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Demolishing   /dɪmˈɑlɪʃɪŋ/   Listen
Demolishing

noun
1.
Complete destruction of a building.  Synonyms: leveling, razing, tearing down.






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"Demolishing" Quotes from Famous Books



... conclusion that he is to be beaten. But they were to do their best, and they did it. The elders went out to see the fun. The rebels directed all their energies to the capture of one fort instead of opening fire all along the line, and by dusk they had succeeded in demolishing that, when the troops on both sides were summoned home to supper and to comfortable beds, an innovation not laid down in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... their every offensive weapon centered upon the fast-receding exposed ends of the hexan fortress. Their bombs and torpedoes ripped and tore into the structure beneath the invulnerable shield and exploded, demolishing and hurling aside like straws, the walls, projectors, hexads and vast mountains of earth. Their terrible rays bored in, softening, fusing, volatilizing metal, short-circuiting connections, destroying life far ahead of the point of attack; and, drawn along by the relentlessly creeping composite tractor ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... work, and it was not long before I had a little army of boys at work demolishing that wood pile. The chunks that were too big and hard to split we placed on the bottom, then placed the split wood over them. The task was accomplished long before the old gentleman's return, and when on the night of his arrival I took him ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... Cenchreae, the grand mart of the Corinthians. In the mean time, the consul found the siege of Atrax more tedious and severe than had been universally expected, and the enemy resisted in the way which they had least anticipated. He had supposed that the whole of the trouble would be in demolishing the wall, and that if he could once open a passage for his soldiers into the city, the consequence would then be, the flight and slaughter of the enemy, as usually happens on the capture of towns. But when, on a breach being made in the wall by the rams, and when ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... once show the greatness and the littleness of the human intellect; for though they often degenerate into incredible absurdities, those who have examined the works of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus have confessed their admiration of the Herculean texture of brain which they exhausted in demolishing their aerial fabrics. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... being married to such a woman as Mrs. Carville! Surely a man whose children bear names so bright on the rolls of fame must have something in him worthy of admiration! As the barcarolle swelled and died away, I felt this conviction growing within me. I felt certain that so far from demolishing the real mystery, Mr. Carville had only brought it into focus. We had not seen it before. And it promised to be a mystery on a higher plane than the rather sordid ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... In many places it was bleeding besides the wound given it by the hatchet, and three or four inches of skin had been rubbed off in various parts, evidently quite fresh, and done in descent. Also, if it had not been weakened for want of food, such an enormous creature would not have been so long demolishing the cow. ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... continual efforts made on the part of his brother, the Duke of Soubise, more restless and less earnest than he. Hostilities broke out afresh at the beginning of the year 1625. The Reformers complained that, instead of demolishing Fort Louis, which commanded La Rochelle, all haste was being made to complete the ramparts they had hoped to see razed to the ground: a small royal fleet mustered quietly at Le Blavet, and threatened to close the sea against ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Helen, returning to the dining-room, poured out tea, and cut bread-and-butter, and saw her aunt demolishing with appetite three new-laid eggs, and two generous ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade

... insufficient, compelled its total abandonment. Such garrisons have been and are sufficient to oppose the Moros in the remaining presidios; and the same would be enough in Zamboangan if the great extent which must be guarded, on account of the size of the fort, were reduced to a little, demolishing the less important part [of the fortifications]. But their profound thoughts feared lest that fort would afterward remain thus scantily garrisoned, and that it would not make so much show or its administration be so conspicuous; nor ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... Jews were maltreated, and their houses and shops were sacked and looted. Having started in the immediate vicinity of the church, the riot spread to the neighboring streets and finally engulfed the whole city. For three days hordes of Greeks and Russians gave free vent to their mob instincts, demolishing, burning, and robbing Jewish property, desecrating synagogues and beating Jews to senselessness in all parts of the city, undisturbed by the presence of police and troops who did nothing to stop the atrocities. The appeal of representative Odessa Jews to Governor-General Kotzebue ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... oppose it, for they had always been eager that he should marry and leave an heir to inherit the Howe acreage; they had even gone so far as to urge it upon him as his patriotic duty. Moreover, they were very desirous of demolishing the barrier that for so many years had ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... was pulling it got within three miles of the town. It was pulling up grade slowly, and in turning a sharp curve the whole car which was carrying the threshing machine loosened from the rest of the train, and tumbled down a steep embankment, completely demolishing the whole thing. The railroad paid the damages, and the brother was ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag

... means; and all have a voice in the regulation of affairs, but direct executive work is done by a president and a committee. The independent volition of Quakerism is one of their prime peculiarities. If they have even a tea-party, no fixed charge for admission is made; the price paid for demolishing the tea and currant bread, and crackers being left to the individual ability ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... plausible, if possible, than any other which has been employed to explain the origin and existence of evil. But this was not because he sincerely believed it to be founded in truth. He merely wished to show its superiority to other schemes, in order that by demolishing it he might the more effectually inspire the minds of men with a dark feeling of universal scepticism. It was decorated by him, not as a system of truth, but as a sacrifice to be offered up on the altar of atheism. True to the instincts of his philosophy, he sought on this ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... examine the wall carefully. There was one way of finding out the truth, if he could only get light enough; no mason that ever lived would lay his bricks in any way except lengthwise along each course. If he had struck into a cross wall, he must be demolishing the bricks from their ends instead of across them, and he could find out which way they lay at the end of the cavity, if he could make the light of the lantern shine in as far as that. The depth was more than five feet now, and his experience told him that even ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... commonly called, happened on the 8th of November, 1520. Of this almost unparalleled act of baseness and cruelty, Vertot (p. 113, 114, 115, Amst. ed.) gives the following account, from Zigler, who was an eye-witness, and many other authors of credit. The pretext for this execution was the demolishing of Stecka, a castle belonging to the traitor Trolle, which the Swedish States had ordered to be rased, contrary to the bull ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... do in spring, apparently under violent pressure to get in, I am witnessing a significant comedy in bird-life, one that illustrates the limits of animal instinct. The bird takes its own reflected image in the glass for a hated rival, and is bent on demolishing it. Let the assaulting bird get a glimpse of the inside of the empty room through a broken pane, and it is none the wiser; it returns to the assault as vigorously ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... planks to be placed over the streets between the houses from the cisterns to the rampart; and a file of people passed from hand to hand helmets and amphoras, which were emptied continually. The Carthaginians, however, grew indignant at this waste of water. The ram was demolishing the wall, when suddenly a fountain sprang forth from the disjointed stones. Then the lofty brazen mass, nine stories high, which contained and engaged more than three thousand soldiers, began to rock gently like a ship. In fact, the water, which had penetrated ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... easily made sufficient to carry all existing traffic. If the bridges were to be widened in the service of some disproportionate vehicles it is obvious that the traffic such enlarged bridges are intended to carry would be put forward as an argument for demolishing the exquisite old bridge over the main river which is the glory of this exceptionally picturesque and well-ordered village; and this is a matter of which even the most utilitarian would soon see the evil in the diminished attraction of the river not ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... metal was set up, now, and a shaggy, savage-seeming man mounted beside it grinning. He manipulated its levers and wheels with an expert's assurance. And Tommy saw repairs upon it. Crude repairs, with crude materials, but expertly done. Done by the Ragged Men, past doubt, and so demolishing any idea that they came ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... across it." Thus in every act of his life, whether at home or abroad, whether at table or in bed, whether at study or in moments of relaxation, he did all with the avowed object of being seen of men and of influencing them by his conduct. And to a certain extent he gained his end. He succeeded in demolishing a number of fortified cities which had formed the hotbeds of sedition and tumult; and thus added greatly to the power of the reigning duke. He inspired the men with a spirit of loyalty and good faith, and taught the women to be chaste and docile. On the report of the tranquillity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... things taken at the house of M. Thiers, and if they were to be sent to the Louvre or to be publicly sold, and he was then appointed a member of the commission to examine the case. Regarding his conduct at the time of the demolishing of the house of M. Thiers, he arrived too late, he says, to make an inventory; the furniture and effects had been already packed by the employes of the Garde Meuble; "I made some observations about it, and on going through the empty apartments, I noticed two small ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... up, and the towns in their way preserved from plunder, by their not having time to do mischief. This morning an express is arrived from Lord Malton(1148) in Yorkshire, who has had an account of Oglethorpe's cutting a part of them to pieces, and of the Duke's overtaking their rear and entirely demolishing it. We believe all this; but, as it is not yet confirmed, don't depend upon it too much. The fat East India ships are arrived safe from Ireland—I mean the prizes; and yesterday a letter arrived from Admiral Townshend in the West Indies, where he has fallen in with the Martinico fleet (each ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... of the battering ordnance in demolishing the Moorish fortresses induced King Ferdinand to procure a powerful train for the campaign of 1485, intending to assault some of the most ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... strongly sadistic mother, two older brothers, of whom the elder was frightfully violent and brutal, often choking his brothers and sisters, while the other found an actually diabolical pleasure in destroying and demolishing everything. Our patient exhibited already at two years old as well as through her whole life a pleasure in striking blows, and also conversely a special pleasure in receiving them, further at four years old ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger

... of peace on earth," he had told himself, while demolishing the logs of a sinister deadfall with his axe; and now the remembrance of his quixotic deed added a brightness to the fire and to the rough, undecorated walls of ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... passionately demolishing several heads of clover, remarking, as she did so, that she "didn't see, for her part, how Mary could keep so calm when things were coming so near." And as Mary answered to this only with a quiet smile, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... of the Pacific, the Mediterranean is a mere lake, but it's an unpredictable lake with fickle waves, today kindly and affectionate to those frail single-masters drifting between a double ultramarine of sky and water, tomorrow bad-tempered and turbulent, agitated by the winds, demolishing the strongest ships beneath sudden waves that smash ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... the Germans could not know that the chateau was empty, that its owner was in Paris and both her sons fighting in the French Army. But they had secured the military advantage of demolishing one of the finest country houses in France, with its priceless tapestries, ancient marbles and heirlooms of the Bourbons. A howl of German glee was heard by the seventy-five chasseurs crouching behind their barricades. So pleased were the invaders with their achievement, that next ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... on the site of the Mont-de-Piete of to-day, between the Rues des Francs-Bourgeois and des Blancs-Manteaux, opposite to the Palais des Archives. Remains of this tower were discovered in 1878, in demolishing some old houses to make way for the enlargement of the Mont-de-Piete; it served to enclose a circular staircase. The wall continued to follow the Rue Francs-Bourgeois to another gate, the Porte Barbette, at the intersection of the Rue ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... January himself, and not a savage beast that was acting the part of a battering ram and rapidly demolishing the pilot house, paused for a second; then, moving to a new position, he began once more hammering at ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... given by the old writers may serve to defend this modern attempt; for AEmilianus approached a gate protected by a stone-covered testudo, under which he safely forced his way into the city while the garrison was occupied in demolishing this stone roof. But Julian attacked a place completely exposed, while the whole face of heaven was darkened by the fragments of rock and weapons which were showered upon him, and was even then with great difficulty repulsed ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... well-directed fire from the Antarctic soon repulsed them, and they sought the shore in paroxysms of rage, which was changed to fear when they found that the big guns of the schooner threw their shot directly into the village, and were rapidly demolishing their dwellings. It was in this state of fear and humility that Shaw was sent off to the vessel to stop the carnage and destruction; they were glad to have peace on any terms. They now gave up their boldness, and as ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... Bath, with its semi-circular Hypocausta Laconica, &c., forms only one wing of a spacious regular building. From a survey of these, our ruins, we may, with some certainty, determine the nature of these Balnea pensilia.... The Eastern Vapour Baths are now demolishing in order to make way for more modern improvements. Whenever the rubbish that covers the eastern wing of the Roman ruins comes to be removed similar Balnea pensilia will ...
— The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath • Charles E. Davis

... there was a gentlemanly profession in the world but one, and that was the trade of arms. My brothers, as they grew up, entirely coincided with him in opinion, and both would be soldiers. William died sword in hand, crowning the great breach at Rodrigo; and Henry, after demolishing three or four cuirassiers of the Imperial Guards, found his last resting-place on "red Waterloo." When they were named, my father's eyes would kindle, and my mother's be suffused with tears. He played a fictitious part, enacted the Roman, and ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... attending a digression into byroads not listed in the road-book, for England is a country of many hilly sections. I had read only a few days before of the wreck of a large car in Derbyshire where the driver lost control of his machine on a gradient of one in three. The car dashed over the embankment, demolishing many yards of stone wall and coming to rest in a valley hundreds of feet beneath. And this was only one of several similar cases. Fortunately, we had only the descent to make. The bank dropped off the edge of the moorland into a lovely ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... Lucknow was set to work to carry out these alterations. The scene was busy and amusing, and the change from the fierce fight, the din of cannon, and the perpetual rattle of musketry, to the order, regularity, and bustle of work, was very striking. Here was a party of sappers and miners demolishing a row of houses, there thousands of natives filling baskets with rubbish and carrying them on their heads to empty into bullock carts, whence it was taken to fill up holes and level irregularities. Among the crowd, soldiers of many uniforms—British ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty

... proclamation from the King in Council,' said Gashford, 'dated to-day, and offering a reward of five hundred pounds—five hundred pounds is a great deal of money, and a large temptation to some people—to any one who will discover the person or persons most active in demolishing those ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... afterward carried on, that, mitigating the bitterness of prolonged hostilities, served to procure, at last, for the Samians articles of capitulation more than usually mild. They embraced the conditions of demolishing their fortifications, delivering up their ships, and paying by instalments a portion towards the cost of the siege [316]. Byzantium, which, commanding the entrance of the Euxine, was a most important possession to the Athenians [317], whether for ambition or ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 'Demolishing and pulling down, destroying and burning dwelling-houses and outhouses,' said Mr. Donkin. 'He must have ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell

... committed to a special scientific theory than he is committed to a special theory of government. Of course, it is convenient for the Theist to first of all saddle his opponent with a set of social or scientific beliefs, and then to assume that in attacking those beliefs he is demolishing Atheism, but it is none the less fighting on a false issue. All that Atheism necessarily involves is that all forms of Theism are logically untenable, and consequently the only effective method of destroying Atheism is to establish ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... were seen standing together in groups, shaking their heads as they talked of the dreadful news. While those who had marched up so boldly into the country, now panic-struck, were every where busied in demolishing their works, blowing up their magazines, and hurrying back to town in the utmost dismay. Hard pressing upon the rear, we followed the steps of their flight, joyfully chasing them from a country which they had stained with blood, and pursuing them to the very gates of Charleston. As we approached ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... opened. Josephus attempted no resistance in the open field, and the people had been directed to fly to the fortified cities. The strongest of all these was Jotapata, and here Josephus commanded in person. Being very desirous of demolishing it, Vespasian besieged it with his whole army. It was defended with the greatest vigour, but was, after fierce conflicts, taken in the thirteenth year of the reign of Nero, on the first day of the month Panemus (July). ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... evidently proud of his feat, and when he caught his breath enough to speak, explained, "Yepp,—it's the only place in this bum town where you can get Alligretti's, and they're the only kind that're fit to eat" He tore open the box as he spoke, demolishing with ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine paper and gold cord which wrapped it about, and presented the rich layer of black chocolates to Sylvia. "Get a move on and take one," he urged cordially; "I pretend I buy 'em for the girls, but I'm crazy about 'em ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... season the males of some of our birds may often be seen dashing themselves against a window, and pecking and fluttering against the pane for hours at a time, day after day. They take their own images reflected in the glass to be rival birds, and are bent upon demolishing them. They never comprehend the mystery of the glass, because glass is not found in nature, and neither they nor their ancestors have had any experience ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs

... proceed to Waynesboro' and blow up the railroad bridge. Having done this, Torbert, as he returned, was to drive off whatever cattle he could find, destroy all forage and breadstuffs, and burn the mills. He took possession of Waynesboro' in due time, but had succeeded in only partially demolishing the railroad bridge when, attacked by Pegram's division of infantry and Wickham's cavalry, he was compelled to fall back to Staunton. From the latter place he retired to Bridgewater, and Spring Hill, on the way, however, fully executing his instructions ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... the progress of the underground mine on which she was expending her life and concentrating her mind. Lisbeth planned, Madame Marneffe acted. Madame Marneffe was the axe, Lisbeth was the hand the wielded it, and that hand was rapidly demolishing the family which was every day more odious to her; for we can hate more and more, just as, when we love, we ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... a cement, made in part of liquid gold, as used in the royal buildings of Tambo, a valley not far from Yucay! (Ubi supra.) We may excuse the Spaniards for demolishing such edifices, - if ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... sight—the lorries scooting across, while the escort took cover. The guns picked off a few, completely demolishing two lorries, then with a few shells into some cavalry that appeared on the horizon, they ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... was extravagant. Her lurches had an appalling helplessness: she pitched as if taking a header into a void, and seemed to find a wall to hit every time. When she rolled she fell on her side headlong, and she would be righted back by such a demolishing blow that Jukes felt her reeling as a clubbed man reels before he collapses. The gale howled and scuffled about gigantically in the darkness, as though the entire world were one black gully. At certain moments the air streamed ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... of demolishing the last vestige of the fortifications, and exacting pledges for future good behaviour, the admiral concluded a treaty by which prisoners of war in future should be exchanged and not enslaved; and the whole of the slaves in Algiers, to the number of ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... into the whirlwind of the world-vision, a stupendous force upsetting, up-rooting, overturning, demolishing, almost erasing and contradicting everything that Joe had taken for granted, and in the wake of the destruction, rising and ever rising, a new creation, the vision ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... barbarians,' I replied, 'as they were once. They build up now, instead of demolishing. Remember that Augustus rebuilt Carthage, and that the first Antonine founded that huge and beautiful temple which rose out of the midst of Baalbec; and besides—if I am not mistaken—many of the noblest monuments of art in this very city are ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... hot cakes brought everybody in a hurry, when Kat opened the dining-room door, and shouted, "supper!" as though she was a pop-gun and the single word a deadly fire, and everybody had fallen to work at demolishing the pile of aforesaid cakes, before Bea ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... are still fee-extracting creatures). He was astonished to hear the radical retort, "What I gave for my mitre" (it was a very cheap one) "that and no more will I give for my throne." Both Herbert and with him Simon Magus fell backward breathless at this blow.{4} But Hugh had a short way of demolishing his enemies, and the archdeacon appears hereafter as his stout follower knocked, no doubt, into a friend. All who were present at this ceremony had their penances remitted for thirteen days. Two other incidents ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... Lords and Commons, loudly taxed in print with this charge against them at full length? Is it not the perpetual echo of every Whig coffeehouse and club? Have they not quartered Popery and the Pretender upon the peace, and treaty of commerce; upon the possessing, and quieting, and keeping, and demolishing of Dunkirk? Have they not clamoured because the Pretender continued in France, and because he left it? Have they not reported, that the town swarmed with many thousand papists, when upon search there were never found so few of that religion in it before? If a clergyman ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... assumed, in scientific minds, its final character, that of a God governing by general laws, the positive spirit, having now no longer need of the fictitious medium of imaginary entities, set itself to the easy task of demolishing the instrument by which it had risen. But though it destroyed the actual belief in the objective reality of these abstractions, that belief has left behind it vicious tendencies of the human mind, which are still far enough from being extinguished, and ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill

... "phalanx," let us briefly trace the progress of Von Linsingen, whom we left on the road to Stryj and the Dniester, or rather, attempting to force that road. While the forts of Przemysl were being smashed in the north, Von Linsingen was pounding and demolishing the Russian positions between Uliczna and Bolechov. Heavy mortars and howitzers were at the same time being placed into position in front of the Russian trenches ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... upset, M. Berryer advanced another point. As might have been expected of so accomplished an advocate, he had little difficulty in demolishing the elaborate, but specious and unsupported, hypothesis built up by the other side. Hard facts did more with the stolid and unimaginative Rouen jury than ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... business it was to see that these famished men looted nothing. When a deserted house was reached no pretence at protecting it was made. Such a house of course never contained food, and our men sought in it only what would serve for firewood, in some cases almost demolishing the place in their eagerness to secure a few small sticks, or massive beams. Nothing in that ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... twelve miles distant from Paris. About a week before the rising of the Partisans, and their taking the Bastille, it was discovered that a plot was forming, at the head of which was the Count D'Artois, the king's youngest brother, for demolishing the National Assembly, seizing its members, and thereby crushing, by a coup de main, all hopes and prospects of forming a free government. For the sake of humanity, as well as freedom, it is well this ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... grand seigniors. He had never felt confidence in the professions of the time-serving Aerschot, nor did he trust even the brave Champagny, notwithstanding his services at the sack of Antwerp. He was especially indignant that provision had been made, not for demolishing but for restoring to his Majesty those hateful citadels, nests of tyranny, by which the flourishing cities of the land were kept in perpetual anxiety. Whether in the hands of King, nobles, or magistrates, they were equally odious to him, and he had long since determined that they should be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... are confronted with more than one of the bad guys." He grinned and flicked the gun to full automatic and in a Gotterdammerung of sound in the confines of the room, emptied the clip into his target sending splinters and chips flying and all but demolishing the wooden backdrop. ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... in finding good subjects for hanging. Accordingly, on the thirtieth of June, three victims more were sacrificed on the old Place de Greve, "partly for heresy and for celebrating the Lord's Supper in their house; partly"—so it was pretended—"for having assisted in demolishing altars." In the great number of similar executions with which the sanguinary records of Paris abound, the fate of Nicholas Croquet and the two De Gastines—father and son—would have been forgotten, but for the extraordinary measures taken in respect to the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... that it involves loss of dignity to creative talent to try to right itself if wronged, but here we are without the requisite statistics. Creative talent may come off with all the dignity it went in with, and it may accomplish a very good work in demolishing criticism. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... scarcely made myself a cup of coffee, and not yet added the cream, which encouraged the spoon to stand upright in its thickness, when R—— and P——, tired with their angling, came in. After demolishing nearly a dozen eggs amongst us, and two capital salmon-trout, which our fast friend, the Anglo-Norwegian, had filched from a large cistern, where they are placed during the winter, for the benefit of his master's table; and after imbibing cauldrons of coffee—so delicious was its flavour—we ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... the beauty, simplicity, and sublimity of that comparison. I remained absolutely mute and confounded. Though it was demolishing all the traditions and doctrines of my Church, and pulverizing all my holy doctors and theologians, that noble answer found such an echo in my soul that it seemed to me a sacrilege to try to touch it with ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... participate in my sentiments;" and the Queen herself confirmed the King's assurance. These apparent marks of confidence were very inconsistent with the agitated state of her mind. "These people want no sovereigns," said she. "We shall fall before their treacherous though well-planned tactics; they are demolishing the monarchy stone ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... as Edward the Confessor left it till the reign of Henry III., who showed his love for the Abbey first by adding to it, and then by demolishing it almost entirely, and raising in its place the building that has been called "the most lovely and lovable thing in Christendom." In this rebuilding St. Peter was almost lost sight of, and the Shrine and Chapel of Edward ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... favourite piece of apologetic juggling is that of first demolishing Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, &c., by successively calling upon them to explain the mystery of self-existence, and then tacitly assuming that the need of such an explanation is absent in the case of Theism—as though the attribute in question were more conceivable ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... rather a paean sung on behalf of his friend Sulpicius, who in bad health had encountered the danger of the journey, and had died in the effort, than one of these Philippics which are supposed to have been written and spoken with the view of demolishing Antony. It is a specimen of those funereal orations delivered on behalf of a citizen who had died in the service of his country which used to be common ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... a demolishing pamphlet against the prominent gentlemen of the neighborhood to which he was about to return for his declining years could hardly have been a grateful task. The passage from political disaster to social enmities ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... showed a great understanding of his prisoner—far too great an understanding for a man who was supposed to be a stranger to Lablache—in the way he set about to torture his victim. No bodily pain could have equaled the mental agony to which the usurer was submitted. The sight of the demolishing of his beautiful ranch—probably the most beautiful in the country—was a cruelly exquisite torture to the money-loving man. That dread conflagration represented the loss to him of a fortune, for, with grasping pusillanimity, Lablache had refused to insure his ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... mankind, this consent is little taken notice of: and therefore many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government, as demolishing an house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a common-wealth, by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one. Sec. 176. That the aggressor, ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... remember the glorious rapines and robberies you have committed? Your breaking open and gutting of houses, your rummaging of cellars, your demolishing of Christian temples, and bearing off, in triumph, the superstitious plate and pictures, the ornaments of their wicked altars, when all rich moveables were sentenced for idolatrous, and all that was idolatrous ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... with reference to the affairs over which he had long presided, and in the present instance, following the minister, he was particularly happy. He had a good case, and he was gratified by the success of Endymion. He complimented him and confuted his opponent, and, not satisfied with demolishing his arguments, Lord Roehampton indulged in a little raillery which the House enjoyed, but which was never pleasing to the more ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... while their desire was that none of the adverse party might be left,] and sometimes on their enemies; a famine also coming upon us, reduced us to the last degree of despair, as did also the taking and demolishing of cities; nay, the sedition at last increased so high, that the very temple of God was burnt down by their enemies' fire. Such were the consequences of this, that the customs of our fathers were altered, and such a change was ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... wing alone was ever constructed, but abandoned it on being warned by her astrologer, Ruggieri, that she should die under the ruins of a house near St Germain.[127] Henry, soon after he had entered Paris, elaborated a vast scheme for finishing the Tuileries, demolishing the churches of St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, quadrupling the size of the old Louvre, and joining the two palaces by continuing the Grande Galerie, already begun by Catherine, to the west, to afford a means of escape in the event of an attack ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... and to the ardent desire of my warmest friends, tho' my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath-waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats." After some weeks the requisite funds were placed at Fielding's disposal; and so successful were his methods, that within a few days, the whole gang was dispersed, some in custody, others in flight. His health ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... suddenly started up and overrun the land, decrying and denouncing all that have not yielded at once to their sway; by direct and open efforts shaking and destroying public confidence in the settled and more permanent ministry, leaving old paths and striking out new ones, demolishing old systems and substituting others, and disturbing and deranging the whole order of society as it had existed before. And it is to this new state of things, so harassing, so destructive to health and life, that the regular ministry of this country (the best qualified, most ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... wall-placard, "Horses and buggies for hire. The best turn-out in the city. Telephone No. ——." This levelling spirit is gradually converting the historic Walled City into a busy retail trading-centre. For a long time the question of demolishing the city walls has been debated. Surely those who advocate the destruction of this fine historical monument cannot be of that class of Americans whose delight is to travel thousands of miles, at great expense, only to glance at antiquities not more ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... experimental garden unsafe to enter;—they always swarm into underbrush and shrubbery after forest-trees have been clearedd away.... Subsequently the garden was greatly damaged by storms and torrential rains; the mountain river overflowed, carrying bridges away and demolishing stone- work. No attempt was made to repair these destructions; but neglect alone would not have ruined the lovliness of the place;— barbarism was necessary! Under the present negro-radical regime orders ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... in the veins of the veriest Viking. After riding about ten miles, we left the rough paths we had hitherto pursued, and struck, across country. For two hours or more we forced our way slowly and painfully through bush and brake—through marshy rills and rocky burns—demolishing snake-fences whenever we broke out on a clearing. Shipley led his mare almost the whole way; and I, thinking the saddle safest and pleasantest conveyance over ordinarily rough ground, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... Battle of the Alma will always remain as one of the masterpieces of literature in its way; but it is noticeable that Todleben entirely ignores some of the historian's most dramatic effects, and also knocks away much of his underpinning by demolishing the reputation of General Kiriakoff, his favorite Russian witness. Kinglake says that Eupatoria was occupied by a small body of English troops, and tells a good story about it: Todleben declares that the Allies occupied it with more than three thousand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... gone—straight to the train. I did not pause at Fredonia but went on to the capital. The next morning I had the legislature and the attorney-general at work demolishing Granby's business in my state—for I had selected him to make an example of, incidentally because he had insulted me, but chiefly because he was the most notorious of my ten, was about the greediest and crudest "robber baron" in the West. My legislature ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... of liberty and virtue, and the deformity, turpitude and malignity of slavery and vice.—Let the public disputations become researches into the grounds and nature and ends of government, and the means of preserving the good and demolishing the evil.—Let the dialogues and all the exercises become the instruments of impressing on the tender mind, and of spreading and distributing, far and wide, the ideas of right and ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... course a characteristic of the eighteenth century always to take up the ethical and high prudential view of whatever had to be justified, and Rousseau seems from this point to have been successful in demolishing arguments which might hold of Greek tragedy at its best, but which certainly do not hold of any other dramatic forms. The childishness of the old criticism which attaches the label of some moral from the copybook to each piece, as its lesson and point of moral aim, is ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... through the interstices; and presently they came to a round hole about the size of a man's eye, and Dick, looking down through it, beheld the interior of the hall, and some half a dozen men sitting, in their jacks, about the table, drinking deep and demolishing a venison pie. These were certainly some ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... The peace-officers, carpenters, and scenemen (which last, on account of the pantomime, were very numerous), and other servants of the theatre, had not appeared until the tumult was at its height. The benches were being torn up, and there were threats of storming the stage and demolishing the scenes. If any "bruisers" were in the pit, the manager presumed that they must have entered the house with the multitude who came in after the doorkeepers had been driven from their posts. Finally, he appealed to the public to pronounce whether, after the concession he had made, and the injury ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... threatens my country. The Swedes are on the frontiers, or rather within my territories, for they hold possession of Pomerania, which is mine. They are on the point of invading the Mark, Banner again threatens my poor, exhausted lands, and it is said that he has already issued orders for the demolishing of Berlin. Schwarzenberg for that very reason had the suburbs of Berlin and Cologne burned down, thus laying the city open to assault; from Saxony, also, the Swedish general Stallhansch advances upon Brandenburg, and all is in a fair way to encircle ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... presupposed that the German Powers would also confine themselves to an attitude of abstention, and would avoid furnishing a pretext for an Italian attack of Austria." At length, the Piedmontese fleet, under Admiral Persano, succeeded in demolishing the more important portion of the fortifications of Ancona. A white flag was now displayed on the citadel and all the lesser forts; and Major Mauri was sent on board the admiral's ship to negotiate a capitulation. The firing ceased on both sides. ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... batteries they served, Tom Raymond and Jack Parmly were eagerly seeking for a sight of the prison where Harry Leroy might be held. At one time after they had dropped bombs on some German positions, thereby demolishing them, Tom, who was acting as pilot, signaled to his chum that he was going far over the enemy's lines to try to ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach

... as he paused from demolishing a well-buttered batter cake, and handed his cup for a second supply of the fragrant Mocha, "I will leave it to your savoir faire to transform our friend Arthur into a thorough southerner, before we yield him back to his Green Mountains. He is already half a convert ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... now greatly weakened, slowly stirred before its final rush to the sea. Then the moment arrived when it started forward, impelled by the gathering mass up-stream. All day long it surged onward, and far on into the night, carrying along trees, and stones, ripping and grinding, demolishing a wharf here, or up-rooting a tree there. No power of man could stop it. People stood on the shore watching the sight, familiar, and yet always new. The last sign of winter had now departed, and all knew that in a few hours the first steamer ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody

... when a perfect shower of balls had passed through the tissue drums, quite demolishing them, a shower of coloured papers, miniature lanterns, paper umbrellas, and flags came slowly fluttering down among the children on to their jet-black bobbing heads and into their eager outstretched hands. Never have I seen anything more beautiful ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore

... side it is an attempt to explain everything as the emanation of the One. But philosophy in the third century debased itself in order to support the tottering polytheistic religion of the pagan world against the modified Hebraic creed, Christianity, which was fast demolishing its power. Against the Trinity of the Church the philosophers set up a heavenly Trinity of so-called reason: the Ineffable One, the Demiurgic Mind, and the World Soul; and between this Trinity and man they placed intermediate hierarchies of gods, angels, and demons—in fact, the ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... the same year he brought forward his Budget, which he defended at great length and with all his ability. This Budget, and the arguments by which it was supported, Mr. Gladstone—who had already refused to take the place in the Derby Cabinet—attacked in a speech of extraordinary power, demolishing one by one the positions of his opponent, rebuking with dignified severity the license of his language, and calling upon the House to condemn the man and his measures. Such was the effect of this speech that the Government was defeated by a decided majority. Thus dethroned, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he could be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was demolishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day, generally to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild; declined doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sundry indignities; and was always very ready to turn and came faster back, and trotted up the stair with ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... to tear down the old school-house, and use the lumber, which was in a good state of preservation, in the construction of the new kitchen. Before demolishing the old house, however, I made an estimate of the amount of material contained in it, and found that I would have to buy several hundred feet of new lumber in order to build the new kitchen according ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... be compared with the Anthrax as regards the means brought into play in order to leave the cell. These others, when they become perfect insects, have implements for sapping and demolishing, stout mandibles, capable of digging the ground, of pulling down clay partition walls and even of reducing the mason bee's tough cement to powder. The Anthrax, in her final form, has nothing like this. Her mouth is a short, soft proboscis, good at most for soberly licking the sugary exudations ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... the morning of the 22d the Germans had increased their bombardment. Shells of the largest caliber fell, uprooting trees and demolishing houses. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)



Words linked to "Demolishing" :   destruction, tearing down, devastation, leveling, demolish, razing



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