"Numbing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her outlook upon life. Even the best had begun to pall, the sameness of it had commenced its fatal work. More than once lately a touch of that heart languor, which is the fruit of surfeit, had startled her by its numbing and depressing effect. Here at last was a new type—a man with clean pages before him—young, emotional, without a doubt intellectual. But for his awful clothes he was well enough to look upon, he had no affectations, his instincts ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... and habits of the people; and so long as no disturbing cause interferes, or so long as the idea at the centre of it survives; a healthy, vigorous, natural life shoots beautifully up out of it. But at last the idea becomes obsolete; the numbing influence of habit petrifies the spirit in the outside ceremonial, while quite new questions rise among the thinkers, and ideas enter into new and unexplained relations. The old formula will not serve; but new formulae are tardy in appearing; ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... and, if possible, to see something of the local life. It was a market-town—as tiny a one as England possesses—and had for ages served that lonely valley, and guarded our marches against the Kelt. In spite of the occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that greeted her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington, her senses were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove one of her innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, nor the ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... against the metal vizor and bounced off, as the weird assailant ran within striking distance. For the first time in his life came the sensation of helplessness in a fight. There was a numbing feeling of horror as he recoiled before ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... he did not understand the meaning; he himself had known a line bombed out before now, the trenches rent and torn apart, the shattered limbs and broken bodies of the defenders, the horrible ripping crash of the bombs, the blinding flame, the numbing shock, the smoke and reek and noise of the explosions; but though all these things were known to him, the words "bombed out" meant no more now than nine letters of the alphabet and the maddening stupidity of the man at the other end, who would ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... at the top of the bank from between the thick quickset, and, gliding down, began to move across the lane to the other side, like a line of golden light. Uttering a cry of pleasure, I sprang forward, and seized it nearly by the middle. A strange sensation of numbing coldness seemed to pervade my whole arm, which surprised me the more, as the object to the eye appeared so warm and sunlike. I did not drop it, however, but, holding it up, looked at it intently, as its head dangled about a foot from my hand. It made no resistance; I felt ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... strongly of opinion that without enthusiasm rubbing is of all occupations the most irksome, except perhaps for the quadrumana (who seem more adapted for this exercise), the most painful for the spine, the most cramping for the thighs, the most numbing for the fingers. It is a profession, Henry, demanding, above every other, enthusiasm in the operator. Now Tom's enthusiasm for rubbing as an art was from the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... too low to stand or even kneel in with a straight back, and the men, kneeling in mud, crouched back on their heels and with rounded back and shoulders, struck their spades forward into the face and dragged the earth out spadeful by spadeful. Despite the numbing cold mud they knelt in, the men, stripped to shirts with rolled sleeves and open throats, streamed rivulets of sweat as they worked; for the air was close and thick and heavy, and the exertion in the cramped space ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... especially, particularly &c. adj.; in particular, in propria persona[Lat]; ad hominem[Lat]; for my part. each, apiece, one by one, one at a time; severally, respectively, each to each; seriatim, in detail, in great detail, in excruciating detail, in mind-numbing detail; bit by bit; pro hac vice[Lat], pro re nata[Lat]. namely, that is to say, for example, id est, exemplia gratia[Lat], e.g., i.e., videlicet, viz.; to wit. Phr. le ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... shall not remove myself hence, until thou art repulsed." "Let us stand to that agreement," says the active Cyllenian {God}; and he opens the carved door with his wand. But in her, as she endeavors to arise, the parts which we bend in sitting cannot be moved, through their numbing weight. She, indeed, struggles to raise herself, with her body, upright; but the joints of her knees are stiff, and a chill runs through her nails, and her veins are pallid, through the loss ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... thou not see that my lord is in danger of his life?" she cried. "Nay, I forgot, thou hast no vision. Take it now from me and look again;" and laying her hand, from which a strange, numbing current seemed to flow, upon my head, she ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... hale the seyne. Amongst the rest, we got here cavallies, breams, mullets, soles, fiddle-fish, sea eggs, and lobsters; and here, and in no other place, met with that extraordinary fish called the Torpedo, or numbing fish, which is in shape very like the fiddle-fish, and is not to be known from it but by a brown circular spot of about the bigness of a crown-piece near the centre of its back; perhaps its figure will be better understood when I say it is a flat fish, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... shrinking to the shape of a small bird that often sits late by night on tombs or ruinous roofs, and vexes the darkness with her cry, in such change of likeness the monster shrilly passes and repasses before Turnus' face, and her wings beat restlessly on his shield. A strange numbing terror unnerves his limbs, his hair thrills up, and the accents falter on his tongue. But when his hapless sister knew afar the whistling wings of the Fury, Juturna unbinds and tears her tresses, with rent face and smitten bosom. 'How, O Turnus, can thine own sister help thee now? ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... own rooms, and walked without hesitation to the window, which was still open. The fresh air was almost a necessity, for he felt himself being slowly stifled. His knees were shaking, a cold icy horror was numbing his heart and senses. A feeling of nightmare was upon him, as though he had risen unexpectedly from a bed of delirium. There in front of him, a little to the left, was the broad empty street amongst whose ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his antagonist in bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the lake and cavern danced before his eyes and vanished, and with a loud cry he sank senseless ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... came in the spirit of the Monks of Thelema. But his father's reception of the news of last night's escapade and the few words he had said had given him pause. Life had taken on of a sudden a less simple aspect. Dimly, for he was not accustomed to thinking along these lines, he perceived the numbing truth that we human beings are merely as many pieces in a jig-saw puzzle and that our every movement affects the fortunes of some other piece. Just so, faintly at first and taking shape by degrees, must the germ of civic spirit have come to Prehistoric ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... nouveaux-pauvres which was prominent, if not predominant. A few of the great and would-be great ladies outbade one another in the effort to renew the luxury and revive the grace of the past. But the atmosphere was numbing, their exertions half-hearted, and the smile of youth and beauty was cold like the sheen of winter ice. The shadow of death hung over the institutions and survivals of the various civilizations and epochs which were being dissolved in the common melting-pot, and even the man ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... and the tapping instrument was adjusted immediately over it, in position to stimulate a spot on the back of the finger, just above the nail. A few tests were given on the first finger and a few on the second alternately throughout the experiments, in order to avoid the numbing effect of continual tapping on one spot. The records for each of the two fingers were however kept ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... The god of sloth for his asylum chose; Upon a couch of down in these abodes, Supine with folded arms he thoughtless nods; Indulging dreams his godhead lull to ease, With murmurs of soft rills and whispering trees: The poppy and each numbing plant dispense Their drowsy virtue, and dull indolence; No passions interrupt his easy reign, No problems puzzle his lethargic brain; But dark oblivion guards his peaceful bed, And lazy fogs ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... indictment is the more terrible because of this emphasis of understatement. Before the war, M. Duhamel was known as a competent and somewhat promising poet and dramatist, and he was one of the few to whom the war brought an ampler endowment rather than a numbing silence. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... ordinary lead variety. As the enemy obtained some Lee-Metford rifles and Dum-Dum ammunition during the progress of the fighting, information on this latter point is forthcoming. The sensation is described as similar to that produced by any bullet—a violent numbing blow, followed by a sense of injury and weakness, but little actual pain at the time. Indeed, now-a-days, very few people are so unfortunate as to suffer much pain from wounds, except during the period of ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... similar remark about the numbing effect of Campbell's reputation upon his literary work; his deference to critics ruined his individuality. It was Scott's admiration for "Hohenlinden" which induced Campbell to publish the poem. The two men, travelling in ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... like slowly moving worms. For a moment there was scarcely a breath between us; then he lifted his arm and brought the knife slowly out before him. I watched, horror-stricken, unable to lift my feet from the floor. A numbing paralysis of fright seemed to ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... of his strung-up figure impressed themselves indelibly on her memory. Strain was expressed in every line of his body and in his clutching hands. Then the strength and decision that was in her asserted itself, and she overcame the numbing horror that had held her powerless. Snatching up her rod, she ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... long did dull oblivion cloud Our motions and our senses shroud: Lulled by her numbing touch, we stray In dreamland's ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... Jill could not have said whether she was relieved or more frightened than ever. True, that numbing sense of the uncanny had ceased to grip her, for Reason told her that spectres do not sing rag-time songs. On the other hand, owners of apartments do, and she would almost as readily have faced a spectre as the owner of this apartment. Dizzily, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... that strike him with horror when he emerges from Charing Cross. "Can these smudgy, dirty, evil-smelling creatures compose the dominant race?" is the thought of even the most "loyal" Indian as he moves among the crowd of English workpeople. And it is only the numbing power of habit that silences the question in ourselves. Cheap as English clothing is, second-hand it is cheaper still, and I suppose that out of that quarter-million people on the Heath every fine Bank Holiday hardly one per ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... again looked at him with a strange look. The manufacturer Whistled to himself, and giving his horse a smart cut with the whip, drove on faster than ever. The night was fast settling down; it was numbing cold; a gray fog rose from the river as they thundered over the old bridge; and tall engine chimneys, and black smoky houses loomed through the dusk before them. They were ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... was a marvel he had borne it so long. Only a numbing blow such as he had received could have stunned his faculties into acquiescence with this sleepy, uneventful existence; and now, suddenly, his soul awoke from its peaceful slumber and demanded life, ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the thieves, and the sound of pursuit was no longer heard. The wind often whirled his shirt, his only covering, over his head, and he could not control its vagaries, for both his hands were engaged in retaining his position; and, indeed, so numbing was the cold, hardly sufficed for the purpose. Could any thing more undignified or ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the very end the possibility that 'all might be well' mocked him with false hopes. The first light of any morning might reveal the longed-for steamers of relief and the uniforms of British soldiers. He was denied even the numbing anaesthetic of despair. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... over him, numbing his senses—paralysing his brain. This man seems their evil genius, the red firelight playing on his tall slim figure, transforms him in Philip's eyes to a crimson Mephistopheles. Eleanor pours out a fresh cup of ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... succeeded, by some soft, subtle transition, the consciousness that it was very sweet to sit thus beside her. The air about us seemed suddenly filled with some delicately be-numbing influence. The chattering, smiling, moving throng was here, close upon us, enveloping us in its folds. Yet we were deliciously isolated. Did she ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... feeling himself over-balanced by his own ineffective violence, leapt far out of reach before turning to see what had happened. The Chief recovered himself, and the two lashed out at each other so exactly together that the great clubs met in mid-air. So shattering was the force of the impact, so numbing the shock to the hairy wrists behind it, that both weapons dropped to ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... O ye elements! I know— Ye know it too—it hath been granted me Not to die wholly, not to be all enslaved. I feel it in this hour. The numbing cloud Mounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free, Is it but for a moment? —Ah, boil up, ye vapours! Leap and roar, thou sea of fire! My soul glows to meet you. Ere it flag, ere the mists Of despondency and gloom ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... disagreeable to pass among them and to note the bearing of individual mourners. If the former scene had presented much that was indecorously formal, here all was decorously formal. The routine, cut-and-dry nature of the duty being performed exercised in either case its property of numbing natural feeling, or at least ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... rather drawn By those white limbs which sparkled through the lawn. The nearer that he came, the more she fled, And, seeking refuge, slipt into her bed; Whereon Leander sitting, thus began, Through numbing cold, all feeble, faint, and wan. "If not for love, yet, love, for pity-sake, Me in thy bed and maiden bosom take; At least vouchsafe these arms some little room, Who, hoping to embrace thee, cheerly swoom: This head was beat with many a churlish billow, And ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... these two exceptional cases, there are of course hundreds and even thousands of teachers whose personal influence is a partial antidote to the numbing poison which is being distilled but surely, from the daily Scripture lesson. But the net result of giving formal and mechanical instruction on the greatest of all "great matters" is to depress the spiritual ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... passed, clattering. His days of usefulness were not over, but he had reached the age when one is willing to spend more time looking on. He had always been tired at this hour of the day, but it was only of late that fatigue had had a certain numbing effect, which disinclined him to think of the tasks of tomorrow. He came to this period of repose rather earlier nowadays, and after less sturdy labor—somehow, a great deal of the sturdy labor got itself done without him; and ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... the northland, winter encroached greedily upon spring. The latter end of March, the weather did not moderate. Instead, the wide valley became a channel for winds that were weighted with numbing sleet. Then, April returned angrily, bringing cold rains and blows to check ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... to the ground and he saw a red stain creeping from Tenney's boot into the snow. Tenney also glanced at it indifferently. It was true that, although the cold was growing anguish to a numbing wound, he was hardly aware of it as a pain that could be remedied. This was only one misery ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... first time, I think, in my life, panic gripped me, the sheer, blind fear which destroys the reason. It swept over me in a wave, that numbing terror which comes to one in dreams. Indeed, the thing had become dream-like. I seemed to be standing outside myself, looking on at myself, watching myself heave and strain with bruised fingers at a window ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... over the side himself without the aid of the falls. His evolutions while he was working on the swashing deck were not graceful or dignified, but he was pleased with himself; the fighting spirit of Young England was roused in him, and, in spite of numbing cold, the bite of hunger, and all his bruises, he sang out cheerily, "Never mind, skipper; I'll live to be an old ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... it is vast. I am told that at one junction, close to London, the trains pass for some hours at the rate of two in five minutes. Consider how that service is done by the myriads of men employed, and this in all seasons and weathers in overwhelming heat, in numbing cold, in blinding storm, in midnight darkness. Is not this an army pretty well disciplined, though its object is not bloodshed? If we see masses full of practical energy and good sense, but wanting in culture, let us take our ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... the steps as in a dream, neither slowly nor fast. No one was ever more unhappy, though he scarcely felt as yet the depths of his own humiliation. It was more like a stab—a numbing assassin-like stab. He could hear the beatings ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... when Stella so far recovered from the strain which she had been undergoing, to learn that Bud was safe, although he had passed a very uncomfortable as well as perilous night tied to a tree with the cold numbing him, and wolves ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor |
