"Ruining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the court room after making an impassioned plea for the runaway slave girl Matilda, a man looked at him in surprise and said: "There goes a fine young fellow who has just ruined himself." But in thus ruining himself Chase had taken the first important step in a career in which he became Governor of Ohio, United States Senator from Ohio, Secretary of the United States Treasury, and Chief Justice of ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... arrived, and possessed of some place and power, is exposed. They know me, and they also know that I know them; yet they have not ceased, and never will cease, intriguing to get this vessel out of my hands and into their own, which would be tantamount to ruining her. Knowing all this, I take the liberty of leaving this letter, to be delivered to the first officer that arrives in Greece in the command of a vessel, to caution him not to receive on board his vessel any Greek captain. They will endeavour, under various pretences, to introduce themselves ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... adorned like this," continued Mr. Mather, as we went homewards. "It seemeth to be Gods design to show how that He can glorify himself in the work of His hands, even at this season of darkness and death, when all things are sealed up, and there be no flowers, nor leaves, nor ruining brooks, to speak of His goodness and sing forth His praises. Truly hath it been said, Great things doeth He, which we cannot comprehend. For He saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise to the small rain and the great rain of His strength. He ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... you to try to prevent your ruining your life by a single piece of lunacy," he told her as he sought to steady her with the directness of his gaze. "You don't have to go on with Holbury if you choose to leave him, but this is the one place of all others for you to avoid." He cast a hasty glance about him and then, hurrying ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... experiments in forestry and agriculture, or to hear a pack of snuffling school-children singing hymns to the God of Nature! And what," he continued, "is the result of it all? The peasants are starving, the taxes are increasing, the virtuous landlords are ruining themselves in farming on scientific principles, the tradespeople are grumbling because the nobility do not spend their money in Paris, the court is dull, the clergy are furious, the Queen mopes, the King is frightened, and the whole French people are ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... struck him as a personal affront, it fanned his dislike of his rival into a consuming rage. It was with no thought of profit that he cast about for a means of crippling O'Neil. He was quite capable of ruining himself, not to speak of incidental harm to others, if only he could gratify ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... be Wit, and you know what Ellevated Ben says, That none can judge of Wit but Wit. Let the Heroes toyl for Crowns and Kingdoms and with what pretences they please. Let the Slaves of State drudge on for false and empty Glories, troubling the repose of the World and ruining their own to gain uneasy Grandure, whilst you, oh! happyer Sir, great enough by your Birth, yet more Illustrious by your Wit, are capable of enjoying alone that true Felicity of Mind, which belongs to an absolutely Vertuous and Gallant Man, by that, and the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... spectacles. One of her three husbands, "Christian Ernst of Baireuth" (Margraf there, while the present Line was but expectant), had been a kind of Welsh-Uncle to the Prince now Bridegroom; so that she has a double right to be here. "She had found the secret of totally ruining Baireuth," says Wilhelmina; "Baireuth, and Courland as well, where her first wedlock was;"—perhaps Meiningen was done to her hand? Here is the Portrait of "my Grand-Aunt;" dashed off in very high colors, not ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his cattle and driven them to the creek for water and instead of returning by the route he had gone, threw down the fence and was driving his oxen through Service's ten-acre corn patch. The corn was up about two feet high and the cattle were literally ruining the corn. Mr. Service attempted to drive the cattle off the corn, but the Mexican hollowed to his peons to drive them on through. Mr. Service told him to either pay the damage that his oxen had done his corn or drive them off. The Mexican told him he would do neither. By this time ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... went on, "that is the least of it all. The worst of all is that I can not pay my debts alone. I must go on ruining others. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... handsome, spoiled little boy. He looked like Maurice—the same friendly, eager, very bright blue eyes and the same shock of blond hair. Lily's ideas of discipline were, of course, ruining him, to which fact Maurice was entirely indifferent; his feeling about Jacky was nothing but a sort of spiritual nausea; Jacky was not only an economic nuisance, but he had made him a liar! He said to himself that of course ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... Relations of the Sick perceive him past Hopes of Recovery, they fall to plundering his House, neglect him entirely, and very often fall together by the Ears, begin with Blows, and end with a Law-suit, which seldom fails ruining both Plaintiff and Defendant; for their Lawyers rarely bring a Suit to Issue, till their Clients are brought to Beggary; and tho' they all know this to be the Consequence of their Litigation, yet is there no Nation so fond of ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... infibulated their gladiators to restrain them from venery, but they also subjected their chanters and singers to the same ordeal, as it was found to improve the voice; comedians and public dancers were also restrained from ruining their talents by the means of infibulation. In an old Amsterdam edition of Locke's "Essay on the Extent of the Human Understanding," there is a quotation from the voyages of Baumgarten, wherein he states ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... conditions, resting not with ourselves but with our opponents. This other bloodless way cannot, therefore, be looked upon at all as the natural means of satisfying our great anxiety to spare our forces; on the contrary, when circumstances are not favourable, it would be the means of completely ruining them. Very many Generals have fallen into this error, and been ruined by it. The only necessary effect resulting from the superiority of the negative effort is the delay of the decision, so that the party acting takes refuge in that way, as it were, in ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... to the idea of a soul-and-body-ruining intemperance amongst the lower portion of the working-classes, that only some startling details connected with it make any great impression upon us. Yet it is verily a most awful thing to exist in the midst of enlightened, advancing England. There are 1300 beer-shops in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... melancholy examples of our modern courtesan; the Marquis de T. hesitated over a piece of furniture the price of which was being run high by Mme. D., the most elegant and famous adulteress of our time; the Duke of Y., who in Madrid is supposed to be ruining himself in Paris, and in Paris to be ruining himself in Madrid, and who, as a matter of fact, never even reaches the limit of his income, talked with Mme. M., one of our wittiest story-tellers, who from time to time writes what she says ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... convulsively sobbing and ruining the complexion she had just made up, before she changed out of her descente de lit: "Why not stop here, dearie? Don't laugh! There's lots that do and never suspect for one minute it ain't like any other hotel; though ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... little time the boys enjoyed this hut, but on one occasion the Germans sent over a heavy barrage; they hit the hut, destroying one end of it, scattering the supplies, ruining the victrola, and after that the military authorities ordered that the men should ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... ruining us all?" he said good humouredly. "Well, it is a dull life up here, and the ladies have but few chances of ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... God, by becoming incarnate again and awakening his favourite disciple Arjuna to duty, re-established the kingdom of righteousness in India. At the present time righteousness is declining and unrighteousness is springing up in India. A handful of alien robbers is ruining the crores of the people of India by robbing the wealth of India. Through the hard grinding of their servitude, the ribs of this countless people are being broken to pieces. Endless endeavours are being made in order that this great nation ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... you hear how all those women are spoiling him? What do you think of that? If I were a friend of his—an intimate friend—I should warn him. For what will the end be—he'll marry a rich woman, a woman of fashion, and cease to be anybody. Fancy a man's ruining his career—giving up his position, his reputation—becoming nobody at all—in order to have splendid horses and give big dinner-parties! Of course she'll have her doll, to drive by her side in the Park; but she'll tire—and then? And he'll get sick-tired, too, and wish he was back in the theatre; ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... your favour, but the match is not yet won. Questions will arise of undue influence, of sequestration, and the like: I have my witnesses ready. I tell it you cynically, for you cannot profit by the knowledge; and, if the worst come to the worst, I have good hopes of recovering my own and of ruining you." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... (Quinquennalia.) They were intended to protect not only the debtor, but also the aggregate of creditors against the short-sighted severity of one of their number. They were wont to be given especially when the debtor showed that immediate execution would not only have the effect of ruining himself, but of sending his creditors away empty handed; while, if time were given him, he would be able to satisfy every one.(564) But the granting of such letters has, in recent times, been prohibited(565) ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... an example for others! That was a disgrace to the constituency! And when the murmur of general protest reached the ears of dona Bernarda, she lifted her hands to heaven in despair. Where would it all end! Where would it all end! That son of hers was bent on ruining himself! ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... redress, than expose a multitude of innocent persons to anxiety and injustice. My suspicion, for the present, unavoidably fixed upon him. But, in a matter of so great consequence, I was determined not to act upon suspicion. I would neither incur the possibility of ruining him, being innocent, nor be the instrument of exposing others to his depredations, if guilty. I should therefore merely insist upon his continuing in my service. He might depend upon it he should be well watched, and I trusted the whole truth would eventually appear. Since he avoided confession ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... in a moment. Her younger brother had been playing with his dog and had carelessly run against the stand upon which her flower-pots were sitting and had upset one of the choice plants, breaking the pot and ruining the flower. Louise saw the happening. How careless it was of the boy! Quickly a feeling of impatience arose, and before she realized what she was doing, she had spoken sharply to her brother and had said hasty ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... have occasionally thought of London Bridge, but the Thames is now so d—-d cold and dirty, and besides I can swim, and any attempt at drowning would, through the mere instinct of self-preservation, only result in my swimming ashore and ruining my best clothes; wherefore I should be worse ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to secure lasting international peace as the steam-engine. The locomotive is every hour breaking down barriers of separation between races of men. And as wars in future could be conducted only by cutting short the journeys by railway, arresting trains, and ruining great commercial undertakings, we may expect that nations will pause before rushing into them. Already, the French railways, which push across the frontier into the German countries, are visibly relaxing the custom-house and passport systems. Stopping ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... perfect creature and I'm such an imperfect one. Perfect creatures have the most perfect way of ruining the ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... found your telegram and mother read it—by mistake, of course. I ought to have had sense enough to burn it. You can't imagine how awful it has been. Mother said the most terrible things about you, things she had heard. And she said that I would be ruining my life and hers. I said I didn't care, because I loved you. I can't tell you what an awful quarrel we had! And I wouldn't have given in, but she told Gordon and he was so terribly angry. He said it was a disgrace to the family, and he began to cough and had a hemorrhage and we thought he was going ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... not know Madame de Grandchamp. She has gone too far to leave off without ruining you, and to do that she will go to any lengths. But I will not go away without giving you what may prove ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... and—I don't think you'd better try it here, Basil. It must be very hard on your teeth, besides ruining the table." ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... there is only one is not wanted at the wheel. The people who sell alcohol know that just as well as we do, but for paltry gain they are unpatriotic enough to barter their earthly country as well as their heavenly one, and to be branded with the knowledge that they are cursing men and ruining families. The filibuster deserves the name no less because he does his destructive work secretly and slowly, and wears the emblems of respectability instead of operating in the open with "Long Toms" under the shadow ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... returned to him the whole of what he had lost.—Greatly is it to be wished, the same sentiments of compassion would influence some of riper years, and make them scorn to take the advantage chance sometimes affords of ruining their fellow-creatures; but the misfortune is, that when we arrive at the state of perfect manhood, the worst passions are apt to get the better of the more noble, as the prospect they present is more alluring to the eye of sense: all men (as I said before) being born with the same propensities, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... said one old man, who seemed to be the chief butcher. "These fifty years have I come and gone to Nottingham market, and I have never seen the like of it—never. He is ruining the trade, that's what ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... a fine mind and a fine heart at the bounds of a nature not great, chose to colour his retrogression and countenance his shortcoming; and it was thus that he set about ruining the work he had done. He might well say, as he once did, that there are hours when the clearest soul becomes a cunning fox. For a grief that was private and peculiar, he unhesitatingly cast the blame upon humanity; just as he had accused it in the period ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for Theodora was very bitter against her, and had already shown her teeth. But, after she had made Theodora her humble friend by helping her when in the greatest difficulties, first of all by making away with Silverius, as shall be told hereafter, and afterwards by ruining John of Cappadocia, as I have already described, she became less timid, and, scorning all concealment, shrank from ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... Mericarp estate had a particular interest for respectable stake-in-the-town persons. It would indicate to what extent, if at all, 'this football' was ruining Bursley. Constance mentioned to Cyril that she fancied she might like to go to the sale, and as it was dated for one of Cyril's off-nights Cyril said that he fancied he might like to go too. So they went together; Samuel used to attend property sales, but he had never ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... see him, but here I walked a good while with my cozen, and among other things do hear that there is a great triall between my Lord Gerard and Carr to-day, who is indicted for his life at the King's Bench, for running from his colours; but all do say that my Lord Gerard, though he designs the ruining of this man, will not get any thing by it. Thence to the Commissioners of Accounts, and there presented my books, and was made to sit down, and used with much respect, otherwise than the other day, when I come to them as a criminal about the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... no power There to postpone the Terminals of Fate, Or headway make 'gainst Nature's fixed decrees? Again, behold we not the monuments Of heroes, now in ruins, asking us, In their turn likewise, if we don't believe They also age with eld? Behold we not The rended basalt ruining amain Down from the lofty mountains, powerless To dure and dree the mighty forces there Of finite time?—for they would never fall Rended asudden, if from infinite Past They had prevailed against all engin'ries Of the assaulting aeons, with ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... craft of kindred and the Godless hosts Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea; Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm, The mightiest of my knights, abode with me, Have everywhere about this land of Christ In twelve great battles ruining overthrown. And knowest thou now from whence I come—from him From waging bitter war with him: and he, That did not shun to smite me in worse way, Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left, He spared to lift his ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... errare. He was certain that if he showed them their error, they would repent and be converted. All the same, he could not recommend them to the electors. "A Tacker is a man of passion, a man of heat, a man that is for ruining the nation upon any hazards to obtain his ends. Gentlemen freeholders, you must not choose a Tacker, unless you will destroy our peace, divide our strength, pull down the Church, let in the ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... no hope of escaping you," she went on; "but I have one consolation—you are ruining me, and that will be your own destruction! My husband suspects me—watches me—the day he discovers a shadow of the truth, there is an end to ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... had the mastery of the seas, while France remained supreme on land. Napoleon, who had in 1804 taken the title of Emperor, was determined to destroy English trade with the Continent, and had no scruples against ruining neutrals in the attempt. He resolved upon a "Continental System,"—to shut against the importation of English goods the ports of France and her dependencies and allies, including, as the result of ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... victory as well as a duel, breaking up and shattering the Danish ranks in all directions. When he returned to Sweden, he not only counted the slaying of Frowin among the trophies of his valour, but even bragged of it past measure, so ruining the glory of the deed by his wantonness of tongue. For it is sometimes handsomer for deeds of valour to be shrouded in the modesty of silence than to ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... possible?" said D'Artagnan; "here is a man who is positively ruining himself in order to please you, and you wish to have him arrested! Mordioux! Sire, if my name was Fouquet, and people treated me in that manner, I would swallow at a single gulp all sorts of fireworks ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... an hour or so ago something about my ruining my activities last summer. They are not ruined, they are renewed. I am stronger now —much stronger. I suppose that the spiritual uplift I received increased my physical power more than anything I ever had before. I was dancing last night at ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Rule won't do for Belfast, and Belfast isn't going to have it. If I saw any way of stopping it but the one I'd take it. There are thousands, yes, gentlemen, thousands of men, women, and children depending on my business for their living. Home Rule means ruining it and starving them. I don't like fighting, but, by God, I'll fight before I submit to ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... man go to pieces as Benson's doing. Clarke's ruining the fellow. He must have got two or three thousand dollars out of him, one way or another, and isn't satisfied with that. Lent him money on mortgage to start a foolish stock-raising speculation, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... life, men invent myths to rationalize their conduct. If a man thinks that the only reasonable motive in politics is economic self-advancement, he will persuade himself that the things he wishes to do will make him rich. When he wants to fight the Germans, he tells himself that their competition is ruining his trade. If, on the other hand, he is an "idealist," who holds that his politics should aim at the advancement of the human race, he will tell himself that the crimes of the Germans demand their ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... came in, and seeing that they were talking seriously, said nothing. The King walked about in an agitated manner, and suddenly exclaimed, "The Regent was very wrong in restoring to them the right of remonstrating; they will end in ruining the State." "Ah, Sire," said M. de Gontaut, "it is too strong to be shaken by a set of petty justices." "You don't know what they do, nor what they think. They are an assembly of republicans; however, here is enough ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... say that,' Monica answered, 'do you ever ask yourself whether you try to make me love you? Scenes like this are ruining my health. I have come to dread your talk. I have almost forgotten the sound of your voice when it ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... is talking!' he cried, 'have not numbers of peasants settled afresh in Volhynia? His father will come looking for him! ...You had better look out that you don't go to Purgatory soon yourself for your obstinacy, and ruin me into the bargain. You are ruining my son now, because I can't build him a windmill. Here I am offering you a hundred roubles an ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... bitterly that Great Britain is ruining their Trade, and there is great Reason to complain; but I think much greater, to complain of too many of the Citizens thro' the Common wealth who are imitating the Britons in every idle Amusement & expensive Foppery ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... boy—Tom Cringle—why the deuce now"—he won't say "the Devil" for the world—"Why the deuce, Tom, don't you confine yourself to a pint of wine at dinner, eh?" quoth Conshy. "Why will you not give up your toddy after it? You are ruining your interior, Thomas, my fine fellow—the gout is on the look out for you, your legs are spindling, and your paunch is increasing. Read Hamlet's speech to Polonius, Tom, and if you don't find all the marks of premature old age creeping on you, then am ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... more neutral tone than before, she proceeded to put him through a catechism on Oxford, alternately cross-examining him and expounding to him her own views and her husband's on the functions of Universities. She and the Archdeacon conceived that the Oxford authorities were mainly occupied in ruining the young men's health by over-examination, and poisoning their minds by free-thinking opinions. In her belief, if it went on, the mothers of England would refuse to send their sons to these ancient but deadly resorts. She looked at him sternly as she spoke, as though defying ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... there as they would a governor who had gone to Sicily, or to a city or town placed under regular government, and where the laws can be observed in their entirety without fear of ruining everything; and I am ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... thereby nearly scaring the hired man into a fit. Ness ran out of the room in his night dress and raised such a yell that he aroused everybody in the house. He got his shotgun and blazed away at the supposed snake, thereby ruining a blanket, two sheets, and filling the mattress with shot. When he found out how he had been hoaxed he was the most foolish ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... should not go. She knew, she said, that the business was something which would end in ruining him and his family, and she was determined that he should not risk her safety and his own life in any such desperate and treasonable plans. She locked the door upon him, and when he insisted on being released, she declared that if he did attempt to go, she would immediately ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... they who had talked with Prince BADFELLAH the same morning, whispered together, and gathered around the BROKAH whose bond the Prince BULLEBOYE had torn up. "Hark ye," said they, "our brother the Prince BULLEBOYE is cunning as a jackal. What bosh is this about ruining himself to save thee? Such a thing was never heard before in the bazaars. It is a trick, O thou mooncalf of a BROKAH! Dost thou not see that he has heard good news from his godmother, the same that was even now told us by the Prince BADFELLAH, ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... first march, too, from their landing till they got beyond the settlements, they had plundered and stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some poor families, besides insulting, abusing, and confining the people if they remonstrated. This was enough to put us out of conceit of such defenders, if we had really wanted any. How different was the conduct of our French friends in 1781, who, during a march thro' ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... explain Charity's words came tumbling recklessly, impetuously out, in all sorts of disorder. She charged the nurse with ruining the minister's work, with alienating him from his people, with injuring the Memorial Church and the cause of Christ in Corinth, with making him the talk ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... dear sister, who, alas! is ruining herself to supply me with the means of maintaining my rank. And as my sister and her ladyship, the countess, are on the most friendly terms, as you are well aware, it is not surprising if she should have communicated the secret of the diamonds to her ladyship, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... with inherent instincts, inherited traditions, innate tendencies, characteristics, and genius, racial and individual. In the eyes of the Chinese of the old school these changes in the habit of life infinitely old are improving nothing and ruining much—all is empty, vapid, useless to God and man. The tawdry shell, the valueless husk, of ancient Chinese life is here still, remains untouched in many places, as will have been seen in previous chapters; ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... to come out of prison with honor, that he was very glad of it. If he had only this certificate, he would soon be delivered. Give me it then," said he, "and he will be immediately released." At first I made a difficulty of doing it. "What! said he, will you be the cause of ruining poor Father La Combe, having it in your power to save him, and cause us that affliction, for want of what you have in your hands." I yielded, ordering it to be brought and given him. But he suppressed it, and gave out that it was lost. It never could be got ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... turn were suspected of ruining horses by riding them at night, and of embezzling grain issued for planting, as well as of lying and malingering in general. The carpenters, Washington said, were notorious piddlers; and not a slave about the mansion house was worthy of trust. Pretences of illness as excuses for idleness ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... of rusty iron, parting every now and then and letting the poor prisoner violently loose, and again suddenly caught hold of, bringing him up with a jerk, galling his tender limbs and irretrievably ruining his temper,—it is all the same; there is no help for it. And really to look around the world and see the people that are its fathers and mothers is appalling,—the narrow-minded, prejudiced, ignorant, ill-tempered, fretful, peevish, passionate, careworn, harassed men and women. Even ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... have been to let him sink down until he became a tramp of gentlemanly address, having, maybe, chance love affairs upon the highways. He would have done so much less harm; he would have been much less agonized too. At any rate, he would have had fewer chances of ruining and of remorse. For Edward was great at remorse. But Leonora's English Catholic conscience, her rigid principles, her coldness, even her very patience, were, I cannot help thinking, all wrong in this special case. She quite seriously and naively imagined ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... human intercourse. The post-card symbolises the tendency of the modern mind. We have come to find out so many things which ought to be done that we make up our minds to do nothing whatever thoroughly; and the day may come when the news of a tragedy ruining a life or a triumph crowning a career will be conveyed by a sixpenny telegram. In the bad old days, when postage was dear and the means of conveyance slow, people who could afford to correspond at all sat down to begin a letter ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... presents which they have given to the mandarins, and the threats to rob them, as hitherto—namely, to secure the silks and carry them to Japon and Holland, as they are now doing, and take them away from this country, in this way ruining it, for there is nothing of importance except this commerce. This loss is clearly shown, for in fifty ships which have arrived at these islands, there were not forty picos of silk brought, while the enemy had nine ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... past year and the war, in the form of the now so rapidly expanding 'Emancipation' movement. HELPER had shown that slavery had degraded the poor whites, but the events leading to the present struggle indicated to all intelligent humanity that it was rapidly demoralizing and ruining in the most hideous manner the minds of the masters of the slaves—nay, that its foul influence was spreading like a poison mist over the entire continent. The universal shout of joyful approbation which the whole South had raised years ago when a Northern senator was ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... having a hard time, and it's made him pessimistic. He's written a play, and he was ruining it with an unhappy ending. But now—oh, now it has a happy ending! It'll be a success! (Rushes to Will.) Oh, Will, I see just how it goes! I've got the very words! Let me write them, while they're fresh in my mind! (Runs to table, takes pencil ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair
... must be played by people and not one person. What terrible bad management! But, poor people! what can they do, with my father lying disabled there? If it was not for their complete disregard for their own interest, I should be inclined to quarrel with them for the way in which they are ruining mine; and I sincerely hope, for the sake of everybody concerned, that Mr. Harness will resist this ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... said John, "we seek your aid. You have a wide and deep knowledge of geography—that is botany, and you shall settle a problem that is ruining my home." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 14, 1920 • Various
... him, and drew a sword, threatening to kill him if he did not desist from his unclean religion. They dared not do more through fear of witnesses. Again, the plowmen of this same house plowed up the wheat belonging to the Protestants, ruining their hopes of a coming harvest, and leaving them without means to pay their taxes; which they must pay or go to prison. They also gathered all the olives of the Protestants, reducing them to the greatest ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... is speechless poetry. It would be easy for a foreigner, by taking a few liberties with the facts, to make a satire about the sort of silent Shelley who decides ultimately to shoot the skylark. It would be easy to answer these poetic suggestions by saying that he himself might be responsible for ruining the choirs where late the sweet birds sang, or that the immortal bird was likely to be mortal when he was out with his gun. But these international satires are never just; and the real relations of an Englishman and an English bird ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... doomsday as men then thought, they sailed up Thames and Medway, and attacked Rochester. The men of Kent stoutly fought them, but, as usual, without assistance from other shires; and the Danes took horses, and rode over the land, almost ruining all the West Kentings. The king and his witan resolved to send against them a land fyrd and a ship fyrd or raw levy. But the spirit of the West Saxons was broken, and though the craft were gathered together, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... Juan Lopez, but were repulsed with great slaughter by 120 men under two Portuguese commanders. In many expeditions from the island, the Portuguese attacked the various posts of the enemy on the main-land, mostly by night, ruining the works they had thrown up, burning the villages, and destroying great numbers of their men. Yet though Adel Khan had hardly any hopes of ultimate success, he caused gardens to be laid out at his quarters, and made such other demonstrations as if he had resolved to dwell in his present ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... Tell Mapleson's wife of ruining a home on that basis; for she had been one of the crushed-down, washed-out women who never have two ideas above their dish-pan. She had been dead some years, and Tell was alone. People said he was too selfish ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... persons to give me verbal accounts. I will have no more writing for the future. I am much displeased with you, Joseph. What a miserable courier you chose to send from Cologne! He could not understand me. He saw the King too soon, and here we are still in disgrace in consequence. You have just missed ruining me entirely. Go and observe what is about to be done in Paris. A conspiracy will soon be hatched against me; but it will be the last. I remain here in order to let them all act more freely. Go, both of you, and send me my valet after the lapse of two hours; I ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... lately conversed with one of his professed Christian brethren who was engaged in this traffic, and told him not only that he was ruining for both worlds many of his fellow-men, but that his Christian brethren viewed his business as inconsistent with his profession, and tending to counteract all efforts for the salvation of men; and the man, after frankly acknowledging that it was wrong, said that ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... to part with a cat like that, but it was hard to part with anything in Ronda. Yet we made the break, and instead of ruining over the precipitous face of the rock where the city stands, as we might have expected, we glided smoothly down the long grade into the storm-swept lowlands sloping to the sea. They grew more fertile as we descended and after we had left a mountain ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... give my opinion in brief, I delivered it thus: "We cannot hinder the peace without ruining the Parliament by the help of the people, and we cannot maintain the war by the means of the same people without a dependence upon Spain. We cannot have any peace with Saint Germain but by consenting to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... well enough, for you as good as told me so. This is only girl's talk; but you have got to come to the point, Eleanor. I shall not suffer you to make a fool of him in my house; not to speak of making a fool of yourself and me, and ruining—forever ruining—all your prospects. You can't do it, Eleanor. You have said yea, and you can't draw back. Put on your green gown and go to Hampton Court, and come back with the day fixed—for that I know is what ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... I argued with myself, "what good can come of it?" Stammering was fast ruining my life. It had already taken the joy out of my childhood and had made school a task almost too heavy to be undertaken. It had marked my youth with a somber melancholy, and now that youth was slipping away from me with no hope that the future held anything better for me than the ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... alone that the holders of those securities must look for redress. But whence are funds to be obtained for future improvements? It would be well if the "faithful Commons" would take the trouble to find a satisfactory answer to this obvious inquiry before they finally decide on ruining the City ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... "and when will the swine be gone? I can't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give him ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... the uproar that they were making; but when they came upon him and saw him working, they were so struck with astonishment at the work, that, like the gentlemen that they must have been, they let him go on. And thus, while the impious cruelty of those barbarous hordes was ruining the unhappy city and all its treasures, both sacred and profane, without showing respect to either God or man, Francesco was provided for and greatly honoured by those Germans, and protected from all injury. All the hardship that he suffered at that time ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... have always warned you, Molly," was his first offensive thrust as he entered Mrs. Lightfoot's chamber, "that your taste for trash would be the ruin of the family. It has ruined your daughter, and now it is ruining your grandson. Well, well, you can't say that it is for lack ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... the scaffold if they dared; but the odium which they well know would attend such a deed deters them; and they anxiously wait the coming of a time when it may be safe to do what could not be done at present but at the risk of damaging, and perhaps ruining, their cause. It does not follow that the Tuscan priesthood have not the guilt of blood to answer for. If the confessors of the Gospel in that land are not perishing by the guillotine, they are pining in prisons, and sinking into the grave, by reason of the choking stench, the disgusting ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... remain many places for us to make. Ah! for the love of God, love one another. Alas! see you not that, if you love the destruction one of the other you are ruining your very selves? Ah! put this thing right for the love of God. Love one another! What I have done to make peace among you and to make you like brothers, I have done with that zeal I should wish my own soul to receive. I have done it ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... hereafter tend to promote the general distress of the work and how she will probably contribute to reduce poor Catherine to all the desperate wretchedness of which a last volume is capable, whether by her imprudence, vulgarity or jealousy—whether by intercepting her letters, ruining her character or turning her ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... there certain poetical or figurative words, which are nowhere to be found in any of the works of Tacitus. One of these is "pessum dare," which means literally "to sink to the bottom," but is figuratively used for "destroying" or "ruining," as when Bracciolini in one of his letters says that he is "desirous of guarding against the weight of present circumstances sinking him to the bottom," that is "ruining him:" "id vellem curare, ne praesentiarum onus me pessumdaret" (Ep. II. 3). So in the first book of the Annals (9), he speaks ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... had hatred as one reason for ruining the Princess, and it is my belief he had a stronger motive still—interest. You remember whom the Duke married, after the death of his first wife?—a princess of the house of F——. Geldern built his fine palace two years after, and, as I feel convinced, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Antwerp and Brussels she must take Portsmouth and London. France is no less deeply engaged. You can judge better than I what chance Germany now has, or can persuade herself she has, of exhausting or overwhelming her western enemies without ruining herself in the attempt. Whatever else the war and its horrors may have done or not done, you will agree with me that it has made an end of the dreams of military and naval steam-rollering in which the whole wretched ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... giant moan along the forest swells Protracted, and the twilight storm foretels, And, ruining from the cliffs, their deafening load Tumbles,—the wildering Thunder slips abroad; On the high summits Darkness comes and goes, Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows; The torrent, traversed by the lustre broad, Starts like a horse ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... her fore feet. Flinging her upon the floor, he snatched up his dish and fled to the pantry, Neil Stewart's roars of laughter following him. Toinette rolled over and over and then fled yelping into her mistress' lap to spread further havoc by ruining a delicate silk gown with her gravy-smeared feet. Tzaritza, who had followed her master into the room, looked upon the performance with a superior surprise. Neil Stewart laid a caressing hand upon the beautiful head and ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... be considered later) and should make another short pause between it and the opening sentences of his speech proper. After he has spoken the last word he should not fling away from his station to his seat. This always spoils the effect of an entire address by ruining the impression that the last ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... treason introduced the enemy, polygamy secured the conquest. In Egypt the Greek population was orthodox, the natives were Jacobites, more willing to accept the Monotheism of Arabia than to bear the tyranny of the orthodox. The Arabs, carrying out their policy of ruining an old metropolis and erecting a new one, dismantled Alexandria; and thus the patriarchate of that city ceased to have any farther political existence in the Christian system, which for so many ages had been disturbed by its ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... here. Never mind the horses. I tell you he is ruining my arm!—Hey! Help! You're an anarchist yourself, you ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... he knew much more than she about her husband's past life, and could do him much harm, he stated his desire was to help. Some professed friends were Mr. Dodge's enemies, interested in ruining him to shield themselves. These were adroit, and posed as her friends while plotting the ruin of both. It was to save the whole family from deceitful schemes that he now begged her to trust him ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... motionless only by the pressing muzzle of his pistol, the cold-blooded villainy of the man striking me dumb. This then had probably been his real purpose from the start. He had followed Beaucaire deliberately with this final end in view—of ruining him, and thus compelling the daughter to yield herself. He had egged the man on, playing on the weakness of his nature, baiting him to finally risk all on a game of chance, the real stake not the money on the table, but the future of ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... ground in the road off Sydney-Bay is very foul in general, although there may be some clear spots. The Golden-Grove parted her cable in the road, but regained her anchor, which the Supply was not lucky enough to accomplish; and she had the additional misfortune of nearly ruining two new cables in sweeping for it. It is somewhat remarkable, that the beach in Sydney-Bay has at times five feet of sand on the stones, and at other times it is all cleared away: this has happened when the wind has been at south-east, and when the beach was filled with sand, the wind ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... in her head, but inside she could be heard screaming. As the flames licked the white bark she cried, "Oh, my skin! You are burning my skin. My beautiful white skin will be covered with nothing but blisters. Do you know that you are ruining my complexion?" ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... contentedly puff away; another stops an obliging policeman or railway guard, and ignites his tobacco by hard pulling at the flame of an oil-lamp; another will stick the end of a choice cigar into the bowl of a pipe filled with coarsest Shag, thus ruining the flavor of his 'prime Havana' forever; while yet another will light lucifer matches, and apply the blazing brimstone to his pipe or cigar, thus saturating the whole mass with sulphurous and phosphoretic ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... identifying himself with the authority of which he was merely the representative, and constantly indulging in irritating personal allusions, he entirely lost sight of the courtesy and respect due to a co-ordinate branch of the government, and made himself ridiculous, while he was ruining the interests of the sovereign whom he was most anxious to serve. Even Hutchinson, as we learn from the third volume of his History, though he was attached to the same policy, and favored the same measures, censures the tone of Bernard's messages ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... men's awful sight In form and face that wore Heaven's light and likeness more Than these, or held suspense men's hearts at height More fearful, since man first Slaked with man's blood his thirst, Than when Rome clashed with Hannibal in fight, Till tower on ruining tower was hurled Where Scipio stood, and Carthage ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was strongly adverse to Ahmad; and some of the high Chinese officials on various occasions made remonstrance against the Minister's proceedings; but Kublai turned a deaf ear to them, and Ahmad succeeded in ruining most of his opponents. (Gaubil, 141, 143, 151; De Mailla, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... heart and youthful ingenuousness you are standing on the edge of the abyss of ruin; one single push and you will plunge headlong down without a hope of rescue. In a single word, you are on the point of becoming a confirmed and passionate gambler and ruining yourself." ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... a dim lamp in an upper window. It might have been placed there as a signal, or some poor seamstress, in the struggle for a livelihood, might be ruining her health and sight by it. It must, at any rate, have been very constantly there, or it would not so readily have been mentioned to mark a place of meeting. As they went toward it, the figures of two men became dimly visible standing in the shadow of ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... impotent against the English navy, that he could get no ready money, either by loan or from America, to pay his troops in Antwerp. These men, reinforced by others, therefore mutinied and sacked the whole of Antwerp, killing all who opposed them and practically ruining the city from which Charles V used to draw such splendid subsidies. The result was a strengthening ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... decided in a man; but it is just as well that we all do not like the same person; and then, you see, there are Leam and the child to be considered. Lean is such an utterly unfit person to bring up Fina: she is ruining her, indeed, as it is, with her capricious temper and variable moods; and dear Josephine's quiet amiability and good sense will be so valuable among them. I think we ought to be glad, as Christians, that such a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... passages, wherein Luther has erred. This craze for High Dutch caused the historians of both Denmark and Sweden to utter a vigorous protest against the influx of High Dutch literature into their respective countries in the sixteenth century. They averred it was ruining the native language and literature; but, in spite of this, Lutheranism got a firm ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... is a man of no parts or character, and, his expenditure being beyond his income, he is killing his goose for the sake of her eggs—that is, he is ruining all the farmers and cultivators of his large estate by exactions, and thereby throwing immense tracts of fine land out of tillage. He was the heir to the fortress and territory of Garha Kota, near Sagar, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... implacable maiden), he acts by your direction; and you are resolved to support him in his impudence This is a bad return for all the services I have done you; for nursing you in your sickness, managing your family, and keeping you from ruining yourself by your own imprudence — But now you shall part with that rascal or me, upon the spot, without farther loss of time; and the world shall see whether you have more regard for your own flesh and blood, or for a beggarly foundling ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... first thing to remark about the law is that it was by no means a demagogue's sop tossed to the city mob which he was courting. Gracchus saw slave labour ruining free labour, and the manhood and soil of Italy and the Roman army proportionately depreciated. [Sidenote: Nothing demagogic about the proposal.] To fill the vacuum he proposed to distribute to the poor not only of Rome but of the Municipia, of the Roman colonies, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... found how ill poor Tamar was. He did so many things: he lifted her, for one thing, and that I couldn't have done to save her life. And your two visits have simply cured her! And here I am making myself a stumbling-block and ruining your husband's plans!" ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... talk to Kate, then," said Jake. "She has taken up with it and it is ruining her. Please come over and talk with her about it. ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... were not the most respectable in Paris, yet some who were models of virtue met there, without a shudder, many others who were patterns of vice. Ninon de l'Enclos—then young—though age made no alteration in her—and already slaying her scores, and ruining her hundreds of admirers, there met Madame de Sevigne, the most respectable, as well as the most agreeable, woman of that age. Mademoiselle de Scudery, leaving, for the time, her twelve-volume romance, about Cyrus and Ibrahim, led on a troop ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... it hurts a man more to trifle with the Eighth Commandment once than to break the Seventh a thousand times—he is worse demoralized by stealing a mangy mule than by ruining a maid. The male lecher may be in all things else a lord; the thief is considered altogether and irremediably corrupt. Society will tolerate the one if his offense be not too flagrant, but to the other it refuses even the shadow of forgiveness. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... miscarry in a very sad manner, and that is, because they are not able to distinguish between the nature of the Law and the Gospel. O, people, people, your being blinded here as to the knowledge of this is one great cause of the ruining of many. As Paul saith, "While Moses is read," or while the law is discovered, "the veil is upon their heart" (2 Cor 3:15) that is, the veil of ignorance is still upon their hearts, so that they cannot discern either the nature of the law or the nature of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... life will be frittered away over dresses and frippery and fashion. Instead of a worker, a real woman, with a woman's work and aims, you will have a butterfly, pretty and useless, fluttering about in the sunshine, unable to bear rough weather. A fine piece of work it will be, the ruining of a girl ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... was first built, it has fully justified its existence by the comfort and convenience it gives to the sparsely settled population of the region for which the waters of the Reserve were flumed in every direction. When legal enactment practically abolished placer mining, owing to its ruining the agricultural lands lower down by the carrying of the mud and silt upon them, the water systems were utilized for domestic and irrigation purposes, thus laying the foundation of the great systems now being used ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... hand is thus kept in all the year round, there are three days sacredly set apart annually, in which every accommodation is given to those who are bent upon ruining themselves or their neighbours; whilst every zest that society can afford, is held out to render the temptation more alluring. As religion is called in to sanctify everything, right or wrong; as the robber will plant a cross at the mouth of his cave, and the pulque-shops do occasionally call themselves ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... things, I therefore bow my knees unto the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would cause all grace to abound to you and in you, that your poor place may be delivered from those breaking and ruining calamities which are threatened as the pernicious consequences of Satan's malicious operations; and that you may not be left to bite and devour one another in your sacred or civil society, in your relations or families, to the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... enjoy yourself with us, Monsieur Julien," said he, kindly; "I can't bear to see you so downhearted. You are ruining yourself with poring all day long over your books, and the worst of it is, they do not take the frowns out of your face. Take my word for it, you must change your way of living, or you will be ill. Come, now, if you will ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "foresters," of "timber-inspectors" and inspectors inspecting the inspectors, and what not, yet forcing the parcel post upon some poor mountain mail-contractor without sufficient compensation, haggling over a pittance with the man it is ruining like ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... von Kluck's army, sweeping forward unopposed, reached the western and southwestern suburbs of Boston, passing through Newton and Brookline, and making a detour to avoid ruining the beautiful golf links where Ouimet won his famous victory over Ray and Vardon. This sportsmanlike consideration was due to the fact that several of the German officers and the Crown Prince ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... and so is Gladys, with the longing to find you. Your name is cleared: they only want to ask your forgiveness for all you have suffered. It was a foul conspiracy of two women to save themselves by ruining you. Leah has made full confession. Your cousin Etta took the cheque out of ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and supple and slight though rounded figure, she was indeed pretty. She enjoyed an excellent reputation and she was so adroit, and calm, so much mistress of herself, that she would have preserved it intact even if she had been discovered in the very act of ruining it. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... fireplace out of his turn, working for a comrade eight hours in succession, amid suffocating heat. One day, when he had fallen sick on account of overwork, he was lying on the bow of the steamer, and when Foma asked him why he was thus ruining himself, ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... slave on earth is he who has bound himself with the fetters of alcohol, and it is a sad and lamentable truth that among thousands very few ever escape from the soul-destroying, health-ruining bondage of an appetite for intoxicating drink. There is only one here and there of all the hosts that are enchained and cursed who succeeds in breaking the bonds which bind body, soul and spirit. So far as the prospect of success is concerned in winning men from evil, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... interrupted; the 'porta libitinaria'—the gate through which the dead or injured were usually carried out, was thrown open, and a rabble of infuriated heathen rushed in, crying: "Serapis is fallen! They have destroyed the image of Serapis! The Christians are ruining ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... herself to make. There had to be some subterfuge, some poor last shelter for her pride. And so, of the depression in Fulleymore's business she would say before Mr. Ponting, "It's those Drug Stores that are ruining him," and Mr. Ponting would reply, gravely, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair |
