palatinate, and who was drenching his own realms with tears and blood, was clothed in purple, and faring sumptuously, and reclining upon the silken sofas of Marly and Versailles. It is not strange that Faith, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... which by some accident was deprived of its companions. From that moment all its love seemed to centre upon its mistress. Wherever she went the duck followed, and that so closely, that she was in constant fear of crushing it to death. With its age its affections seemed to strengthen, and it took up its abode in-doors, basking on the hearth, and delighting in notice. After some time other ducks were procured, and, to induce it to mix with its natural companions, the ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")

... endowed all existence with distorted animation; turned dogs into deities, and leeks into lightning-darters; then gradually invested the blank granite with sculptured mystery, designed in superstition, and adored in disease; and then such masses of architecture arose as, in delirium, we feel crushing down upon us with eternal weight, and see extending far into the blackness above; huge and shapeless columns of colossal life; immense and immeasurable avenues of mountain stone. This was a perfect—that is, a marked, enduring, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... States, they rose up and went to work. They worked for the Government; they worked for the nation; they worked for their sons, their husbands, their fathers, their brothers, their friends. They worked night and day. Who found women to stand back when this great public opinion that had been crushing them so long and forbidding them to work, at last lifted itself up and said, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... or two I sat breathless, hardly able to believe my ears. Then my senses and my voice came back to me, while a crushing weight of responsibility seemed in an instant to be lifted from my soul. That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... between what it cost the foreigner to make the silk and what it cost the American to make it was, as he thought, not over three per cent. If he was right in his estimate, almost all of the actual duty might have been abolished without crushing the American manufacturer. Americans had developed a sufficient aptitude for making spool silk to be able to get nearly as much of it by turning their labor in that direction as they could by turning their labor in any other direction and exchanging ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... pleasure, good talk; and the fact that it is so tiring shows what a real pleasure it must be. But a man with whom you can only talk hard isn't a companion—he's an adversary in a game. There have been times in my life when I have had a real tough talker staying here with me, when I have suffered from crushing intellectual fatigue, and felt inclined to say, like Elijah, 'Take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.' That is the strange thing to me about most human beings—the extent to which they seem able to talk without ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... not see anything which could have caused this terrible alarm, but in a few seconds I heard a crushing among a thicket of shrubs from which she was running, as if some heavy weight was being forced through them; and presently there issued a most extraordinary monster. It came forward at a quick pace, its head erect above ten feet, its ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... anything, for when they got back to camp Tom had gone. Dick scarcely tasted his supper and his sleep was restless and troubled. He woke with a scream, from a terrible nightmare in which a wild beast had him by the throat and was crushing him to death under his tremendous weight. He was happy when he woke to find that his dream was true. For Tom had come home and showed his joy at the sight of Dick by leaping on the boy's chest and licking his ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... end to grinding, crushing, and sawing for that day. It was a good thing for the millers near Broek. Long before noon, they concluded to take in their sails, and go to the race. Everybody would be there. Already the north side of the frozen Y was bordered with eager spectators: the news of the great skating-match had ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... the poor man, stupefied with fear of the anger that was crushing him. "Vedie, what is the ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... seemed strange to him to be deftly waited upon at a table glittering with silver and gay with flowers. Mrs. Thomas Savine sat opposite him, between her husband and the host, and Helen found certain suspicions confirmed when Savine referred to the crushing of the strike. Previously, he had given his daughter a brief ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... and regarding it with a frown, she muttered something between her teeth, and darted from the room, slamming the door behind her. Not understanding the reason for such strange conduct, Mamma followed her presently to her room, and found her sitting with streaming eyes on her trunk, crushing her pocket-handkerchief between her fingers, and looking mournfully at the remains of the document, which was lying torn to pieces on ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... Whatever sets us in opposition to Him makes our will an intolerable torment. So long as we will one thing and He another, we go on piercing ourselves through and through with a perpetual wound; and His will advances moving on in sanctity and majesty, crushing ours ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... the famed Argo now secure had passed The crushing rocks,[93] and that terrific strait That guards the wintry Pontic, the tall ship Reached wild Bebrycia's shores; bearing like gods Her god-descended chiefs. They, from her sides, With scaling steps descend, and on the shore, Savage, and sad, and beat by ocean winds, Strewed ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... years, days followed days and resembled one another. Camille did not once absent himself from his office. His mother and wife hardly ever left the shop. Therese, residing in damp obscurity, in gloomy, crushing silence, saw life expand before her in all its nakedness, each night bringing the same cold couch, and each morn the same ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... crushing thought: that army was no longer the same that had in one famous struggle forced the whole world to ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... have concentration and vigour for its dominant note. Therefore supremacy was assured to that political party which was most alert in laying its grasp on all the resources of the State, and most resolute in crushing resistance. More than public interests were at stake. Great armies were approaching, guided by vindictive emigres, and they had announced the horrors they were prepared to inflict on the ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... which—and the noble maxims that—He is only, however, forty-eight hours in office when he becomes quite demoralized, paralyzed and stultified for the rest of his ministerial life. It is the phenomenon of crushing demoralization and of complete enervation of which the public, from the situation in which it is placed, sees only the results of which Monsieur Claretie, with a skilful hand describes for us the mechanism and the cause. This Minister of State, supposed to be omnipotent ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... slipped away; he began to be very satisfied with himself. He was the inheritor of twelve thousand pounds, and he had won this unique creature. She was his capture; he held her close, permittedly scanning the minutiae of her skin, permittedly crushing her flimsy silks. Something in him had forced her to lay her modesty on the altar of his desire. And the sun brightly shone. So he kissed her yet more ardently, and with the slightest touch of a victor's condescension; and her burning response more than restored ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... said Annie. "I've just come from the Northwicks, and another crushing beauty has got ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... attended this rifle, which became my colossal companion for many years in wild sports with dangerous game. It will be observed that the powder charge was one-third the weight of the projectile, and not only a tremendous crushing power, but an extraordinary penetration was obtained, never equalled by any rifle ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... The thing was crushing. I looked at Bickley for encouragement, but got none, for he only shook his head. Even Bastin, now that the first effects of the Life-water had departed, seemed overwhelmed, and muttered something ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... in the side of the realm the new emperor sent his ablest commander, and a fierce campaign ensued, in which the brigand band stubbornly fought for life and license. In the end they suffered a crushing defeat, and for the time sank out of sight, but only to rise again at a ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... clever woman of the world as she was, watched her daughter's face in the fleeting lights as they sped homeward, and saw what a crushing blow the announcement had ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux

... yet gracious, give ear. If by my offerings I have found favour, lift from my heart this crushing load. Deliver me from the fear of the blood guilty. Are ye not divine? Do not the immortals know all things? Ye know, then, how I was tempted, how sore was the compulsion, and how life and love ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... began to tremble, And the canes to rustle fast, As though some stupendous body Through their roots were crushing past. ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... satisfaction. A sick man cannot stand it. The line of enjoyable suffering is not a fixed one; it fluctuates with the perfectness of the life. That our pains are, as they are, unendurable, awful, overwhelming, crushing, not to be borne save in misery and dumb impatience, which utter exhaustion alone makes patient,—that our pains are thus unendurable, means not that they are too great, but that we are sick. We have not got our proper life. So you perceive ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... in quick succession, a heavy crushing pressure, either on the limbs or body, which had the effect, not only to startle them from their sleep, but caused ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid

... Courtenay, the orator, at Rogers's, the poet's, in 1811-12, I was much taken with the portly remains of his fine figure, and the still acute quickness of his conversation. It was he who silenced Flood in the English House by a crushing reply to a hasty debut of the rival of Grattan in Ireland. I asked Courtenay (for I like to trace motives) if he had not some personal provocation; for the acrimony of his answer seemed to me, as I had read it, to involve it. Courtenay said ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... the development of the oligarchy upon the basis of a Great Council. The aristocracy during this period were engaged in excluding the people from any share in the government, and in curbing and finally crushing the authority of the Doge. The steps in this process are indicated by the closing of the Great Council, the revolution of Tiepolo, the trials of Marino Faliero, Lorenzo Celsi, and the Foscari. The third period covers ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... the good and innocent to behold this universal dissolution and decay without remembering that they themselves must pass through some such temporary experience. But upon those who carry guilty secrets in their hearts these impressions descend with crushing weight. David felt them to the full when at last the winter set in; when the days were shortened and he was compelled to forego his toil at an early hour and retire to his cabin! There he was confronted by all the problems and temptations of a soul battling with the animal nature and striving ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss

... the moment of his fall his men were engaged in the thick of battle. Crushing though the news of his death was, there was no breathing time to ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... said at last. "But, cuckoo, I'm just thinking—how shall I possibly be able to sit down without crushing ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... free herself, and as one of her captors half turned to drag her to her feet he saw the enraged youth, club uplifted, bearing down upon them like a demon. A terrific yell from Rod, a warning cry from the Indian, and the fray began. With crushing force, the boy's club fell upon the shoulder of the second Indian, and before he could recover from the delivery of this blow the youth was caught in a choking, deadly grip by the ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... crushing. You were so indifferent I tried to be polite enough for two. When a woman hits you in the face with an invitation you don't expect a man to run, do you? I always accept, but never go if I can manage to stay away. And I generally manage. It is purely automatic, written ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher

... ministers, our masters and mistresses in schools, that God bears none of the burden of humanity; his heart never breaks because a life is withering in despair? He takes no hurt from the weltering sorrows by which so many are overwhelmed. It is man, it is woman, who bears the agony; the crushing burden of wrong-doing falls on them. Look no more then, we urge, to a phantom deity, to an idol-god in the skies, a figment of a disordered imagination, but think on your brother man before you dare to set mischief in motion. ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... of insects that do not benefit the flowers is infinite in its variety. But the local Venus's flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), gathered only from the low savannas in North Carolina to entertain the owners of hothouses as it promptly closes the crushing trap at the end of its sensitive leaves over a hapless fly, and the common sundew that tinges the peat-bogs of three continents with its little reddish leaves, belong to a distinct class of carnivorous plants which actually masticate their animal food, depending upon it for nourishment ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... cried, and caught her in his arms, covering her face with kisses and crushing her against his heart. It seemed hours to her, but it was really only a moment before she pushed him from her, slipped from his arms, and stood panting and flushed ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... home accurately, with force. But when he essayed to drive in the right, it was blocked, and Randerson's right, crooked, rigid, sent with the force of a battering ram, landed fairly on Masten's mouth, with deadening, crushing effect. ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... directly hostile, was mainly indifferent." Happily, Mr. Fortescue's candour as an historian of facts gives us the clue to this strange tangle. We find no evidence that the sober loyalist majority who sustain one side of his argument, and whom we should expect to find crushing the revolt with ease in co-operation with the British regular troops, were, in fact, a majority, nor that they were either better or worse men, or more or less ardent patriots, than the mutinous minority, or the British ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... a sorrow worse than poverty came. Their only son, Thomas, a most affectionate child, died, saying with his latest breath, "I love thee, mother." It was a crushing blow; but it proved a blessing in the ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... fruit to ripen at the Bayreuth home was Levana, finished in October, 1806, just as Napoleon was crushing the power of Prussia at Jena. Though disconnected and unsystematic Levana has been for three generations a true yeast of pedagogical ideas, especially in regard to the education of women and their social position in Germany. Against the ignorance of the then existing conditions Jean Paul ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... beneath the mighty trees which overshadowed it. Hardly believing my own eyes at so strange and exquisite a structure, I jumped off my horse and hastened to secure it. But the net-work once raised was like the uncovering of the veiled prophet of Khorassan, and the stem, crushing in my fingers, revealed all the disgusting properties of the plant, and proved the impossibility of removing it entire. The elegance of its exterior only served to conceal its character-like Madame Mantilini, who, when ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... superiors and win their approbation! It was not Sherlock Nobody Holmes who heard in a sort of daze the whispered words that were next uttered. It was just the captain's mess boy, and he hung his head, not so much in crushing disappointment as in ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... bread, break them in small bits, put them on a baking pan and place them in a moderate oven, watching closely that they do not scorch; then take them while hot and crisp and roll them, crushing them. Sift them, using the fine crumbs for breading cutlets, fish, croquettes, etc. The coarse ones may be ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... her—when will it tire? Silence? nay! I'll not be silent," she continued wildly in defiant answer to angry murmurs from the crowd. "Thou daughter of a house of tyrants, tyrant thyself! a slave to thy paltry whims, crushing beneath thy sandalled feet the hearts of the poor and the cries of the oppressed! Shame on thee! shame on thee, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... to all my objections you make such crushing answers that I dare no longer doubt. But, if I am forced to admit the Rouquayrol and Ruhmkorff apparatus, I must be allowed some reservations with regard to the gun I am ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... Father Balthazar how this could be; and had he not replied that the Church did not teach these miracles as matters of faith, but that she might there discern in figure how meek Christian holiness rose above all crushing burthens, and transformed the rudest natures. This poor maiden- dying, perhaps; and oh! how unfit to live or die!—might it be her part to do some good work by her, and infuse some Christian hope, some godly fear? Could it be for this that the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of abject mournfulness and forlorn desolation. Other denotements of subtlety were seen in his sad preoccupation with memories of the lost Cordelia, while talking with the Fool. "I did her wrong" was never more tenderly spoken than by him. They are only four little words; but they carry the crushing weight of eternal and hopeless remorse. It was in this region of delicate, imaginative touch that McCullough's dramatic art was especially puissant. He was the first actor of Lear to discriminate between the agony of a man while going mad and the careless, volatile, fantastic condition—afflicting ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... the stern and scornful resignation of a fallen gladiator, when, at that awful instant, the floor shook under them with a rapid and convulsive throe—a mightier spirit than that of the Egyptian was abroad!—a giant and crushing power, before which sunk into sudden impotence his passion and his arts. IT woke—it stirred—that Dread Demon of the Earthquake—laughing to scorn alike the magic of human guile and the malice of human wrath. As a Titan, on whom the mountains are piled, it roused itself from the sleep of years, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... pronounce the solemn vow of revenge that was on his lips, the abbot's delicate hand was almost crushing his mouth with open palm ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... and mountains bristled with life. A host of light-armed Basque mountaineers emerged from the forest, and poured darts and arrows upon the crowded columns of heavily-armed Franks below. Rocks were rolled down the steep declivities, crushing living men beneath their weight. The surprised troops withdrew in haste to the bottom of the valley, death pursuing them at every step. The battle that followed was doubtless a severe and hotly-contested one; the prominent place it has gained ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris

... over it. At high-water, nothing larger than a bird could go in and out beneath the low arch; but there was a cavern within, whose sandy floor sloped up to some distance above high-water mark. In this cavern was Rolf. He had thrust his little skiff between the walls of rock, crushing in its sides as he did so. The bushes drooped behind him, hanging naturally over the entrance as before. Rolf pulled up his broken vessel upon the little sandy beach, within the cave, saved a pile of his fish, and returned a good many to the water, and then sat down ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau

... fifteen in sails, rigging, boats, and smoke-stack. Luckily, a one hundred and ten-pounder rifle shell which lodged in the stern post, raising the transom frame, and a thirty-two-pounder shell that entered forward of forward-pivot port, crushing water-ways, ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne

... crushing, so swift, so entire, that for an instant I almost failed to rejoice in her open humiliation. Seated in the boat, oars poised, she invited Jim with soft speech and a smile that might have moved an iron dog without occasioning any remark from me; but Jim, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... Triumphant and colossal, treading the air securely above the shop, the glittering shoe dominated the street with the insolence of success. More than once it had figured in her dreams, endowed with the fantastic powers of Aaron's rod, swallowing its rivals at a gulp or slowly crushing the life out ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... show his gratitude; which found but an imperfect vent, during the remainder of the day, in divers secret slaps upon his pocket, and other such facetious pantomime. Nor was it confined to these ebullitions; for besides crushing a bandbox, with a bonnet in it, he seriously damaged Mr Pecksniff's luggage, by ardently hauling it down from the top of the house; and in short evinced, by every means in his power, a lively sense of the favours he had received from ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... Peishwa, the Mahrattas slowly but surely closed in upon Delhi. Another great battle was fought at Panipat between the Afghan invaders from the North and the flower of the Mahratta army. The Mahrattas endured a crushing defeat, which, together with treachery within their own ranks, broke up the confederacy and prepared the downfall of their military power, which British arms ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol

... in the glorious Sicilian sundown I recollected those days when at seventeen she had admitted her love for me, and we were happy. Visions of that blissful past arose before me—and then the crushing blow I had received prior ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... crash of falling roofs; an instant more, and the mountain cloud seemed to roll toward them, dark and rapid, like a torrent; at the same time it cast forth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixt with vast fragments of burning stone! Over the crushing vines, over the desolate streets, over the amphitheater itself; far and wide, with many a mighty splash in the agitated sea, fell ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... ago. For those who direct big businesses the earnings of which are in silver and the expenses largely in gold, as well as for those who had already invested their fortunes in shares prior to the utter collapse of silver, the past few years have been a period of crushing losses, while the future must ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... had known pain, suffering, danger, inability to work, anxiety, daily care for months and months alone. The exquisite, perfect form I had counted so sacred, had suffered the common earthly lot. And through me. My thoughts seemed crushing me, grinding me beneath them, but at last her voice penetrated to my brain, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... childhood know that their lot is to wait and dread and weep, and the men that the ocean is treacherous and cruel, but that bread can be wrung from no other master. Therefore the living have little sympathy for the dead who have laid down their crushing burden; and the dead under their stones slumber contentedly enough. There is no envy among them for the young who wander at evening and pledge their troth in the Bois d'Amour, only pity for the groups of women who wash their linen in the creek that flows to the river. They look ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... a moment to recover from the shock of being called 'a little girl', when all the honours of her fourteenth birthday were fresh upon her; and Bess said, in the lofty tone which was infinitely more crushing than Jo's impertinence: ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... and he was conscious of a great weight which seemed to be crushing the breath from his body. He raised his arms and tore at the thing on his chest. It yielded slightly to the pressure of his hands but remained immovable. He reached above it and encountered metal—a ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx

... before me and boast of knowing me, and today you see in the agonized groan of a creative artist nothing but a sad mistake and you cannot wring from your greed of gold the half hour it would take to rid me of the chains that are crushing me. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... argument is reported between a Christian and an agnostic. After their diverse opinions have been rehearsed, the Christian concludes with what is meant to be a crushing reply—certainly it silences his opponent: 'On your own theory you don't know what will happen after death. On mine you will prosper, if you believe; if not, you will go to hell. Therefore safety lies in ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... this purpose. Add sugar or sirup, according to the condition of the fruit, and set in the sun where it can ferment thoroughly. Skim frequently to remove all impurities, and when as acid as desired, strain and bottle. Gooseberry vinegar is made by crushing gooseberries not quite ripe, covering with cold water (three quarts of water to two of fruit) and allowing it to stand for two days. Press and strain. Allow a pint of sugar and half a yeast cake to each gallon of the liquid. Set in the sun, and when the fluid ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes

... positively incomprehensible and unexplainable to the average mind. All mystic literature, when read with the eyes of understanding, exalts and spiritualizes sex. The latter day degeneration of sex is the "trail of the serpent," which Woman is to crush with her heel. And Woman is crushing it to-day, although to the superficial observer, who sees only surface conditions, it would appear as though Woman had fallen from her high estate, to take her place on a footing with man. This view is the exoteric, and not the ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... the crushing force of naked speed pasted him against the contour seat. Consciousness began to leave him, but not soon enough. For there, in the tortured imaginings of his pain-constricted brain, came the ugly black bird again, shrieking horribly ...
— Heart • Henry Slesar

... on a bough ahead of us piped to another across the road, and as mate to mate was answered. "It is not because I do not love you—Selwyn. I do—love you." The crushing of my hands hurt, but he said nothing. "I shall never marry unless I marry you—but I am not sure—we ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... when its ray fell upon the uprearing sea which put it out. He saw the head of the wave topple over, adding the mite of its crash to the tremendous uproar raging around him, and almost at the same instant the stanchion was wrenched away from his embracing arms. After a crushing thump on his back he found himself suddenly afloat and borne upwards. His first irresistible notion was that the whole China Sea had climbed on the bridge. Then, more sanely, he concluded himself gone overboard. All the time he was being tossed, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... these tears? You quite desolate me. It is no such crushing matter that you do not ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... of our nation, which, as everywhere else, constitutes the majority, witnessing the impunity and prosperity of crime, and bestowing on the Almighty the passions of mortals, first doubted of His omnipotence in not crushing guilt, and afterwards of His existence in not exterminating the blasphemous from among the living. Feeling, however, the want of consolation in their misfortunes here, and hope of a reward hereafter for unmerited ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... his voice almost breaking in tears. He drew her up to him, and closed her thirsting lips with his own, crushing her body against his own till both ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski

... Sisyphus, that sees no end to his labours. His punishment is, to be for ever rolling up a vast stone to the top of a mountain, which when it gets to the top, falls down with a crushing weight, and all his work is to be begun again. He was bathed all over in sweat, that reeked out a smoke which covered his head like a mist. His crime had been the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... starboard trunnion, dismounting the piece and sending it overboard, while a shower of splinters of wood and metal flew from the slide, wounding and maiming at least four more men. And then, as though that were not enough, the shot glanced and swept the boat fore and aft, crushing in the side of one poor fellow's head like an egg-shell, smashing in the ribs of another, and whipping the captain's sword out of his hand, with all four of his fingers, as it flew over his head into ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... different kind were enacted lower down among the tents. No sooner had the penitents got the difficult rites of the Station over, than they were off to the whiskey; and decidedly, after the grinding of their bare knees upon the hard rock—after the pushing, crushing, and exhaustion of bodily strength which they had been forced to undergo—we say, that the comforts and refreshments to be had in the tents were very seasonable. Here the dancing, shouting, singing, courting, drinking, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... unbroken sheets; then they would meet with some obstruction—either a narrow part of the stream, or a promontory, or a rock—and then they would leap and rush over each other, as if imbued with life, and eager to escape from the pursuit of an enemy. The rushing and crushing and grinding of the ice, and roar of the waters was almost deafening. The masses would assume, too, all sorts of fantastic shapes, which one, with a slight exertion of fancy, might imagine bears, and lions, and castles, and ships under sail—indeed all sorts of things, animate and inanimate. ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston

... in other ways it did not, fulfil the objects of its framers. It was undoubtedly a generous concession to the leading French Canadians. It did help to keep Canada both British and Canadian. And it did open the way for what ought to have been a crushing attack on the American revolutionary forces. But it was not, and neither it nor any other Act could possibly have been, at that late hour, completely successful. It conciliated the seigneurs and the parochial clergy. But it did not, and it could not, ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... not yet stereotyped on the charts of man. Alas for these maps and charts! Despite the wishes of scientific geographers and the ignorance of unscientific explorers, we think them far too complete already; and we can conceive few things more dreadful or crushing to the enterprising and romantic spirits of the world than the arrival of that time (if it ever shall arrive) when it shall be said that terra incognita exists no longer—when every one of those fairy-like ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... down. One day I fell fainting under the lash of the brutal overseer, and as I lay on the ground he ran at me and kicked me twice with his heavy iron-shod boots, once on the hip, breaking the bone, and once on the lower part of the spine, crushing the spinal cord, and paralysing ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... life was bigger that night than it had been in the morning. He might not find the right road at once, but he could at least leave the old one. He felt a strange hunger to understand all that had been said. He felt, also, a tremendous sense of his own ignorance; tremendous, but not crushing; a realization that the world was full of things to be learned; problems to be faced; conclusions to be studied out, and underneath was a sense almost of exaltation that he should take some part in ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... under lauhalas and bananas. Then there is the sugar plantation of Kaiwiki, with its patches of bright green cane, its flumes crossing the track above our heads, bringing the cane down from the upland cane-fields to the crushing-mill, and the shifting, busy scenes of ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... to take up again its natural position in Europe, and to accept the alliance which Pitt would in such a case have offered her. The policy of the German courts therefore was to prolong an anarchy which left them free for the moment to crush Poland, and which they counted on crushing in its turn at a more convenient time; and the allied armies which might have marched upon Paris were purposely frittered away in sieges in ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... easy manner? Under such a system nobody worried or labored very much and life was like a pleasant dream. But alas! there has always been a beginning and an ending to everything under the sun, good or evil. The awakening from an easy life's dream was occasioned by a crushing blow. It fell on the day of final reckoning, when Don Guillermo, my good uncle, thought the time was propitious to realize something tangible on sundry duly signed, sealed, and witnessed instruments. There was a rumpus; neither earthquake ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... care! you are crushing these little oleanders—and now the strawberry plants—the whole heap. Not I, indeed. What would my mother say, if she knew it? And Leontion! ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... sons of God—and at our best value freedom in every department of our being—spirit as well as mind and body. George Adam Smith says: "The great causes of God and humanity are not defeated by the hot assaults of the Devil, but by the slow, crushing, glacier-like mass of thousands and thousands of indifferent nobodies. God's causes are never destroyed by being blown up, but by being sat upon. It is not the violent and anarchical whom we have to fear in the war for human progress, but the slow, the staid, the respectable; ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... but a motley gathering. The force that he had brought with him from Holland had been landed at Santander, marched to Bilbao, and joined Blake's army, and had shared in the crushing defeat suffered by that general at Espinosa, where most of them were taken prisoners. They were again incorporated in the French army, and afterwards took part in the Russian campaign, and in the retreat no less than four thousand of them were taken prisoners by the ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty

... (1833-1892), a young physician of Boston, suffered a crushing bereavement in the death of his wife shortly after their marriage, and then vowed to devote his life to charity. Inspired by Mueller's Life of Trust he established a number of charitable institutions, relying ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... dead months ago—I should have died raving in my awful bedroom on the ground floor of that foul Roman hotel. Malarial fever, of course! Doctors don't admit—do they?—that it's possible for strong men to die of miserable marriages. And yet I was dying in Rome, I truly believe, from my bitter, crushing disappointment, from the consciousness of my wretched, irretrievable—[FORTUNE enters, carrying LUCAS' hat, gloves, overcoat, and silk wrap, and upon a salver, a bottle ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero

... therefore, the people's fight. It is now up to the people of this country to make their wishes known and their opinions felt. It should be constantly in mind that, without the mobilized moral force of those upon whom these crushing burdens are now falling, there is little hope that the load will ever be lifted. If it is not lifted, no one can prophesy what lies beyond. There can be no relief from taxes, no relief from expenditures and no relief from war, except ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various

... pillagers; but know They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various

... abhorrence at his crime, than that she mourned for him, and longed to press him to her bosom and bind up the wounded heart. But he could not shake off this last idea. It haunted him every moment, and added to the weight of sorrow which seemed crushing him. ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder

... tyrannical British power, the Act of Union—the very measure he was supposed to have battled for—responsible government, and, above all, those of his own race who supported the new order. LaFontaine took up the gauntlet. His retort was as obvious as it was crushing. If the French Canadians had refused to come in under the Act of Union, they would have been depriving themselves of any share whatever in the government of their country. If they had refused to come in, Papineau would not have been permitted to return, or to sit once more as ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... oversight. It crept into the text of Goer. by mistake, for in his note he gave renovari. Orelli—who speaks of Goerenz's "praestantissima recensio," and founds his own text upon it two years after Madvig's crushing exposure in his Em. often quoted by me—not only reads revocari, but quotes renovari as an em. of the ed. Victoriana of 1536. From Orelli, Klotz, whose text has no independent value, took it. Renovare in Cic. often means "to refresh ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... crushing, palm oil processing, plywood production, wood chip production; mining of gold, silver, and copper; ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... hand, or be left behind entirely. As the stars dimmed and the horizon ahead took on a thin gray streak, peons wrapped in their sarapes passed now and then noiselessly in their soft leather huarachas close beside me. In huts along the way frowsy, unwashed women might be heard already crushing in their stone mortars, under stone rolling-pins, maize for the morning atole and tortillas, while thick smoke began to wander lazily out from the low doorways. Swiftly it grew lighter until suddenly an immense red sun leaped full-grown above ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... course this crushing conclusion admitted of no answer. But Miss Peggy might say to Susan later, with a bright, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... though they were in opportunities as seamen to their enemies, could meet them on more than equal terms as to tactical skill, and were practically their superiors in handling fleets. The false theory has already been pointed out, which directed the action of the French fleet not to crushing its enemy, but to some ulterior aim; but this does not affect the fact that in tactical skill the military men were superior to the mere seamen, though their tactical skill was applied to mistaken ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... a call for bonds, and forget that the rapid extinction of our national debt is a proof of our prosperity and patriotism, as wonderful to the world as was the power we exhibited in the struggle which left that apparently crushing burden upon us. If, then, we deal successfully with the evils which threaten our political life, who can venture to predict the limits of our future wealth and glory—wealth that shall enrich all; glory ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... Exclusion, persecution, severe punishments for libellers and demagogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if necessary, rather than any concession to a discontented people; these are the measures which he seems inclined to recommend. A severe and gloomy tyranny, crushing opposition, silencing remonstrance, drilling the minds of the people into unreasoning obedience, has in it something of grandeur which delights his imagination. But there is nothing fine in the shabby tricks ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... carried me back almost unconsciously to happier times. It is necessary, however, to return to the sad stay at Fontainebleau; and, after what I have said of the dejection in which the Emperor lived, it is not surprising that, overwhelmed by such crushing blows, his mind was not disposed to gallantry. It seems to me I can still see the evidences of the gloomy melancholy which devoured him; and in the midst of so many sorrows the kindness of heart of the man seemed to increase ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... favour by raising a storm to overwhelm our enemy, when the odds against us were most terrible. From the religious point of view such a representation is childish; from the historical it is false. False, because the Spanish fleet, after being hounded up Channel, had sustained a crushing defeat from the English, a defeat in which they lost many ships and thousands of men before they fled to the north.... Childish, because in affairs of State Providence works by recognized means, and gives the victory, not ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... hands. It was too awful for words. I believe I shouted suddenly at him as you would bellow to a man you saw about to walk over a cliff; I remember our voices being raised, the appearance of a miserable grin on his face, a crushing clutch on my hand, a nervous laugh. The candle spluttered out, and the thing was over at last, with a groan that floated up to me in the dark. He got himself away somehow. The night swallowed his form. He was a horrible bungler. Horrible. I heard the quick crunch-crunch of the gravel under ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... neighbour, who lounged in the corner, muffled up in his cloak, muttering and cursing at every jolt of the diligence, as it bumped across the gutters and jolted along the streets of Boulogne. At length having got off the pavement, after crushing along at a trot through the soft road that immediately succeeds, they reached the little hill near Mr. Gooseman's farm, and the horses gradually relaxed into a walk, when he burst forth with a tremendous oath, swearing that he had "travelled three hundred thousand miles, and never saw horses ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... took it up and tried to discharge it, but it missed fire. Heavy clouds lay on the mountain clefts, like firm masses of snow. Upon one of these Vertigo sat, lurking after his powerless prey, and from beneath came a sound as if a piece of rock had fallen from the cleft, and was crushing everything that stood in its ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... was brought on carts to the spot. When it was framed together and put in operation, it would hurl immense stones, which, striking the walls, made breaches in them, or, going over them, came down into the interior of the place, crushing through the roofs of the houses, and killing sometimes multitudes of men. The sow was made, too, so as to afford shelter and protection to a great number of persons, who could ride upon it while it was drawn or pushed up near the walls, and thus reach a point where they could begin ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Maria, impatiently. "Thy father's daughter ought to know that such as he may be ignorant and vulgar, but can not be disrespectful to her. And there are offenses, child, it is much more crushing to forget than to remember. As long as he has not the presumption to APOLOGIZE, I see no reason why thou mayst not go. He has not been here since that affair of the letters. I shall not permit him to be uncivil over THAT—dost thou understand? He is of ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... misanthropy, she touched her heart. Jemima (she had only a claim to a Christian name, which had not procured her any Christian privileges) could patiently hear of Maria's confinement on false pretences; she had felt the crushing hand of power, hardened by the exercise of injustice, and ceased to wonder at the perversions of the understanding, which systematize oppression; but, when told that her child, only four months old, had been torn ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... know you were going to England: I would have freighted you with such messages of homage and affection to Kipling. And I would have pressed his hand, through you, for his sympathy with me in my crushing loss, as expressed by him in his letter to Gilder. You know my feeling for Kipling and that it antedates ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... similar disposition on the part of those whom they invaded. In supposing that the inhabitants in the north of England, and especially in Lancashire, would immediately join their standard, they had not calculated wisely. The king, in crushing the hopes of the Yorkists, had made himself, at that period, too popular in the county; the reluctance, too, which it may be supposed that Englishmen would feel in identifying themselves with a troop of foreign adventurers, as well as their general ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... "I don't know anything about it. That is the crushing truth. I can find out nothing at all. When I look down through the earth by means of the Artesian ray I reach a certain depth and then I see a void; when I look down through a perfectly open passage to the same depth, ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... full of kids," stated the old man, witheringly. "It's doomed." This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him. And he blinked his eyes with renewed anticipation. His tall tormentor continued with a face of unchanging gravity, and a voice of gentle solicitude: "How is ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... and putting it into a cup, was about pouring hot water on it for an emetic, when he could stand it no longer, but rushing out of the door, put to flight a flock of geese that were awaiting their usual meal, and stumbling over a pig, fell at full length on the ground, nearly crushing the dog, who went off yelling as if another such blow would be the death of him, and hid himself under the barn. The idea of the soot-emetic relieved the old lady, though it nearly fixed the doctor's flint for him. She extolled its virtues to the skies; she saved her ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... his own, and even stamping upon them the tones of his voice and all sorts of slavish imitation. Over the general results of his action I have long deeply mourned, as blunting his natural tenderness and sacrificing his wisdom to the Letter, dwarfing men's understandings, contracting their hearts, crushing their moral sensibilities, and setting those at variance who ought to love: yet oh! how specious was it in the beginning! he only wanted men "to submit their understandings to God" that is, to the Bible, that is, to his interpretation! From seeing his action and influence I have learnt, that ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... for this house!" flashed Rachel indignantly. Then she turned to Hazelton, her slight form drawn to its greatest height, and her hands crushing the flowers, she held till the brittle stems snapped, releasing a fluttering shower of scarlet and gold. "Mr. Hazelton, to carry out certain wishes very near to our hearts, we need money. We will show you the place, and—and we will consider your offer," ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... Garcide needed her as he needed mercy from Ophir Steel, which was slowly crushing his ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... the ground with crooked branches of trees or with simple instruments made of stags' horn; but, nevertheless, they succeeded in getting very good results. Among the relics which they have left are found stones for crushing corn, the grain which they used, and even the very cakes or bread which they made. There are also fruits, such as the apple, pear, nut, etc.; so that the bill of fare of prehistoric man was by no means contemptible. He had fish, game, beef, mutton, pork, bread, and fruit, besides ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... is no very crushing disappointment not to see what he came to see. Outside sights give something, but inside joys are independent. We enjoyed our dim damp voyage heartily, on that wide loneliness. Nor were our shouts and laughter the only sounds. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... timber which I used as a lever, when, without warning, the mass broke away, and with a tremendous bound went crashing down into the very midst of the pirates, scattering them right and left, and ended by crushing one of the praus that was ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... where I dwell, I waste to skin and bone; The curse is come upon me, and I waste In penal torment powerless to atone. The curse is come on me, which makes no haste And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud Hard man and him the sinner double-faced. Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed Within me, as my body in this mire; My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore bestead and cowed As Sodom and Gomorrah scourged by fire, As Jericho ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... really go down again?" he pleaded. "It's a crushing penalty to suffer for such little indiscretion. I was so excited to find you were here—I never stopped to think. Don't send me away; ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... My foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of the Cork rumps; a ducal coronet to Lord George Gordon, and the protestant interest; or St Peter's keys ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... The crushing grief that came to him in the death of his wife he bore with that Christian resignation of which we hear more often than perhaps we see in experience. For Browning was a Christian, not only in faith but in conduct; it ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps



Words linked to "Crushing" :   crackdown, suppression, prevention, stifling, bar, quelling, crush, destructive, devastating



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