"Paralyze" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after faintly protesting, the judge gracefully yielded the point, and a few moments later rolled away from Belle Plain behind a pair of sleek-coated bays, with a negro in livery on the box. He was conscious of a great sense of exaltation. He felt that he should paralyze Mahaffy. He even temporarily forgot the blow his hopes had sustained when Betty spoke of returning to North Carolina. This was life—broad acres and niggers—principally to trot after you toting liquor—and such liquor!—he lolled back luxuriantly ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... in his seat and exposed a startled countenance. A masked man was standing close to the left running board, and he held a revolver near Gray's head; the apparition appeared to paralyze the unhappy traveler, for he still tightly clutched the steering wheel ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Rock wore small metal disks welded to a thin chain around their waists. The disk was sensitive to radar impulses, and with no more effort than snapping a thumb catch on the rifle, the guard could locate and paralyze the nearest ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... and his government had to permit the election of the Duma to proceed, and yet, conscious of the fact that the success of the Duma inevitably meant the end of the old regime, they were bound, in self-protection, to attempt to kill the Duma in the hope that thereby they would kill, or at least paralyze, the Revolution itself. Thus it was, while not daring to forbid the elections for the Duma to proceed, the ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... would soon have to be enforced as a defensive measure. They overrated the influence of the Copperhead or anti-war party, and prophesied that a rebel invasion would be followed by outbreaks in the principal cities, which would paralyze every effort to reinforce the Federal forces in ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... implied that truth so universally felt, yet so little acknowledged in actual life, that men with audacity and force of character can subdue and paralyze those far superior to themselves in ability and intelligence. It was these qualities which made Peschiera Randal's master; nay, the very physical attributes of the count, his very voice and form, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... overthrown Napoleon, and made your entrance into Paris. Nor will you tarnish your glory on account of your eyes. You will not become a faithless father and friend to your soldiers, whom you have so often greeted as your children, and who have always confided in you; nor will you break our courage and paralyze our souls by deserting us in ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... to swell this train of misfortunes, the religious functions, the great number of fiestas, the long masses for the women to spend their mornings and the novenaries to spend their afternoons, and the night, for the processions and rosaries. Remember that lack of capital and absence of means paralyze all movement, and you will see how the native has perforce to be indolent for if any money might remain to him from the trials, imposts and exactions, he would have to give it to the curate for bulls, scapularies, candles, novenaries, etc. And if this does not suffice ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... often upon the same field during the War of 1812 and who have more recently borne in triumph the flag of the country upon a foreign soil, will never permit alienation of feeling to weaken the power of their united efforts nor internal dissensions to paralyze the great arm of freedom, uplifted for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and hoped and believed that he was in her heart. While he thus mused, one moon after another rose, each at a different phase, till three were at once in the sky. Adjusting the electric protection- wires that were to paralyze any creature that attempted to come within the circle, and would arouse them by ringing a bell, he knocked the ashes from his pipe, rolled himself in a blanket, and was soon ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... need the aid of cavalry in the attack. He who knows how to use his cavalry with audacity will inevitably be the victor. Even though the cavalryman offers a larger target, long range weapons will paralyze ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... this insurrectionary movement in one of the most populous parts of the State has been so far successful as to overawe the local ministers of justice and paralyze ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the walls. The click, click of Glenister's Winchester sounded through the room while the sweat stood out on him. He wondered if he could do this deed, if he could really fire on these people. He wondered if his muscles would not wither and paralyze before they obeyed ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... at Chinon holds his court; he lacks Soldiers to keep the field. Of what avail The leader's courage, and the hero's arm, When pallid fear doth paralyze the host? A sudden panic, as if sent from God, Unnerves the courage of the bravest men. In vain the summons of the king resounds As when the howling of the wolf is heard, The sheep in terror gather side by side, So ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... gases, liquids and all ordinary solids, even through many inches of the hardest steel. On a comparatively short exposure it has been known to partially paralyze an electric charged bar. ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... carriages which our main lines would not think of using, and with a lack of conveniences which with us would provoke a revolt; but the most amazing thing about this administration in Russia is to see how, after all this vast expenditure, the whole atmosphere of the country seems to paralyze energy. During my stay at St. Petersburg I traveled over the line between that city and Berlin six or eight times, and though there was usually but one express-train a day, I never saw more than twenty or thirty through passengers. When one bears in mind the fact that this road is the main ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... man who, though he is dominated by a mighty purpose, will not permit one great faculty to dwarf, cripple, warp, or mutilate his manhood; who will not allow the over-development of one facility to stunt or paralyze his other faculties. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... absurdity! The State, as I have remarked, must scrupulously abstain from violating any of those rights which it was organized to protect. It must not paralyze or take away the industry of the individual, family, or private institutions by substituting for it its own industry. The State should rather protect and promote the industry of its subjects, as well as other rights and liberties. Let me speak more plainly: the ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Though always coarse, false, and vulgar, he has at least energy, and some degree of invention, as long as he remains on land; his terrestrial atrocities are animated, and his rock-born fancies formidable. But the sea air seems to dim his sight and paralyze his hand. His love of darkness and destruction, far from seeking sympathy in the rage of ocean, disappears as he approaches the beach; after having tortured the innocence of trees into demoniac convulsions, and shattered the loveliness of purple hills into colorless dislocation, ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... Scott will paralyze McClellan as he did Lyon and Butler. Scott always pushed on his spit-lickers, or favorites, rotten by old age. But Scott has pushed aside such men as Wool and Col. Smith; refused the services of many brave as Hooker and others, because they never ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... revolutionists in France inflamed the Liberal leaders in Hungary. Casting aside all reserve, Kossuth declared in the Diet: "From the charnel house of the Viennese system a poison-laden atmosphere steals over us. It would paralyze our nerves and pin us down when we might soar. The future of Hungary can never be secured while Austria maintains a system of government in direct antagonism to every constitutional principle. Our task is to found a happier future on the brotherhood of all the races in Austria. For a ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... Troopers Bugbee, Jackson, and Waller of Troop A; Trumpeter McDonald of Troop L; Sergeant Hughes of Troop B; and Trooper Gievers of Troop G. One of the Wallers was a cow-puncher from New Mexico, the other the champion Yale high-jumper. The first was shot through the left arm so as to paralyze the fingers, but he continued in battle, pointing his rifle over the wounded arm as though it had been a rest. The other Waller, and Bugbee, were hit in the head, the bullets merely inflicting scalp wounds. Neither of them paid any heed to the wounds except that after nightfall each had ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... been so busy at his game of potting his officer he did not see Newman until the latter walked into his range of vision and sent forth his hail. He could have shot Newman then, and I could not have prevented, for he had his weapon leveled. But this sudden apparition seemed to paralyze him; he just ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... scientific training: the one, by inculcating that tradition is sacred, that accurate investigation is sacrilege, certain to be visited with terrific punishment, and that the highest moral virtue is submission to authority, seeks to paralyze exact thought, and to produce a condition in which dogmatic statements of fact, and despotic rules of conduct, will be received with abject resignation; the other, by stimulating the curiosity, endeavors to provoke inquiry, and, by encouraging a scrutiny ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... occurred and disasters to the property of every one concerned in the enterprise, but of a character not touching the intrinsic merits of the invention in the least, yet bearing on its progress so fatally as for several years to paralyze ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... itself, is bringing poverty on all its inhabitants; that this poverty and the sparseness of population either prevent the institution of schools throughout the country, or keep them in a most languid and inefficient condition; and that the same causes most obviously paralyze all our schemes and efforts for the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand...and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-places." Thus said the Lord! We may silence a fort, but we cannot paralyze the truth. Amid all the material convulsions of the day the supremacy of truth remains unshaken. "The mouth of the Lord hath ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... hangar itself, to stand guard over the only three doors in the cavernous structure. They were armed with powerful heat blasters. These rifles were different from the paralo-ray guns they had used previously. A beam of light from the ray guns would only paralyze a human being, while the blaster destroyed anything it touched, burning ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... capable of producing vaso-motor paralysis—that is, of becoming a cause of haemorrhage; or, in other words, stimulation of the brain cannot be likened in its effect to galvanic stimulation of a spinal nerve. But if stimulation of the brain does not paralyze, it must increase the tonicity of the vaso-motor centre, and hence the force and regularity of the circulation. Up to a certain point, these characters do indeed increase, with increase of pressure in the cerebral blood-vessels. They increase also during intellectual operations, unattended ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... labor monopolies is much better understood. The strikes which paralyze industry and send want and distress in ever widening circles are universally recognized to be a waste of wealth whose annual amount is enormous. The cost to employers and workmen of the strikes in the State of New York in 1886 and 1887, was $8,507,449. Reckoning from this ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... dropping with moans and shrieks. A few lay under foot, still or wailing. And now for an instant the men stood, their rifles slack in their hands, and watched the regiment dwindle. They appeared dazed and stupid. This spectacle seemed to paralyze them, overcome them with a fatal fascination. They stared woodenly at the sights, and, lowering their eyes, looked from face to face. It was a strange ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... broke out, while a British army, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, landed in Portugal, defeated Junot at Vimiera, and forced him to sign the Convention of Cintra, evacuating Portugal. So began the Peninsular War, which for the future was to paralyze ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... it remains for ever unaltered. Never without them will your beer contract disease. But their germs are in the air, in the vessels employed in the brewery; even in the yeast used to impregnate the wort. Consciously or unconsciously, the art of the brewer is directed against them. His aim is to paralyze, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... heaping on your head. And mark you—they have only begun. The junta of disgruntled generals which they have organized will strangle the cause of the South unless you grip the situation to-day with a hand of steel. They are laying their plans in the new Congress to paralyze your work and heap on your head ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... for a firm base on the absolute realities of life was very wearing in a mind so self-conscious as Clough's, and tended to paralyze the expression of a certainly great genius. He heads some of his poems with a line from Wordsworth's great ode, which depicts perfectly the expression often written in the deep furrows which sometimes crossed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... the legalized tyranny of the chartered libertines of a so-called learned profession shall be finally relegated, in common cause to the limbo of a sordid and degraded past. For these are they who seek to maintain a strangle-hold on science, who paralyze the arm of individual research and, even in this advancing age, still block the path of progress and of peace, of universal freedom and equality of intellect, to all beyond the narrow limits ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... father can say the word that will save us all. He must swear he made a mistake—that he did sign those checks for the amounts drawn from the bank. That will paralyze ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... question; and, remembering this, it is more surprising that some among them should be very pleasing, than that none should be highly instructed. But, whatever may be the talents of the persons who meet together in society, the very shape, form, and arrangement of the meeting is sufficient to paralyze conversation. The women invariably herd together at one part of the room, and the men at the other; but, in justice to Cincinnati, I must acknowledge that this arrangement is by no means peculiar to that city, or to the western side of the Alleghanies. Sometimes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... to His lips who tasted bitterness for me. Then, if seeking to drain another's wine, I raised the chalice to my lips and found it gall, or felt it steal into my old veins to poison the heart and paralyze the hand which had kept it from the Master, what further good would there be for me in the world? Who doesn't know, in some friend's house, a closet containing that worst of skeletons—the skeleton which, in becoming naked, grim ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... deeply, the sigh of one but too well accustomed to life's disappointments, and arose the determination to lose herself in her work, and to shake off if possible the sadness which seemed to paralyze her energies and ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... error in astigmatic and farsighted eyes it is essential to place drops in the eye, which dilate the pupil and paralyze the muscles that control the convexity of the crystalline lens, and to use instruments and methods of examination, which can only be properly undertaken and interpreted by one with the general and special medical training possessed by ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... merest touch of you Has opened up my eyes; And if I get too much of you, You really paralyze! Donna, Donna, bella Donna, Clad in crimson bright, Though I'm near you, I don't wanna See ...
— Dead Giveaway • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and not in the absolute possession by one group, and absence in the rest, of any given skill. But this impossibility of drawing trenchant lines of parting need never interfere with the distinctness of our conception of the opponent principles which balance each other in great minds, or paralyze each other in weak ones; and I cannot too often urge you to keep clearly separate in your thoughts the school which I have called[11] "of Crystal," because its distinctive virtue is seen unaided in the sharp separations and prismatic harmonies ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... Fear can paralyze every muscle in the body. Fear affects the flow of the blood, likewise the normal and healthy action of all the life forces. Fear can make the body rigid, motionless, and ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... she cried; and astonishment seemed wholly to paralyze this young and unhappy beauty. The flush which had animated her at first gave place to a deadly pallor, her cries to a motionless silence, her wandering looks to a frightful fixedness of her large eyes, which constantly ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... had said to her, "you will at least understand that by leaving Paris now you paralyze its defence, and thereby endanger your crown, but I see that you are ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... inherent strength and weakness of his branch of the service. He could not hope to hold his position before such a mass of the enemy, with the little force at his disposal. His only chance of escape, to come off victor, was to strike them so swiftly and with such force as to paralyze pursuit. Already the reinforcing warriors were sweeping forward to attack, two thousand strong, led fiercely by Little Raven, an Arapahoe; Santanta, a Kiowa, and Little Rock, a Cheyenne. Dismounting his men he prepared for a desperate resistance, although the troopers' ammunition ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... over Clark decided, as the less of two evils, to follow the hazardous course of himself announcing his approach. He trusted that the boldness of such a course, together with the shock of his utterly unexpected appearance, would paralyze his opponents and incline the wavering to favor him. So he released the prisoner and sent him in ahead, with a letter to the people of Vincennes. By this letter he proclaimed to the French that he was that moment about to attack the town; that those townspeople who were friends ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of prayer is to bring us into communion with God, for the growth of the spiritual life, that is ours by faith in Christ Jesus. To leave it upon any lower plane than this, is to rob it of its highest functions and to paralyze it of lasting power for good in any direction. The promises of God are conditioned upon our being in this state of heart toward God. "If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... France was at once the mother who gave his genius form and the son of his jealous love. And as he listened, planning, sufficient strength crept back to the worn body. He could play out his part to the end, and La Mothe would carry with him no sense of his master's frailty to paralyze action. In loyalty for loyalty's sake Louis ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... say, a sort of 'The-carriage-waits-my-lord' declamation, but he had to say it with thrilling and startling earnestness. He was to rush in on a love scene bubbling like a mush-pot with billing and cooing, and paralyze the lovers by shrieking 'Woe! Woe! unto ye all, ye children of men!' Throwing up his arms, after the manner of the Fourth of July orator's justly celebrated windmill gesture, he roared, in his thunderous voice: 'Woe! ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Old Grannis was instantly overwhelmed with confusion. His awkwardness seemed to paralyze his limbs, his lips twitched and turned dry, his hand went tremblingly to his chin. But what added to Miss Baker's miserable embarrassment on this occasion was the fact that the old Englishman should meet her thus, carrying a sordid ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... fear that at first seemed to paralyze the girls was now dispelled in their anxiety for ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... to raise and stay and cover them. A great amount of human kindness went into the beams and rafters of that home and of others like it. I knew that The Thing was still alive in the neighborhood, but even that could not paralyze the helpful hands of those people. Indeed, what was said of my Uncle Peabody was nothing more or less than a kind of conversational firewood. I can not think that ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... who, though he is dominated by a mighty purpose, will not permit one great faculty to dwarf, cripple, warp, or mutilate his manhood; who will not allow the over-development of one faculty to stunt or paralyze his other faculties. ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... straw for the world besides. She was too much occupied with obedience to trouble her head about opinion, either her own or other people's. Not until a question comes puzzling and troubling us so as to paralyze the energy of our obedience is there any necessity for its solution, or any probability of finding a real one. A thousand foolish doctrines may lie unquestioned in the mind, and never interfere with the growth or bliss of ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... agonizing cry,—at times fluttering furiously about their pursuer, and actually laying hold of his tail with their beaks and claws. On being thus attacked, the snake would suddenly double upon himself and follow his own body back, thus executing a strategic movement that at first seemed almost to paralyze his victim and place her within his grasp. Not quite, however. Before his jaws could close upon the coveted prize the bird would tear herself away, and, apparently faint and sobbing, retire to a higher branch. His reputed powers of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... appreciated at the present day. The intendant Talon declined, on pretence of a slight illness, to be present at the meeting of the estates. He knew too well the temper of the king, whose constant policy it was to destroy or paralyze every institution or custom that stood in the way of his autocracy. The despatches in which Frontenac announced to his masters what he had done received in due time their answer. The minister Colbert wrote: "Your assembling of the inhabitants to take the ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... and augment that influence. "Where the Portuguese party was really to blame," he afterwards said, "was in this,—that, seeing disorder everywhere more or less prevalent, they strained every nerve to increase it, hoping to paralyze further attempts at independence by exposing whole provinces to the evils of anarchy and confusion. Their loyalty also partook more of self-interest than of attachment to the supremacy of Portugal; for the commercial classes, ...
— 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
... leaders in the Border States are pledged to Secession. They will wheel into line when we give the word. But the North will not fight. The Democratic party sympathizes with us, and some of its influential leaders are pledged to our side. They will sow division there, and paralyze the Free States; besides, the trading and manufacturing classes will never consent to a war that will work their ruin. With the Yankees, sir, the ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... electrical shock. But the autopsy, if it had been performed by Coroner Lunkhead, might have told a different story. Magnus is as good an electrician as he is a chemist, and he could easily rig up some kind of transformer reducing the power of the current just enough to paralyze the victim—death by a myriad of small shocks instead of one big one. Now it is plain why the spider will not come to spring his trap unless the sun shines on the 21st of March. If it doesn't, the play goes over to the next clear day, only that the curtain will rise a minute or ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... thought I was at a funeral. There were hundreds of men there, who like myself went for something helpful and practical. Who cares to discuss the heavenly city when our city down here is in the throes of a strike, threatening to paralyze business for weeks and months to come, and meaning the loss of millions of dollars, ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... stunned and bewildered to do more than instinctively work his way to the windward as the only point of safety, but the fire was now becoming so broad in its sweep that to do this was difficult. The awful event he had witnessed seemed partially to paralyze him; for he knew that the oath, hot as the scorching flames, was scarcely uttered before Mr. Ludolph's lips were closed forever. He and his ambitious dream perished in a moment, and he was summoned to the other world ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... result, was deeply affected by the most gloomy prognostics. He came home at about six in the morning, harassed, worn, almost wasted with fatigue, and yet more with a baleful view of all around him, and with a sense of wounded military honour in the inertia which seemed to paralyze all effort to save the king and his cause. He had spent two nights following armed on guard, one at the Tuileries, in his duty of garde du corps to the king; the other on duty as artillery captain at the barracks. He went to bed for ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... animosities to the highest pitch. This terrible excitement, continued without interruption for two years, has served at least to test the patriotism of the people, and to determine whether faction was destined so far to prevail as to paralyze the hand of Government and render secession triumphant through our own dissensions. These fearful contests of party have run their course up to the present time, without serious trouble; and it is now apparent that the mass of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... maintained in English law[131]." Nor was any new or special danger to be apprehended from this view of the pardoning power. "If," says the Chief Justice, "we could conjure up in our minds a President willing to paralyze courts by pardoning all criminal contempts, why not a President ordering a general jail delivery?" Indeed, he queries further, in view of the peculiarities of procedure in contempt cases, "may it not be fairly said that in order to avoid possible mistake, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... like the coal states refusing to sell their surplus to the country at large. If this Morrison proposes to play the bigoted demagogue in the matter, exciting the people to attempt impractical control that will paralyze the whole proposition, he must be stepped on. You can show due regard for the honor and the prosperity of your own state, but as a statesman, working for the general welfare of the country at large, you've got to take a ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... almost dropping to the ground with laughter. "I hope he will; I've been taking sparring lessons of Professor Sullivan for a year, and I would like the fun of knocking him out of time. I can do it in three rounds, and I want you boys to stand back and leave him to me. I'll paralyze him!" ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... own character, concluding that Hamlet "procrastinates from thought." Gervinus, while following Schlegel as to "the bent of Hamlet's mind to reflect upon the nature and consequences of his deed, and by this means to paralyze his active powers," adds to this defect a deplorable conscientiousness, which unfits Hamlet for the great duty of revenge. And Mr. Dowden, while most ably collating these various kinds and degrees of irresolution, ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... who will arm himself for the battle?" These unprepared and inefficient teachers may become themselves converted through their very sense of weakness in presence of the towering systems of idolatry and superstition around them. But if they are not so converted, they will handicap the mission and paralyze its influence. Some of our best missionaries have said to me, "The Lord deliver us from such helpers!" No man has a right to go, and no board has a right to send, as a missionary, one who has not had such a personal experience of Christ as will enable him to stand against ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... was shown that it leads to Universalism and to rank infidelity; that it sanctions all the errors that were ever promulgated; that it furnishes a complete justification of the worst conduct of the worst men, that ever lived, tends to paralyze all effort to resist temptation, and condemns as impious any opposition to the commission of sin by our neighbors, and, finally, that it is worse than ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson
... flow and ebb of tide. Rivulets, whose crystal veins Ripple along flowery plains, Leaping torrents rushing hoarse, Mimicking the ocean's force, Leafage in its summer pride— Flowers to Paradise allied. Fruit inviting, luscious, such As seems to paralyze the touch, As ambrosial nectar sweet, Ripe and fit for Gods to eat. Nature's power is seen in all— Winter's Crown, or Spring-birds' call— Summer's eloquent perfume, Autumn's yellow-tinted bloom— Every chiselled sand grain tells Nature's might; the petal cells, Whence the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... She could hardly be said to know any thing. Fever from loss of blood; uneasiness, perhaps, from the presence in her system of elements elsewhere fashioned and strangely foreign to its economy; the remnants of sleep and of the dream; the bewilderment of sudden awaking—all had combined to paralyze her judgment, and give her imagination full career. When she opened her eyes, she saw a beautiful face, and nothing else, and it seemed to her itself the source of the light by which she saw it. Her dream had been one of great trouble; and when she beheld the ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... studied in their effects on energy. In fact, every animal that bristles and snarls as it faces a foe is, unconsciously, attempting to paralyze with fear its opponent, to render it helpless through the inhibition of action. So with the lurking tiger; it waits in silence for the prey and seeks the fascination of surprise as a factor in victory. On the other hand, the emotion of fear may be a releaser of energy for the prospective victim; ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... though others did it in fact. Vorse and Burkhardt devised the details. Weir should be left free until the blow had fallen on the camp, whereupon he should be immediately clapped into jail on the murder charge, which, coming on top of the "riot," would paralyze all company action and work. From such a crushing double-blow no concern could quickly recover, if indeed the loss did not result in total cessation ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... scenes. The roar of the cataract, the savage appearance of the dark rocks that border the falling waters, and that painful feeling which the sweeping and inevitable course of the stream produces, at first paralyze the mind, and, for some time after it has recovered its tone, occupy it to the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... impact with the ground Kars released his hold of the man's body, and with catlike agility hurled himself at the man's throat. With the threat of the revolver over him there remained only one means of defence. He must paralyze all action even if he killed the man under his hands. Physically his assailant was no match for him, but the ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... intervene. "The curative power of nature is no peculiar power; it is the result of a series of happy adjustments, by means of which the morbid perturbation itself sets in motion the springs which may either destroy the evil or paralyze its action. It is, in fact, nothing but the original power which formed the body and preserves its life in contact with the external causes of perturbation and the internal disorder provoked ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... "We'll paralyze 'em," said Handy to his fellow-players, as they were grouped together on the stage preparing red lights, which he proposed to use as a species of illumination. "Wait until I let the band loose in the streets, and if it don't fetch 'em, ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... be made to the doctrine of this essay, is, that under it, a jury would paralyze the power of the majority, and veto all legislation that was not in accordance with the will of the whole, or ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... there was a little trouble that time, colonel," said Fulkerson. "But the men that undertake to override the laws and paralyze the industries of a country like this generally get left in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... some lack of unity in the body of Christ. We try to get at the Lord, but we cannot, because we are separated from some member of the Lord's body, or because there is not the freedom of His love flowing through every organic part. It does not need a blow upon the head to paralyze the brain; a blow upon some nerve may do it; or a wound in some artery at the extremities may be fatal to the heart. Therefore we must stand right with all His children, and meet in the body of Christ in the sweetest, fullest fellowship, if we would keep our perfect communion ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... the Assembly in return for the voting of a fixed Civil List. This well-meant half-measure made matters worse, because it left the Assembly just as powerless as before over the details of legislation and administration, while giving it the power to paralyze the Government by refusing all, instead of only part, of the supplies. This it proceeded to do, and in the next five years large deficits were piled up, and the Colony ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... am to give up Salzburg, which is occupied by the French; I am not to succor Innspruck, which is menaced by Baraguay d'Hilliers. Not only am I not to lend any assistance to the Tyrolese, but I am to break their moral courage and paralyze their energy, by showing to them by my retreat that the emperor's promises will not be fulfilled, and that the army of Upper Austria abandons the Tyrol to ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... methods. Are we to be blamed because we could not easily bring ourselves to believe that an integral part of our nation, with such a history, could, under a pretence so bald as to insult the common sense of Christendom, rush headlong into a war which must close all its avenues of commerce, paralyze all its industry, threaten the existence of its cherished and peculiar institution,—in a word, whether successful or unsuccessful, inevitably result in its political suicide? At this very moment, accustomed as we have been for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... were fully prepared for a strike which would paralyze the essential traffic supplying approximately 38,000,000 people. Through the agency of Judge Knapp of the United States Commerce Court and Dr. Neill of the United States Department of Labor, and under the authority of the Erdman Act, there was appointed a board of arbitration ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... military officers, be the only recognised claims to appointment and promotion, thus giving to the poor and meritorious at least an equal chance with the man of wealth and the base hireling of party. In actual service the system of exclusive seniority cannot exist; it would deaden and paralyze all our energies. Taking advantage of this, politicians will drive us to the opposite extreme, unless the executive authority be limited by wholesome laws, based on the just ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... why it was that I locked up those four letters of Esther Wynn's and did not look at them for many months. I felt very guilty in keeping them; but a power I could not resist seemed to paralyze my very hand when I thought of opening the box in which they were. At last, long after I had left Uncle Jo's house, I took them out one day, and in the quiet and warmth of a summer noon I copied them slowly, carefully, word for word. Then I hid the originals in my bosom, and walked alone, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... yardmen, whose patience had apparently been exhausted. The strike was an "outlaw" strike, undertaken against the wishes of national leaders and organized and led by "rebel" leaders risen up for the occasion. For a time it threatened not only to paralyze the country's railway system but to wreck the railway men's organizations as well. It was finally brought to an end through the efforts of the national leaders, and a telling effect on the situation was produced by an announcement by the newly constituted Railroad Labor ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... yet immune from the gold-fever microbe, and several times was lured away into the mountains, "grubstaking" a man with hope plus and secrets as to gold-bearing quartz that would paralyze ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... proceeded to develop his pieces indiscriminately, his advantage would soon vanish. White needs only two moves—R-e1 and Kt-e4—to paralyze the effect of Black's powerful Queen's Bishop and to regain control of the center where at present Black has the upper hand on account ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... as he lay smoking his hookah under a tent of silk and velvet. For sixty days he had besieged Vienna with his hundreds of thousands. Against its obstinate defenders warfare had failed; and now that hunger was about to do what he had vainly tried—to paralyze their valor, here came succor, to render his victory doubtful. For he well knew that the Christians were full of ardor, while his Turks were tired of fighting. That he might excite their thirst for blood, he assembled all his prisoners, men, women, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... and more specialised studies. On the other side, we all know how children like to make toys themselves, how they gladly imitate the work of full-grown people if they see them at work in the workshop or the building-yard. But the parents either stupidly paralyze that passion, or do not know how to utilize it. Most of them despise manual work and prefer sending their children to the study of Roman history, or of Franklin's teachings about saving money, to seeing them at a work which is good for the "lower classes only." ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... Chaussees, composed in part of men worn-out by long and sometimes honorable service, but whose only remaining force is for negation, and who set aside everything they no longer comprehend, is the extinguisher used to snuff out the projects of audacious spirits. This Council seems to have been created to paralyze the arm of that glorious youth of France, which asks only to work and to be ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... minor part of your body would be fatal to the whole unit. As it is, you can lose a finger without affecting your eye-sight in the least. So you might suffer a localized brain injury that would completely paralyze a finger, without impairing your sight at all. Either the mind center that governs a finger, or the set of muscles in that finger can be affected without necessarily reacting upon any other mind center or ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... himself by declaring that the policy of the Caesars had always been one of great leniency toward all schools of philosophy. Then he quoted Hypatia to the effect that a fixed, formal and dogmatic religion would paralyze the minds of men and make the race, in ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... so little in preparation for the conflict they knew must come, the battle for two worlds. They had wanted action, but they had no weapons except their invisibility and the atomic hydrogen. It would not sink a plane. It would only break open its armor, and they hoped, paralyze its crew. And on this alone they must pin ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... a holiday of a whole three months—yearning so longingly and so poignantly that he had at last made up his mind to make a desperate cast for it and stand the consequences, whatever they might be. It was against all rules to ask for a vacation—quite against all etiquette; the shock of it would paralyze the Chancellery; stem etiquette and usage required another form: the applicant was not privileged to ask for a vacation, he must send in his resignation. The chancellor would know that the applicant was not really trying to resign, and didn't want to resign, but was merely trying in ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... as to whether they ought to strike out politically or not, the ruling class supplied the necessary vital impulsion. While in Chicago the courts were being used to condemn the labor leaders to death or prison, in the East they were used to paralyze the weapons of offense and defence by which the unions were able to carry ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... some day or other it will be verified, that the Committee on the Conduct of the War have investigated how far certain generals from the army on the Rappahannock used their influence with the President to paralyze a movement against the enemy ordered by Burnside. That facts discovered may be published or not, for the Administration shuns publicity. The Committee discovered that Mr. Seward was implicated in that conspiracy of generals against Burnside. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... "They raise an outcry against 'Coercion,' that they may paralyze the Government, cripple the exercise of the great powers with which it was invested, finally to change its form and subject us to a Southern despotism. Do we not know it to be so? Why disguise this great truth? Do we not know that they have been anxious for a change of Government ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... Jocelyn been able to work with persistent energy for a few years. The South was impoverished, and while a remunerative trade might be built up from it, patient and exceedingly aggressive labor would be required to secure such a result. It is the curse of opium, however, to paralyze energy, and to render all effort fitful and uncertain. He should have written scores of letters daily, and attended to each commission with the utmost promptness and care, but there were times when the writing of a single letter was a burden, and too often ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... into a swoon, drop; go by the board, go by the wayside; go up in smoke, end in smoke &c (fail) 732. render powerless &c adj.; deprive of power; disable, disenable^; disarm, incapacitate, disqualify, unfit, invalidate, deaden, cramp, tie the hands; double up, prostrate, paralyze, muzzle, cripple, becripple^, maim, lame, hamstring, draw the teeth of; throttle, strangle, garrotte, garrote; ratten^, silence, sprain, clip the wings of, put hors de combat [Fr.], spike the guns; take the wind out of one's sails, scotch ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... is still establishing its rootlets, like young corn, instead of growing. Allow no amatory excitement, no frenzied, delirious intoxication with it; for its violence, like every other, must react only to exhaust and paralyze ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... of the French was now about one hundred and fifteen thousand men. It was scattered over a frontier of one hundred and forty leagues and divided into five corps d'armee, and could not make a good defense; for to paralyze them and prevent their concentration it was only necessary to attack the center. Political reasons were also in favor of this plan of attack: the end proposed was political, and could only be attained by rapid and vigorous measures. ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... his operations, otherwise possible, until that fleet can be destroyed or neutralized. It corresponds very closely to "a position on the flank and rear" of an enemy, where the presence of a smaller force, as every military student knows, harasses, and may even paralyze offensive movements. When such a force is extremely mobile, as a fleet of armored cruisers may be, its power of mischief is very great; potentially, it is forever on the flank and rear, threatening the lines of communications. It is indeed as a threat to communications that the "fleet in ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... "which serpent threw himself upon him who approached it, coiled itself around his neck, and killed him." A sorcerer had invested these protectors of the ancient Pharaohs with their powers, but another equally potent magician could elude their vigilance, paralyze their energies, if not for ever, at least for a sufficient length of time to ferret out the treasure and rifle the mummy. The cupidity of the fellahin, highly inflamed by the stories which they were accustomed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... was one that absolutely appalled, though it did not quite paralyze, the older candidate, who, even after he had gained his feet and stalked to the front of the rude rostrum, was as empty of thought as he was full of despair. This sudden and unexpected appropriation of his great speech ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... with unblocked sense channels, and put the mind to sleep, paralyze the central nervous system with alcohol in sufficient quantity so that the undamaged peripheral nervous system—the senses—can obtain no response or recognition from it, and that perfect body is as useless for the time as if dead. But ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... to the width of the skin of the tail just at its junction with the body. The paws of this tiger, too, were remarkably larger than those of other tigers. I found that the first bullet had taken effect in the neck, which it had no doubt grazed with sufficient force to paralyze the tiger for a time, and Colonel Peyton records a similar case where great risk had been incurred from approaching a tiger apparently dead, but where the spine had been ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... thrust, with the head downward, up the chimney; the frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady; these considerations, with those just mentioned, and others which I need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze the powers, by putting completely at fault the boasted acumen, of the government agents. They have fallen into the gross but common error of confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its search ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Government recovered its confidence; and its next care was to awaken the jealousy of each order against its coadjutors, and thus to paralyze the influence of the Assembly. In this attempt it was perfectly successful; and the general welfare of the country was overlooked in the anxiety of the several parties to carry out their own individual views. The clergy demanded the publication of the decrees ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... eyes almost exploded in a rage of red. He wasn't permanently injured—he would grow a new leg—but he was furious because he dared not come close to the shield. The radiation would paralyze him within a couple of seconds. Grant saw his body sag a little on the corner where the leg had been, and then he had one of those flashes of intuition that every being had to have, to live long in the swamp. He knew how to win this fight. He trained the heat-gun ...
— The Wealth of Echindul • Noel Miller Loomis
... horses or wheeled chariots, no fire and arrows, but other instruments much more formidable. No breastplates, or shields, or swords, or darts. The very sight of this accursed host is alone sufficient to paralyze a soul which is not imbued with courage furnished by God, and with even greater foresight than valour. Could you calmly survey all this array and war, you would see, not torrents of blood or dead bodies, but fallen souls! You ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of infamy Jesus spoke not. He could have spoken. The pains of crucifixion did not confuse the intellect or paralyze the powers of speech. We read of crucified men who, for hours together upon the cross, vented their sorrow, their rage, or their despair in the manner that best accorded with their character; of some who raved and cursed, and spat at their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... secrete the oil and paralyze the world. Now, in Russia and China and India, our societies are organizing and growing. They will handle the weakened, powerless nations, and I shall be ruler of the universe, surface and beneath, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... heap, drenched with water, clusters of fire gathering and breaking like showers of a rocket before his eyes. His head throbbed and ached in maddening pain. This was so great that it seemed to submerge every faculty save that of hearing, to paralyze him so entirely that he could not lift a hand. That blow had all ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... with the Ideal theory, if its consequences were burlesque; as if it affected the stability of nature. It surely does not. God never jests with us, and will not compromise the end of nature, by permitting any inconsequence in its procession. Any distrust of the permanence of laws, would paralyze the faculties of man. Their permanence is sacredly respected, and his faith therein is perfect. The wheels and springs of man are all set to the hypothesis of the permanence of nature. We are not built like a ship to be tossed, but ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... generally, and those firms which weathered the storm were sorely pressed. Phillips and Sampson met with heavy losses, but struggled on in the hope of recovering lost ground. But, in 1859, the death of the senior members of the firm seemed to paralyze its prosperity, and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the sentimental aspect of Vincent's remark. "Yes, that might paralyze the arm of valor; but, then, you and Jack have met before, when duty demanded one thing and affection another: I don't see that the dilemma softened the blows, or that either of you are ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... seemed to be the only means of violent expression remaining to this miserable man was kept down by some amazing thought which seemed to paralyze him. Without making any attempt to refute a suggestion that fell just short of a personal accusation, he sank down in the first chair he came to and became, as it were, lost in the vision of that ghastly ribbon-tying and the solitary blowing out of the candle upon this scene ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... pressure was merely another form of fright. It could paralyze a braver soul—and often did. It merely made Barra miserably uncomfortable without disturbing his control. And the hatred that was always in him was unimpaired—even amplified by the ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... her to the heart. Was it always to be like this? How could she possibly endure it? How was she to answer his questions how was she to vindicate her faith when the mere tone of his voice seemed to paralyze her heart? He was indeed treating her with the cold formality of an opponent, but never for a single instant could she forget that he was her father the being she loved ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... justify civil conscription; but when we come to think of the nation—what might not be done by a State with a national labor army under its control? Public works might be undertaken at a cost greatly below that which would otherwise be incurred, and the estimates which now paralyze the State, when it considers this really needed service or that, would assume a different appearance, as it would be embracing in one enterprise technical education and the accomplishment of beneficial works. With such an army under skilled control the big cities could have playgrounds ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell |
