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Ruining   /rˈuɪnɪŋ/   Listen
Ruining

noun
1.
Destruction achieved by causing something to be wrecked or ruined.  Synonyms: laying waste, ruin, ruination, wrecking.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ruining" Quotes from Famous Books



... re-assembled in the autumn, Tschaikowsky appeared among them a married man, but looking the picture of despair. A few weeks later he fled from Moscow, and when next heard of was lying dangerously ill in St. Petersburg. One thing was evident, the ill-considered marriage came very near ruining his life. The doctors ordered rest and change of scene, and his brother Modeste Ilyitch took him to Switzerland and afterward to Italy. The peaceful life and change of scene did much to restore his shattered nerves. Just at this time a wealthy widow lady, Madame ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... won't you step in and help me? My pig has got out, and I can't catch him, and he is ruining my garden!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... others. With the assistance of a bad cook and a constant spleen caused by resentment against the intervention of his priest, good Father Roche, he finished his career with great haste and without either becoming a nuisance to his neighbours or ruining his property. The property was clear of mortgage or debt when he set out ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... are dark is evident from the fact that its members, when summoned by the Hepburn committee, declined to testify, lest their testimony be used to convict them of crime. Officials of the trust have bribed or attempted to bribe employes of rival firms, for the purpose of ruining their business. By its peculiar methods the company has been successful in courts of justice and legislative halls, and has enjoyed an impunity for its conspiracy against the public that is without precedent in America. It has accumulated a capital of more than $100,000,000, and it ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... song many were weeping; men who had not shed a tear for years, now wept like children. One young man who had resisted with scorn the pleadings of a loving mother and the entreaties of friends to strive to lead a better life, to desist from a course that was wasting his fortune and ruining his health, now approached the child, and taking both hands in his, while tears streamed down his ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus

... inhuman attributes. Tyrant, despot, usurper; destroyer of the liberties of his country; rash, ignorant, imbecile; endangering the public peace with all foreign nations; destroying domestic prosperity at home; ruining all industry, all commerce, all manufactures; annihilating confidence between man and man; delivering up the streets of populous cities to grass and weeds, and the wharves of commercial towns to the encumbrance ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... Mrs. Trent caught the bridle, and Aunt Sally snatched first one, then the other, child from the creature's back, who, as soon as he was relieved of his yelling burden, started at a gallop across the garden, ruining its beds and borders ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... its grog-shop; in 1725 the King ordered that no parish should have more than two. Quebec had a dozen or more, and complaint was made that the people flocked to these resorts early in the morning, thus rendering themselves unfit for work during most of the day, and soon ruining their health into the bargain. There is no doubt that the people of New France were fond of the flagon, for not only the priests but the civil authorities complained of this failing. Idleness due to the numerous holidays and to the long winters combined with the tradition of ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... (Quinquennalia.) They were intended to protect not only the debtor, but also the aggregate of creditors against the short-sighted severity of one of their number. They were wont to be given especially when the debtor showed that immediate execution would not only have the effect of ruining himself, but of sending his creditors away empty handed; while, if time were given him, he would be able to satisfy every one.(564) But the granting of such letters has, in recent times, been prohibited(565) ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... time, as the fox and the stoat were going through the fern, the stoat said: "It appears to me that this is a very favourable opportunity for ruining the weasel. Could we not make up some tale, and tell Kapchack how the weasel asked us to a ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... openly deserted them. After the interview with Power, Harpour had abused him roundly as a turncoat, and he had told his former associates that he was sorry to have had anything to do with their machinations; that they were going all wrong, and were ruining the school, and that he at any rate felt that he had done mischief enough already, and meant to do no more. This proof of their failing influence exasperated them greatly. Harpour threatened, and Mackworth ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... when it rained!—But look at these stomachers, stiff with embroidery and jewels, and with points that reach half-way from the waist to the ground! See those enormous ruffs, standing out a quarter of a yard, and curving over so smoothly to their very edges! What a protection the fear of ruining those ruffs must have been against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... fight," he answered, and then trying to show a practical spirit, he added: "Never has the art of war cost more money than since war itself has become an impossibility. The present-day defensive peace is purely and simply ruining every country in Europe. One may be spared defeat, but utter bankruptcy is certainly at the end of it all. And in any case the profession of arms is done for. All faith in it is dying out, and it will soon be forsaken, just as men have begun ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... between Cassio, Rodrigo and Jago, in the course of which the latter makes Cassio drunk. Jago's demoniacal nature is masterfully depicted here, where he soon succeeds in ruining Cassio, who loses his rank ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... years ago our brave gentleman scented his game, and ever since has been trying to trap this misguided lass, for like the rest o' them, when he is not persecuting the saints, he is ruining innocent women soul and body. I would have you understand that, daughter, and maybe ye will walk with him less in the pleasaunce." Both women were standing, and Lady Cochrane was watching Jean to see ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... exceedingly probably that no young physician or medical student could testify to cruelties witnessed in any physiological laboratory, if they involved his instructors or fellow-students, without injuring and perhaps ruining altogether his professional career. Only in later years, when success and independence have been attained, can he venture to speak freely of what he has seen. Some men have thus spoken. The testimony of two is ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... archbishop of Bordeaux, the Cardinal de Montmorency, grand-almoner, M. de Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, M. de Conzie, bishop of Arras,[2266] and, in the first rank, the Abbe de Saint-Germain des Pres, Comte de Clermont, prince of the blood, who, with an income of 370,000 francs succeeds in ruining himself twice, who performs in comedies in his town and country residences, who writes to Colle in a pompous style and, who, in his abbatial mansion at Berny, installs Mademoiselle Leduc, a dancer, to do the honors of his table.—There is no hypocrisy. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... am I anyway? No good. In my own way. In my child's way. A young man like Leo Friedlander crazy to propose and my child can't let him come to the point because she is afraid to leave her mother. Oh, I know—I know more than you think I do. Ruining your life! That's what I am, and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Lady Macbeth, sometimes Meg Merrilies, sometimes Lucretia Borgia, but never for a moment Juliet. We speak thus plainly of Miss Anderson because her injudicious and enthusiastic friends are injuring, if they are not ruining her. Her fine physique, her dash, her beautiful face, her clear ringing voice, have carried crowds off their heads—well, they are off at both ends; for on last Thursday night the amount of applauding was based on shoe leather. The lovely Anderson was called out at the end of each ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar

... even made this discovery, he might sometimes make it too late, and might find that he had already discounted the bills of those projectors to so great an extent, that, by refusing to discount any more, he would necessarily make them all bankrupts; and thus by ruining them, might perhaps ruin himself. For his own interest and safety, therefore, he might find it necessary, in this very perilous situation, to go on for some time, endeavouring, however, to withdraw gradually, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... Company's policy to destroy them along the whole frontier; and our general instructions recommend that every effort be made to lay waste the country, so as to offer no inducement to petty traders to encroach on the Company's limits. Those instructions have indeed had the effect of ruining the country, but not of protecting the Company's domains. Along the Canadian frontier, the Indians, finding no more game on their own lands, push beyond the boundary, and not only hunt on the Company's territory, but carry a supply of goods with them, which ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... a rule, a safe and wholesome form of cooking. Slow frying, which means stewing in melted grease for twenty or thirty minutes, is one of the most effective ways ever invented of spoiling good food and ruining digestion. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... courtesan; the Marquis de T. hesitated over a piece of furniture the price of which was being run high by Mme. D., the most elegant and famous adulteress of our time; the Duke of Y., who in Madrid is supposed to be ruining himself in Paris, and in Paris to be ruining himself in Madrid, and who, as a matter of fact, never even reaches the limit of his income, talked with Mme. M., one of our wittiest story-tellers, who from time ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... either side, and once hearing a sleigh coming along, she had to plunge into a drift nearly as high as her waist, and stand there till the vehicle had passed, with the snow freezing her ankles, and also ruining, as she well knew, her lovely morocco shoes. Suddenly a tall figure loomed up close before her, there was a rattle of accoutrements, and ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... Monica answered, 'do you ever ask yourself whether you try to make me love you? Scenes like this are ruining my health. I have come to dread your talk. I have almost forgotten the sound of your voice when it isn't either ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... a bright idea, and with much labor and language he loaded the goats into the trailer and had the water-hauler take them out to the hills. But that didn't work at all. Part of the flock came back afoot, from sheer homesickness, and the rest were hauled back because they were ruining the spring which was ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... completely changed. They loudly regretted the paternal government of the house of Austria, under which they had lived for so long, and were most anxious to separate themselves from France, whose continual wars were ruining their trade and industry. In a word, Belgium awaited only a favourable moment to revolt, an event which would be the more serious for us because, by its geographical situation the province was in the rear of the weakened army corps which we still had on the Rhine. The ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... of ruining herself, and even of perpetrating something which would send her to Siberia, for the mere pleasure of injuring a man for whom she had developed so inhuman a sense of loathing and contempt. He had sufficient insight to understand that she valued nothing in the world—herself ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... thinkest what is one more of those damnable heresies which are ruining this land and corrupting the whole world," cried Nicholas between his shut teeth. "Thou hast learned none such vile doctrine ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... as a servant he had seemed at one time of daily necessity. If he might but once be her skipper, her groom, her attendant, he might then at least learn how to discover to her the bond between them, without breaking it in the very act, and so ruining the hope ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... lamp and ruining my eyes, I won a scholarship which paid my tuition fees and room rent, so that I was released from the necessity of drawing on the hard-earned savings of my father. The usual college pranks were played, tubs of water were poured from upper windows upon the heads of freshmen who ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... pretty girl in the street. As a lay Carthusian he wore a hair-shirt next his skin, disciplined his bare back with scourges, slept on the cold ground or a hard bench, and by a score other strong measures sought to preserve his spiritual by ruining his bodily health. But nature was too powerful for unwholesome doctrine and usage, and before he rashly took a celibatic vow, he knelt to fair Jane Colt—and rising, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... all this is instantly forgotten, and the same men who but yesterday were proving the cruelty, futility, the senselessness of wars now think, speak, and write only about killing as many men as possible, about ruining and destroying the greatest possible amount of the productions of human labor, and about exciting as much as possible the passion of hatred in those peaceful, harmless, industrious men who by their labor feed, clothe, maintain these same pseudo-enlightened men, who compel them to commit ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy

... acts by your direction; and you are resolved to support him in his impudence This is a bad return for all the services I have done you; for nursing you in your sickness, managing your family, and keeping you from ruining yourself by your own imprudence — But now you shall part with that rascal or me, upon the spot, without farther loss of time; and the world shall see whether you have more regard for your own flesh and blood, or for a beggarly ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... startle the country, and aid the conspiracy in overturning the authority of the United States Government, With the "Michigan" in their hands, the conspirators would have a powerful auxilliary in their pernicious designs upon the country, and be able to render effective aid to the Southern Rebellion; ruining the commercial status of the United States on the great lakes, and effectually closing all the ports on their borders, and in addition to this, their laying all the large towns and cities on the northern portion under contributions, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer

... Abbey's broadest wall, Where ruining ivies propp'd the ruins steep— Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall, [73:2]Had Melancholy mus'd herself to sleep. The fern was press'd beneath her hair, The dark green Adder's Tongue[74:1] was there; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... do is excruciating, hellish, and they don't realise it. That's the worst of it. They'll never be the same again. They're ruining their health, and, what's more important, their looks. You can see them changing under your eyes. Ours was the best factory on the Clyde, and the conditions were unspeakable, in spite of canteens, ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... better moral tendency to say "You forgot," or "You did it inadvertently," than to say "You acted unfairly," or "You behaved shamefully:" as also "Don't contend with your brother," than "Don't envy your brother;" and "Avoid the woman who is your ruin," than "Stop ruining the woman." Such is the language employed in rebuke that desires to reform and not to wound; that rebuke which looks merely at the effect to be produced acts on another principle. For when it is necessary to stop people on the verge of wrong-doing, or to check ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... used that nations will exhaust the credit of generations yet unborn in waging war. How some folk keep their cheap and easy optimism about humanity's use of its new energies is a mystery. We have come pretty near to ruining ourselves with them already. If we do not achieve more spiritual control over them than we have yet exhibited we will ruin ourselves with them altogether. Once more in history a whole civilization will commit suicide like Saul ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... was to be fought among the sand-dunes, Tilling had quite overlooked the significance of the early train. She felt sure that she had solved everything now, and gave herself up to a rapturous consideration of what use she would make of the precious solution. All regrets for the impossibility of ruining the character of Captain Puffin with regard to intoxicants were gone, for she had an even deadlier blacking to hand. No faintest hesitation at ruining the reputation of Major Benjy as well crossed her mind; she ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... that he should not go. She knew, she said, that the business was something which would end in ruining him and his family, and she was determined that he should not risk her safety and his own life in any such desperate and treasonable plans. She locked the door upon him, and when he insisted on being released, she declared that ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... afraid of false objections, those which arise from an obstinate translation of the new philosophy into an old language steeped in a different metaphysic. With what has Mr Bergson been reproached? With misunderstanding reason, with ruining positive science, with being caught in the illusion of getting knowledge otherwise than by intelligence, or of thinking otherwise than by thought; in short, of falling into a vicious circle by making intellectualism ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy

... Why not? It was a crude and primitive punishment, but it would take drastic treatment to get under the hide of this sneering bully who had come within an ace of ruining the life of June Tolliver. The law could not touch him. He had not abducted her. She had gone of her own volition. Unfulfilled intentions are not criminal without an overt act. Was he to escape scot free? She had ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... will have the message from his father for you to bear, and you must not fail, for it may mean the ruining of ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... cried her husband passionately, "you are past all endurance! Can nothing touch you?—nothing fix your thoughts, and make you serious for a single moment? Can I not make you understand that you are ruining yourself and me; that we have nothing to depend upon but the bounty of that man whom you disgust by your caprice, extravagance, and impertinence; and that if you don't get reconciled to your father what is to become of you? You already know what you have to expect ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... just yield to requests without looking into them, without seeing what your siller is going to do, you may be ruining the one you're trying to help. There are times when a man must meet adversity and overcome it by his lane, if he's ever to amount to anything in this world. It's hard to decide such things. It's easier just to give, and sit back in the glow of virtue that comes with doing that. But wall your ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... infibulated their gladiators to restrain them from venery, but they also subjected their chanters and singers to the same ordeal, as it was found to improve the voice; comedians and public dancers were also restrained from ruining their talents by the means of infibulation. In an old Amsterdam edition of Locke's "Essay on the Extent of the Human Understanding," there is a quotation from the voyages of Baumgarten, wherein he states having seen ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... bursts into local politics and social affairs now and then. It managed to jump the track in the campaign of '96, leaving four distinguished Democratic speakers, fizzing with oratory, in the cornfields, and ruining the only rally the Dems attempted to pull off. And it took DeLancey Payley down after all the rest of the town had failed, in a manner which kept us tearful with delight for a week. DeLancey was sequestered in an Eastern college ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch

... metal dust or filings, fine sand, ground glass, emery dust (get it by pounding up an emery knife sharpener) and similar hard, gritty substances directly into lubrication systems. They will scour smooth surfaces, ruining pistons, cylinder walls, shafts, and bearings. They will overheat and stop motors which will need overhauling, new parts, and extensive repairs. Such materials, if they are used, should be introduced into lubrication systems past any filters which ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services

... Philip. I want you to be. You will be, won't you? I did not dream that I was ruining your ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers

... that the Tackers meant no harm. Humanum est errare. He was certain that if he showed them their error, they would repent and be converted. All the same, he could not recommend them to the electors. "A Tacker is a man of passion, a man of heat, a man that is for ruining the nation upon any hazards to obtain his ends. Gentlemen freeholders, you must not choose a Tacker, unless you will destroy our peace, divide our strength, pull down the Church, let in the French, and depose ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... it, and contentedly puff away; another stops an obliging policeman or railway guard, and ignites his tobacco by hard pulling at the flame of an oil-lamp; another will stick the end of a choice cigar into the bowl of a pipe filled with coarsest Shag, thus ruining the flavor of his 'prime Havana' forever; while yet another will light lucifer matches, and apply the blazing brimstone to his pipe or cigar, thus saturating the whole mass with sulphurous and phosphoretic fumes, to the ruin of the weed and the injury ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... fortune, and was evidently a more faithful counselor than those who made it their business to please and flatter, he was ashamed, and repented that he had neglected so great a man, and suffered Antigonus to get so much power and reputation by ruining him. He now offered him many marks of respect and kindness, and gave him hopes that he would furnish him with ships and money to return to Greece, and would reinstate him in his kingdom. He granted him a yearly pension of four and twenty talents; a little part of which sum supplied ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... have. Had not my feelings decided against you—had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... promise and I would have kept it, but they found your telegram and mother read it—by mistake, of course. I ought to have had sense enough to burn it. You can't imagine how awful it has been. Mother said the most terrible things about you, things she had heard. And she said that I would be ruining my life and hers. I said I didn't care, because I loved you. I can't tell you what an awful quarrel we had! And I wouldn't have given in, but she told Gordon and he was so terribly angry. He said it was a ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... seems to have been the first to assist and cooeperate in the whole evil, gave information of the matter because he had not obtained freedom nor any of the other objects of his hope. He was, indeed, very skillful not only at leading women into prostitution, but also in slandering and ruining some of ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio

... so become entangled as in a net, till he cannot escape his evil companions, and lowers himself to their level day by day, till he becomes as bad as they. Just as a man may be unfaithful to his wife once, and so blunt his conscience till he becomes a thorough profligate, breaking her heart, and ruining his own soul. Just as—but why should I go on, mentioning ugly examples, which we all know too well, if we will open our own eyes and see the world and mankind as they are? I will say no more, lest I should set you on judging other people, and saying 'There is no hope for them. They ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... with hundreds of years of memories, bad or good." You can never replace it, while the hundred men will, at the very moment they are killed, be replaced, just as good on the average, by the ordinary operations of nature. Besides, by partially ruining the castle, you give an opening to the sin of the restorer, for which there is, we know, no pardon, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... of it, in the course of which the Duke declared his purpose of sending at once to Mr. Sprout for ever so many cork soles, and the Duchess,—most imprudently,—declared her purpose of ruining Mr. Sprout. There was something in this threat which grated terribly against the Duke's sense of honour;—that his wife should threaten to ruin a poor tradesman, that she should do so in reference to the political affairs of the borough ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... I therefore bow my knees unto the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would cause all grace to abound to you and in you, that your poor place may be delivered from those breaking and ruining calamities which are threatened as the pernicious consequences of Satan's malicious operations; and that you may not be left to bite and devour one another in your sacred or civil society, in your relations or families, to the destroying much good and promoting much evil among ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... blows, and howls; and the day passes in tears." "Then mass, then another lesson, then more blows; there is hardly time to eat." I have no space to finish the picture of the stupid misery which, Buchanan says, was ruining his intellect, while it starved his body. However, happier days came. Gilbert Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis, who seems to have been a noble young gentleman, took him as his tutor for the next five years; and with him he ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... course is pursued which estranges moderate men and embitters extreme men, agitators came to the front lacking that self-control and sense of responsibility which the sobering education of office alone can give, and generally ruining themselves while they benefit humanity at large. Chief of these was W.L. Mackenzie, a Presbyterian Scot from Dundee. All this man really wanted was what exists to-day as a matter of course in all self-governing countries—responsible government. He even conceived that great idea ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... footless and frantic, White myriads for death to bestride In the charge of the ruining Atlantic Where deaths by regiments ride, With clouds and clamours of waters, With a long note shriller than slaughter's On the ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... you, sir, that the end of the world has come. No one has ever beheld such outbreaks among the students! It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything,—artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing will kill bookselling. It is the end of the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... thought the big men of the profession knew everything they pretended to know This was my ambition, but the ability to size up symptoms under given conditions and tell their true worth forever eluded me and kept me in a state of unrest and discontent that was next to ruining my life. If light had not come when it did I should have abandoned the profession, but it came accidentally; it could not come otherwise for I did not know how to look for it. In the course of time I stored in my memory many cases that from accident or caprice had recovered without drugs and food. ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... moan along the forest swells Protracted, and the twilight storm foretels, And, ruining from the cliffs, their deafening load Tumbles,—the wildering Thunder slips abroad; On the high summits Darkness comes and goes, Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows; The torrent, traversed by the lustre ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... peace is wanting, there is evil surmising and evil speaking, to the damage and disgrace, if not to the ruining of one another (Gal 5:14,15): 'The whole law is fulfilled in one word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; but if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.' No sooner the bond of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... so rich, I should probably love Trevvy madly. But, you see, then Trevvy wouldn't love me. He couldn't afford to. He's ruining himself with roses as it is. And, curiously enough, I have a notion when I marry, to love—and be loved for myself alone. I'm not in love with Trevvy or any one else—or likely to be. The man I marry, Auntie, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... England, who came to study Greek and Latin and read theology, not to ride horses and row boats, to put on dandified airs and sneer at lectures, running away to London to attend theatres and flirt with girls and drink champagne, beggaring their fathers and ruining their own expectations and their health. In a very short time after the accession of Elizabeth, which was hailed generally as a very auspicious event, things were restored to nearly the state in which they were left by Cranmer in the preceding reign. This was not done by direct authority ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... Laptev was convinced that the millions and the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... von Kluck's army, sweeping forward unopposed, reached the western and southwestern suburbs of Boston, passing through Newton and Brookline, and making a detour to avoid ruining the beautiful golf links where Ouimet won his famous victory over Ray and Vardon. This sportsmanlike consideration was due to the fact that several of the German officers and the Crown Prince himself were ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... not prefer the bliss of ruining himself!"—said her brother, rising and lightly stretching himself. Mrs. Burrage looked at him keenly ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... some respects, and though I frequently got into scrapes by playing impish tricks—as, for instance, when I combined with others to secure an obnoxious French master to his chair by means of some cobbler's wax, thereby ruining a beautiful pair of peg-top trousers which he had just purchased—I did not neglect my lessons, but secured a number of "prizes" with considerable facility. When I was barely twelve years old, not one of my schoolfellows—and some were sixteen ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... ruining themselves," said Mrs. John Rowdy to her husband, on receiving the pink note. It was carried round by that rogue of a buttony page in the evening; and he walked to Brobdingnag Gardens, and in the Park afterwards, with a young lady who is kitchen-maid at 27, and who is not more than ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray

... fortress-chateau which has given it history and fame for centuries. The Germans blew up the citadel out of sheer spite, as the vast pink pile long ago ceased to be of military value. They wished to show their power by ruining the future of the town, which lived on its monument historique: but (as often happens with their "frightfulness") that object was just the one they failed in. I can't believe that the castle of Ham was as striking in its untouched magnificence as now in the ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... "He is ruining it himself," replied Gagabu. "He is putting aside the old law, for he feels a new one growing up in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... it. You and your goblets and your Ignorant Rich. And your brother Hilary and my uncle Evelyn. Your great gifts seem to run in the family. My uncle, I hear, is ruining himself with buying the things your brother admires. My poor uncle, Miss Hope, is getting so weak-sighted that he can't judge for himself as he used, so he follows the advice of Margery's brother. It keeps him very happy and amused, though he'll ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... she would not simply disappoint many a beating heart in the glittering crowd that on different motives yearned for her success, but she would ruin herself, and, as the oracle within had told her, would, by ruining herself, ruin France. Our own Sovereign Lady Victoria rehearses annually a trial not so severe in degree, but the same in kind. She "pricks" for sheriffs. Joanna pricked for a king. But observe the difference: our own Lady pricks for two ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... he to the president, "the atrocities which have been acknowledged by Henriet, and you, as I do, consider them to be pure inventions of the aforesaid, made out of bitter hatred and envy with the purpose of ruining his master. I therefore demand that Henriet should be put on the rack, that he may be brought to give the lie ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... to remark about the law is that it was by no means a demagogue's sop tossed to the city mob which he was courting. Gracchus saw slave labour ruining free labour, and the manhood and soil of Italy and the Roman army proportionately depreciated. [Sidenote: Nothing demagogic about the proposal.] To fill the vacuum he proposed to distribute to the poor not only of Rome but of ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... companion. Hephaestion was his confidant, his associate, his personal friend. He did what very few monarchs have done, either before or since; in securing for himself the pleasures of friendship, and of intimate social communion with a heart kindred to his own, without ruining himself by committing to a favorite powers which he was not qualified to wield. Alexander left the wise and experienced Parmenio to manage the camp, while he took the young and handsome Hephaestion to accompany him on his ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... the politician, and sacrificed his best friends to further his selfish interests. Concerning his actions toward his benefactor, Essex, Macaulay says, "This friend, so loved, so trusted, bore a principal part in ruining the earl's fortunes, in shedding his blood, and in blackening his memory. But let us be just to Bacon. We believe that, to the last, he had no wish to injure Essex. Nay, we believe that he sincerely wished to serve Essex, as long as he could serve Essex without injuring himself."[88] ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley

... innocent girls from the country districts are every year entrapped into a life of hopeless slavery and degradation because parents in the country do not understand conditions as they exist and how to protect their daughters from the 'white slave' traders who have reduced the art of ruining young girls to a national and international system. I sincerely believe that nine-tenths of the parents of these thousands of girls who are every year snatched from lives of decency and comparative peace and dragged under the ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... their turn were suspected of ruining horses by riding them at night, and of embezzling grain issued for planting, as well as of lying and malingering in general. The carpenters, Washington said, were notorious piddlers; and not a slave about the mansion house was worthy of trust. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... emotional extravagance. He had, for instance, strongly objected to Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 only thirty-four, going to her native France, her "chere patrie" as, under the stimulus of war, she had begun to call it, to nurse her "braves poilus," forsooth! Ruining her health and her looks! As if she were really a nurse! He had put a stopper on it. Let her do needlework for them at home, or knit! She had not gone, therefore, and had never been quite the same woman since. A bad tendency of hers ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... immediate removal from the ranks of the Provisional Government of the "Socialist," the political adventurer-Kerensky, as one who is scandalising and ruining the great Revolution, and with it the revolutionary masses, by his shameless political blackmail on ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... vessels to France. Russia, Sweden, and Denmark made (1800) a defensive alliance of armed neutrality on the sea, to maintain the right of neutrals to trade with belligerents, and the doctrine that the neutral ship protects its freight (not being munitions of war) against seizure. England succeeded in ruining this alliance. Pitt now retired from office. He had accomplished the legislative union of England and Ireland, by which the separate Irish Parliament had ceased to exist (1800). But he had encouraged the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... her by false appearances, the very least she could have done would have been to have bought the jewels and given them to me. Madame Devy made my Court dress, which was of such material as, you see, I can use when I play "The Hunchback" at Lady Francis's. I am ruining myself, in spite of my best endeavors to be economical; but if it is any comfort for you to know it, my conscience ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... alike? Is it not enough that I, an impulsive American, accustomed to do a thing first, and reflect upon it afterwards, must grope my way through a blind alley of substantives and adjectives, only to find the verb of action in an obscure corner, without ruining my eyesight ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... to be materialism and atheism. The abbe de Prades was condemned, and deprived of his license (Jan 27, 1752). As he was known to be a friend of Diderot, and was suspected of being the writer of articles on theology in the Encyclopaedia, the design of the Jesuit cabal in ruining De Prades was to discredit the new undertaking, and to induce the government to prohibit it. Their next step was to procure a pastoral from the archbishop of Paris. This document not only condemned the heretical propositions of De Prades, but referred in sombre terms to unnamed works teeming ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... made some representations on this subject, to those made to us, namely by a man named ———, hatter, and your receiver at Quebec. It is true that the making of beaver hats half worked and other for export to France could turn out of consequence in ruining your privilege and the hat establishments in France. These are the only inconveniences, to my mind, to be feared, as I do not look upon such, the making of hats for the use of residents of the country. So that we have satisfied ourselves, until further orders, to ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... contemplated ruining his football career in the same manner, has he?" he asked politely, turning his gaze as he spoke on Paul. The latter fidgeted in his chair and looked over a ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... consequence of your persecutions. Haven't you outraged her so far as to call at her house?—you, a worthless creature! and this to the most saintly, the most charming, the best woman that ever lived! Why do you set your heart on ruining her?" ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... though an apologist of robbers and assassins, has neither murdered nor plundered; but, though he has not enriched himself, he has assisted in ruining all his former ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... Wentworth in the affections of Eva Seymour—Mrs. Wentworth's maiden name—and in the confidence of her father. Failing in this, and having the mortification of seeing them married, he set to work and succeeded in ruining Mr. Seymour in business, which accounts for the moderate circumstances in which we find Mrs. Wentworth and her husband at the commencement of this book. Worn out by his failure in business and loss of ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams

... door. 'I'm pained, grieved, and shocked at your attitude. I can only presume, however, that you are not engaged to be married, for surely your first thought would have been to ask your guardian's consent; and once more let me tell you, in being reckless as you have, you're simply ruining your future.' ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... have misunderstood me," he said, in a dry, harsh voice; "I have no intention of ruining your father or of depriving him of his good name. Mind! if I did I should only be taking my pound of flesh: and I may tell you that before I entered this house this afternoon I had resolved to have it. But I heard something that induced me to ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... himself too completely in that collapse with his Parliamentary instruments. On the other hand, the triumph of the National League on its present lines of action would diminish the value for good or evil of any man's hold upon the Irish people, for the obvious reason that by driving out of Ireland, and ruining, the class of "landlords" and capitalists, it would leave the country reduced to a dead level of peasant-holdings, saddled with a system of poor-rates beyond the ability of the peasant-holders to carry, and at the mercy, therefore, ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... the savagery that surrounded them, lured by those tribal rites which bear a fundamental resemblance to the ritual of the worship of the Cyprian Venus? Had he not seen the land covered with plague-spots in the shape of canteens from which poisonous liquor was set flowing far and wide, ruining the natives, body and soul? All this and more he had seen; all this and more he had prayed and struggled against through the weary years. He still prayed, but he ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... of the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Windmeyer, in December, 1888. This judge, the most respected in the great Australian colony, spoke out plainly and strongly on the morality of such teaching. "Take the case," he said, "of a woman married to a drunken husband, steadily ruining his constitution and hastening to the drunkard's doom, loss of employment for himself, semi-starvation for his family, and finally death, without a shilling to leave those whom he has brought into the world, but armed with the authority ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant



Words linked to "Ruining" :   destruction, laying waste, devastation, ruination, wrecking, ruin



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