"Benumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... destroy." "How," he asks, "will the law of growth adjust a poison in one animal with such subtle knowledge of the organization of the other, that the deadly virus shall in a few minutes curdle the blood, benumb the nerves, and rush in upon the citadel of life? There is but one explanation: a Mind having minute and perfect knowledge of the structure of both has designed the one to be capable of inflicting death upon ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... as she heard this, uttered a cry of pain. She felt an icy coldness benumb her heart, as she remembered that this unbelieving boy was one day to succeed her on the throne of Austria. The emperor, too, was pained. By the deadly paleness of her face, he guessed the pane that was rending his wife's heart, and he dared say no more ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... in Columbia's blessed States They have no Smalls, or Mods, or Greats, Nor do their faculties benumb With any cold curriculum: O no! for there the ambitious Boy, Released from schools and birches, At once pursues with studious joy ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... and benumb you, as they did then," quoth Sancho, "what matters it whether we are in the open field ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... automatic as those of a machine and as devoid of foresight. A species of mud wasp carefully selects clay of just the right consistency, finds a somewhat sheltered nook under the eaves, and builds its nest, leaving one open door. Then it seeks a certain kind of spider, and having stung it so as to benumb without killing, carries it into the new-made nest, lays its eggs on the body of the spider so that the young wasps may have food immediately upon hatching out, then goes out and plasters the door over carefully to exclude all intruders. ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... deeper Than any sleeper; Sweet dreams will keep her All day, all night; Though sleep benumb her And time o'ercome her, She dreams of summer, And takes delight, Dreaming and sleeping In love's good keeping, While rain is weeping And no leaves cling; Winds will come bringing her Comfort, and singing her Stories and songs and good ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... sleepily. He did not bear closer inspection well. His clothes were dirty, especially about the front of vest and coat; there was everything to suggest an entire lack of neatness in personal habits; more than that, the face at the time bore unmistakable signs that enough alcohol had been drunk to benumb, although not to stupefy, his faculties: the eye was bloodshot; the face, weather-beaten as it was, was flabby. In spite of all this, Caius had expected a more villainous-looking person, and so great was his loathing that he would rather have seen him in a more ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Board of Education—that beautiful timber-headed, timber-hearted, timber-souled structure—could come down on me with an avalanche of statistics. "Look at our results," they cry. I look. There are certain brains that even our educational system cannot benumb. A few clever ones, at the cost of enormously expensive machinery, are sent to the universities, where they learn how to teach others the important things whereby they achieved their own unimportant success. The shining lights are those whom we turn out as syndicalist leaders and other kinds ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Procurement of his Profit, or Pleasure; so is there not a Creature more Serviceable to man in either of these, as the Horse. A Beast Valiant, Strong, Nimble and Hardy, the Vivacity of whose Spirits, neither Heat can scorch, or dry up, nor Cold benumb or freez; he is Valiant, Watchfull, and Laborious, naturally Cleanly, and of exquisite Scent; Gentle and Loving to man, docile, and of a retentive Memory, and Apt or Fit for the performing any Service wherein man employes ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... the number of men to be conveyed, were objections which would have appeared insurmountable to any person but men in a state of despair.—Judging, that by remaining on the ice, death was but retarded for a few hours, as the extreme cold must eventually benumb their faculties, and invite a sleep which would overcome the remains of animation,—they determined on making the attempt of rowing to their ship. Poor souls, what must have been their sensations at that moment,—when the spark of ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... are as dews for the christening Of dawns that the nights benumb: The spring's voice answers me listening For speech of a child to come, While promise of music is glistening On lips that ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Catholicism, restored by edict, enforced by the Inquisition, propagated by Jesuits, was not of the fine enthusiastic quality to counteract them. Servile in its conception, it sufficed to bridle and benumb a race of serfs, but not to soften or to purify ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Mass., and publishes its amazingly dry Journal of Speculative Philosophy. With the unconscious solemnity of earnestness, it still digs into Aristotle's logic and speculations—the dryest material that was ever used to benumb the brains of young collegians, and teach them how not to reason, for Aristotle never had a glimmering conception of what the process of reasoning is. Yet all Concordians are not Aristotelians; some of them have more modern ideas, and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887 - Volume 1, Number 8 • Various
... yonder walls save by fraud or stratagem. How I have escaped death is one of the mysteries which time perchance may never develop. One might fancy the cunning leech who supplied the drug did play me false. Instead of poison, mayhap, one of those potions of which we have heard, that so benumb and stupify the faculties that for a space they mimic death, nor can anything rouse or recover from its influence until ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... mud, for the thirsty earth seemed to absorb the water almost as fast as it fell; also it cooled the air considerably, which was all to the advantage of the Japanese, who would have the strenuous work of climbing the hill, while it would tend to chill and benumb the Russians, who would be compelled to remain comparatively inactive in the sodden trenches. Whether it was this consideration, or the fact that the barometer was rapidly rising, or a combination ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood |
