"Knock-down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impossible to follow him up: to do so we should have had to make a long detour to get across the river, and by that time darkness would have set in. This incident shows the great drawback to the .303—namely, that it has very little knock-down effect unless it strikes a vital part; and even then, in a bush country, an animal may manage to go far enough to be lost. On the other hand, an animal wounded with a hard bullet is likely to make a speedy recovery, which ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... glass—a very small glass—of spirit, commonly brandy, taken as a chasse-cafe, or coffee-chaser. This drinking of brandy, "neat," I may remark by the way, is not quite so bad as it looks. Whiskey or rum taken unmixed from a tumbler is a knock-down blow to temperance, but the little thimbleful of brandy, or Chartreuse, or Maraschino, is only, as it were, ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... help and such companionship. When men seek peace, rest, the inspirations of prayer, they turn at once to us for tender guidance and sympathy. Would they do that if we elbowed them at the polls, or held knock-down arguments at the primary elections? No, no! If we can soften human misery, strengthen weakness, make women wiser and men better, it is all that the best woman among us ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... you would be driven to some such stupid knock-down argument. Whether or not the book will ever be finished is a question that lies on the knees of the gods. I am writing at it every day. And just such a book was written once and even published; as I discovered the other day in an essay by Mr. Austin Dobson. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... knock-down blow for Mr. Medland, isn't it?" asked Eleanor, sitting on the side of the bed. "As we're alone together, I may dare to say that I'm rather sorry. I didn't want him to win, but it's very hard on him to be crushed like this. How he ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... Possibly he had been up to the rifle-camp, or had driven to town after the doctor's party. Of course that must be stopped; but I'm glad you missed him. It, of course, staggers a man's judgment to be knocked down, but if you had killed him it might have been as serious for you as this knock-down blow will be for him. That is the worst phase of the matter. What could he have been thinking of? He must have been either drunk or mad; and he rarely drank. Oh, dear, dear, dear, but that's very bad,—very bad,—striking the officer of the day! Why, Chester, that's ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... always is not bought Honour by arms, but often dire disgrace. For so it is, as now I clearly see, We let the animal within remain Unbroke, till neither gyve nor gear will serve To steady him, only a knock-down blow. Had I, and others, too, within the ranks, Haltered our coltish blood, we should have found That hate to England, not our country's name And weal, impelled mad Madison upon this war; And shut the mouths of thousand higher men Than he. It is a lesson may I learn So as to ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... invited to dinner; and the Admiral made the important discovery, that if his nephew was a fool in other points, he was certainly no fool at his knife and fork. In a short time his messmates found out that he was no fool at his fists, and his knock-down arguments ended much disputation. Indeed, as the French would say, Jack was perfection in the physique, although so very ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... to the buggy with a mournful self-pity as he saw the wheels glisten. He had done all this for a scornful girl who could not treat him decently. 'As he drove slowly down the road he mused deeply. It was a knock-down blow, surely. He was a just man, so far as he knew, and as he studied the situation over he could not blame the girl. In the light of her convincing wrath he comprehended that the sharp things she had said to him in the past were not make-believe-not ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... physical qualities which had sustained them. Even the faults of the public mind had given way under its new complexion of character; ambition and civil dissension were extinct. It was questionable whether a good hearty assault and battery, or a respectable knock-down blow, had been dealt by any man in London for one or two generations. The doctor carried his reveries so far, that he even satisfied himself and one or two friends (probably by looking into the parks at hours propitious to his hypothesis) that horses were seldom or ever ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... says your style—I am quoting his exact words—and your sentiments are bitterly wrong, and will do a lot of mischief. My dear girl, what does this mean? Just when your poor, doting old mother was so full of bliss and so proud of you, to give her a knock-down blow of this sort! I must request you, my precious child, the next time you write for the General Review, to do a paper which will not cause such remarks as I have just listened to from the lips of our good clergyman. You might ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... row or social knock-down-and-drag-out which goes along with the church debt. All these things add to the general interest, and to acquire interest in one way or another is the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... thought that if the Confederates were very much discouraged by their recent reverses, such language from the Minister of a great European Power might be a knock-down blow ('Coup d'assommoir' was the expression he used) to them. It might induce them to come to terms with the North. At all events it might lead to an Armistice, under which trade might be immediately resumed. He had (he told me) mentioned ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams |
