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Annihilation   Listen
noun
Annihilation  n.  
1.
The act of reducing to nothing, or nonexistence; or the act of destroying the form or combination of parts under which a thing exists, so that the name can no longer be applied to it; as, the annihilation of a corporation.
2.
The state of being annihilated.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Annihilation" Quotes from Famous Books



... with adverse conditions, the Pygmies remain in their resting state, and, if left to themselves, might continue in this state for ages in the future as they have done for ages in the past. As the case now stands, however, annihilation threatens some of them, while educative and other influences from without may bring to an end the physical and mental isolation of ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... glade on the eastern slope of First Mountain on a balmy night in May. Far to the east, across the forested slopes of the lowlands, the flat stretches of open meadow and the rocky ridge that once had been Jersey City, the iridescent glow of Nu-Yok's protecting film of annihilation shot upward, gradually ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan

... those of whom I shall speak later, to those who are not possessed of a divine discernment, for they attain outwardly to a high degree of perfection, God eminently elevating their natural capacity, and replenishing it in an extraordinary manner; and yet they are never really brought to a state of annihilation to self, and God does not usually so draw them out of their own being that they become lost in Himself. Such characters as these are, however, the wonder and admiration of men. God bestows on them gifts upon gifts, graces upon graces, visions, revelations, ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon

... heard that trumpet voice, ordering us from the wagons to make one more stand, I never thought of my feet. Nor was there a shirker among the men—and all because the leader was Forrest. Nothing but death would have prevented us from responding to his summons. And we saved that defeated army from annihilation, holding the enemy at bay and driving him back, when, if he had known the true condition of affairs, he would have ridden over us roughshod. There were times when we were upon the point of giving ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris

... replied, thoughtfully. "They had probably lost many men by the time they reached this island, and had concluded that to continue on meant utter annihilation, while here they, with their superior arms and suits of mail, could stand off the enemy. So they decided to remain and make the best of it. With the labor of the Indians they captured from time to time they proceeded to fortify the island and make ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... not until the Second Revolt was crushed, that the 'Frisco Reds flourished again. And for two generations the Group flourished. Then an agent of the Iron Heel managed to become a member, penetrated all its secrets, and brought about its total annihilation. This occurred in 2002 A.D. The members were executed one at a time, at intervals of three weeks, and their bodies exposed in the labor-ghetto of ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... O'Donnell, was captured, Radetzky evacuated the city at the approach of Charles Albert's army from Piedmont. His outlying garrison was cut off by the Italians. Preferring the loss of Milan to a possible annihilation of the army, Radetzky fell back upon Verona. On the banks of the Adige, about twenty-five miles east of the Mincio, he rapidly concentrated all available forces, while the Italians threw up intrenchments on the Mincio. There, with the armies of Piedmont and Lombardy in front of ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... blows he has received by the order of the cadi." In vain did Giaffar represent that it would be attacking an angry and wounded lion in his den; that his wrath would be such, and his strength was so enormous, that they could not expect less than annihilation, should they venture to his door. "All that may be true," replied the caliph; "but still I will go and see ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... pleasures; but suppose that it did not. Imagine an existence in which happiness, of whatever intensity, is the rule, and discomfort, of whatever moderation, the exception. Still there is some discomfort. There is none in death, for (as it is given to us to know) that is oblivion, annihilation. True, by dying one loses his happiness as well as his sorrows, but he is not conscious of the loss. Surely, a loss of which one will never know, and which, if it operate to make him less happy, at the same time takes from him the desire and capacity and need ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... here that by the will of God the soul must exist forever whether it be in heaven or in hell; but, I say to you the preacher who seeks to deny and overthrow the doctrine of annihilation by defending the immortality of the soul is beaten before he begins. He has his pains for his labour. He can find no such expression as "immortal soul" in the Bible nor any such doctrine taught there. Above all, he is guilty of excuseless philological blundering. The ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman

... toward the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of the wars of departed ages; of the empires it had seen created and destroyed; of the nations whose birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had watched, whose annihilation it had noted; of the joy and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and decay, of five thousand slow revolving years. It was the type of an attribute of man—of a faculty of his heart and brain. It was MEMORY—RETROSPECTION—wrought into ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... in parting from it the pang of separation with the beloved writer was recalled. She pressed her lips upon it, and then with stern resolution dropped it into the fire that blazed upon the hearth; and, with cheek pallid and breath withheld, she marked the utter annihilation of the first and last memento she possessed of ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... But the annihilation of the French army and the capture of King Charles were not such light tasks as the allies had expected. The little band met their all but overwhelming onset with a stubborn resistance that was wonderful ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... procession of bedraggled and exhausted pleasure-seekers as we were, when three men stood behind our hotel door and opened it just wide enough to haul us in. But hot baths and boiling tea revived us and soon we were as merry as any people can be who have just escaped annihilation. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... stretch of the silent night had gone by, minute following minute in a slow sequence, wherein as there was no change there was no time; wherein there was no past and no future, but a stupefying, endless present which is almost the annihilation of consciousness. A change came then, for the clouds had also been moving and the moon at last was sensed behind them—not as a radiance, but as a percolation of light, a gleam that was strained through matter after matter ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... "justified by faith"; that is, we shall all rise from the dead as He rose. Apparently Paul's belief was that no one would ever have died but for the sin of Adam, a taint which has affected all Adam's descendants. Death in his view was synonymous with annihilation. ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... with his nose under his feet; and, as soon as he revived, he exclaimed, "Surely the Messiah was wroth with them that he caused the Moslems to prevail over them!" Then came the Arch Patriarch sadly to the King who said to him, "O our father, annihilation hath overtaken our army and the Messiah hath punished us!" Replied the Patriarch, "Grieve not nor feel concerned, for it cannot be but that one of you have sinned against the Messiah, and all have been punished for his offence; but now we will read ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... of sin granted in the process of justification is a real annihilation of guilt; that is to say, the sins remitted cease to exist in the moral (though not, of course, in the historical) order. Cfr. Ps. L, 3: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy; and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... French forces "by what authority he had invaded the king's dominions"; at twenty-two he was colonel in command of a regiment under General Braddock, and in the absence of a chaplain he read prayers daily himself. He saved the remnant of that ill-fated army from annihilation, and fifteen years after an aged Indian chief came to see the man at whom he had fired many times and who was protected by the Great Spirit. At his entrance as a member of the legislature of Virginia, the speaker greeted him with thanks ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple

... thence passing back into the great ocean of the Unknowable, or Nirvana, and ceasing to Be, so far as the phenomenal world is concerned, although of course it will exist in the Unknowable, which is Eternal. Many Western readers imagine the Buddhistic Nirvana to be an utter annihilation of existence and being, but the Hindu mind is far more subtle, and sees a vast difference between utter annihilation on the one hand, and extinction of personality on the other. That which appears Nothingness to the Western Mind, is seen as No-Thingness ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... concealing or underrating their force and gravity. It is a terrible experience for a man past a certain age in his life, to find himself in the grip of financial difficulties, and face to face with social annihilation. I have seen men there, and the very ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... prayers which do not expect to be answered. No one would dare to describe this work as profane, but whether it is religious or not is a question. As Boschot has said, what it expresses above all is terror in the presence of annihilation. ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... doubtless hopes that by the destruction of our power and influence, she may be able to regain her ascendency over her former colonies, can scarcely be so blind as not to perceive that but little attention would probably be paid to her claims by her more powerful coadjutors in the work of our annihilation. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... master of the Philippines; and just two months later, July 1 and 2 were made memorable by two engagements in the West Indies, resulting, the one in the defeat of the Spanish land forces at San Juan, and the other in the complete annihilation of Admiral Cervera's fleet in the Bay of Santiago de Cuba—misfortunes so overwhelming that overtures for peace were quickly received at Washington from Madrid; and ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele

... none the less mythical on that account, of a valiant and loud-voiced corporal in command of two full privates who, falling in with a regiment of the enemy in the dark, orders it to surrender under pain of instant annihilation by his force; and the enemy surrenders accordingly. I am always reminded of this tale when I read the positivist commands to the forces of Christianity and of Science; only the enemy show no more signs of intending to obey now than they have ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... a thrill of amazement when he came within view of a battery in action. The men there seemed to be in conventional moods, altogether unaware of the impending annihilation. The battery was disputing with a distant antagonist and the gunners were wrapped in admiration of their shooting. They were continually bending in coaxing postures over the guns. They seemed to be patting them on the back and encouraging them with words. The guns, stolid ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... visualize it. There are no words in any vocabulary that convey the emotions and thoughts of persons during the long days and nights of horror—of the continual crash of the shells, the melting away or total annihilation of parapets and dug-outs; being buried and spattered with mud and blood; with dead and wounded everywhere and, worst of all, the pitiful ravings of those whose nerves have suddenly given way from shell shock. No imagination can grasp it; no picture can more than ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride

... restored to thee, she shall be released from the hands of her captors, thou shalt be free, and thy head shall be pillowed on her bosom, in whatever part of the earth it may suit thee thus to be united to her. Reflect, Wagner—I offer thee a great boon—nay, many great boons: the annihilation of those trammels which bind thee to the destiny of a wehr-wolf, power unlimited for the rest of thy days, and the immediate possession of that Nisida whom thou lovest so fondly, and who is so beautiful, so ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... many times taken part in bombarding the Dardanelles Forts has a good idea of what awaits us. They say the whole of Gallipoli swarms with Turks, and the whole coast is covered with trenches and barbed wire entanglements 6 feet high. They talk as if it meant absolute annihilation of our small covering force of about 5000. The whole remainder of the Expeditionary Force, I presume, will lie out at sea till the coast is clear—should we succeed in clearing it, but it is very evident ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... you had better try, with or without orders,' my father replied. 'The annihilation of Baillie's force, and the miserable retreat of Munro, have made a terribly bad impression through the country, and a success is sorely needed to raise the spirits ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... inseparable from prayer to his Father. And was it separable? Surely not. He could not pray, true—but neither was he alive. To live, one must chose to live. He was dead with a death that was heavy upon him. There is a far worse death—the death that is content and suffers nothing; but annihilation is not death—is nothing like it. Cosmo's condition had no evil in it—only a ghastly imperfection—an abyssmal lack—an exhaustion at the very roots of being. God seemed away, as he could never be and be God. But every commonest day of his life, he who would be a live child of the living has ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... way whether the sudden complete annihilation of an emotion in the human heart in this way showed the hardness of the heart, or the magnitude of the offence, or the poor quality of the emotion itself; and then I was roused by Dick's voice saying Good-night to the other fellows, and he and I were left ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... surroundings. It seemed to me indecent that they should be allowed to go there. They were going to do reconstruction, I was told. Reconstruction! you can't reconstruct towns and villages the very foundations of which have been buried. There is a Bible phrase which expresses such annihilation, "The place thereof shall know it no more." Yes, only the names remain in one's memory—the very sites have been covered up and the contours of the landscape re-dug with high explosives. It took millions of pounds to work ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... Wojciech, called Tur, escaped. After this defeat by the Germans, the king, Wladyslaw Lokietek, granted him a coat of arms and the estate of Bogdaniec as a special privilege. Wojciech returned home, only to discover the complete annihilation of his family. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... expressions; the wish to render by words the nicest shades of feeling the most ethereal aspirations of thought, the most irresistible impulses, and the most chaste reserve of passion; to express looks, attitudes, sighs, silence, and even the annihilation of the heart adoring the invisible object of its love,—all these efforts, I repeat, which seemed to bend my pen beneath my fingers like a rebellious instrument, made me sometimes find the very word, expression, or cry that I required to give a voice to the unutterable. ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine

... an All in All. And this not at all on philosophical grounds, but because its aims were entirely practical. For the aim of its founder was to show men how by a virtuous life, or lives, they might at last attain annihilation—or, at any rate, the extinction of the individual self, the apparent separateness of which was, in his view, the source of all misery. And if he could teach his followers to attain that salvation, he was entirely indifferent as to the opinions they might ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton

... floor, clasping her husband's feet with both her arms, and her face resting on them. Time stood like an ocean hushed into stillness. On the background of eternal night, Fate seemed to have painted this one single picture for all time—annihilation on every side, the judge in the centre of it, and the guilty ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... are beyond the reach of any destroying cause: interest must always operate and apply this knowledge and skill, unless we can suppose, what seems as unlikely to happen as the change of our climate and soil, the annihilation of our knowledge and skill, or that interest should cease to be the stimulating cause of industry; unless we can suppose that political and civil freedom should be rooted out, and individual property no ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... his head, and discharging it, spattered his brains over the Roulette wheel. It was said that the banker, looking up calmly, called out—'Triple Zero,' 'Treble Nothing,'—a case as yet unheard of in the tactics of Roulette, but signifying annihilation,—and that, a cloth being thrown over the ensanguined wheel, the bank of that particular table was declared to be closed for the day. Very probably the whole story is but a newspaper canard, devised by the proprietors of some ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... imagination, would not give one sigh to his memory, wandering on through the regions of fancy all the same; and the death-struggle over, he might awake in a godless void, where, having no creative power in himself, he must be tossed about, a conscious yet helpless atom, to eternity. It was not annihilation he feared, although he did shrink from the thought of unconsciousness; it was life without law that he dreaded, existence without the bonds of a holy necessity, thought ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... the period in question; but, in considering them, it must be remembered that such results were possible only because the sea was kept open to British commerce by the paramount power of the British navy. This could not prevent all mishaps; but it reduced them, by the annihilation of hostile navies, to such a small percentage of the whole shipping movement, that the British mercantile community found steady profit both in foreign and coasting trade, of which the United States at the same time was ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... too cold for life, unless indeed some great body dashes into the sun, and thus gives it fresh life. Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... office, to perceive her bag lying on the desk where she had left it, and sat down for a few minutes beside the window, her heart pounding in her breast as though she had barely escaped an accident threatening her with physical annihilation. Something had happened to her at last! But what did it mean? Where would it lead? Her fear, her antagonism, of which she was still conscious, her resentment that Ditmar had thus surreptitiously chosen to approach her in a moment ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... find any comfort for her, for he himself was convinced that there was no salvation for them. Now they rode over a region of wretchedness, famine, bestial cruelties, and blood. They were like two poor little leaves in a storm which bore death and annihilation not only to the heads of individuals, but to whole towns and entire tribes. What hand could snatch from it and save two ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... very secure tenure to the throne, and by force alone could a king retain it. The more bloodthirsty and barbarous the tyrant, the more was he dreaded by the awe-stricken and trembling population. The power of such a weapon of annihilation as the command of the waters may be easily conceived as it invested a king with almost divine authority in the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... counter-attack on such a scale had previously been delivered in any campaign, and the scarcely interrupted advance of the German armies received a permanent check, while the strategic aim of the German Staff, namely, the speedy annihilation in the field of the Franco-British armies, had ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... News of the utter annihilation of three Turkish army corps in the Caucasus by the Russians also cheered the British, French and Belgian troops, as did news that the Russians had cleared the way for their long-deferred invasion of ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... in reaching it. Added to this, and running through the whole journey, was the incessant and determined, although unprovoked, hostility of the natives, which, but for the unceasing vigilence and prompt and daring action of the Brothers, might have eventually compassed the annihilation of the whole party. Had Leichhardt used the same vigilance and decision the life of poor Gilbert would not have been sacrificed, and in all probability we should not now deplore his own loss. But the black tribes which dogged the steps of each expedition, and amongst whom, probably, were ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... permanent hold was made on either the maritime frontiers of France or her allies. This certainly was owing to no inferiority of skill and bravery on the part of the British navy, as the battles of Aboukir and Trafalgar, and the almost total annihilation of the French marine, have but too plainly proven. Why then did these places, escape? We know of no other reason, than that they were fortified; and that the French knew how to defend their fortifications. The British maritime expeditions to Quiberon, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... parliament of Exton. The book, said they, " comprised all the good articles pertaining to the good government of the City," which Exton and all the aldermen had sworn to maintain for ever, and now he and his accomplices had burnt it without consent of the commons, to the annihilation of many good liberties, franchises, and customs of the City.(674) The book had already been subjected to revision in June, 1384, when Brembre was mayor;(675) it was now ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like Violet and Peony,—though by no means very wholesome, even for them,—but involved nothing short of annihilation to the ...
— The Snow-Image - A Childish Miracle • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Annihilation's Waste, One moment, of the Well of Life to taste— The Stars are setting, and the Caravan Starts for the ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam

... themselves with fierce and secret exertions, and three looking on in complete immobility, above the awnings covering the profound ignorance of hundreds of human beings, with their weariness, with their dreams, with their hopes, arrested, held by an invisible hand on the brink of annihilation. For that they were so, makes no doubt to me: given the state of the ship, this was the deadliest possible description of accident that could happen. These beggars by the boat had every reason to go distracted with ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... give grace to whomsoever he pleases, yet it remains with themselves whether they escape damnation; and a life the most spotless cannot warrant them to presume that they are worthy of his favor. In good truth, would not total annihilation be preferable to such beings, rather than falling into the hands of a Deity so hard-hearted? Would not every man of sense prefer the idea of complete annihilation to that of a future existence, in order to be the sport of the eternal caprice ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach

... The annihilation of the Grand Army is not to be attributed to the cold and the fearful conditions on the retreat from Moscow alone, the army was in reality annihilated before it reached Russia, as we shall see by the following description which I have ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... which protect the State, by fixing paternal responsibility. There were strong reasons why a State should not be over-populated, and only one reason why it should not be under-populated. That one reason was the danger of annihilation from invasion. ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple

... For it is to lie with the very soul. It is also to evoke forces without the adequate corresponding shape that covers and controls them, and to attract upon yourself the destructive qualities of these Powers—to your own final disintegration and annihilation." ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood

... important cities were not definitely attached to any alliance, but were not powerful enough to carry out any serious movement alone. In North Greece, Thebes, though she lacked great leaders, was still a great power, whose authority throughout Boeotia had been strengthened by the complete or partial annihilation of Platacae, Thespiae, Orchomenus,[2] and Coroneia. In Athens the ill feeling against Thebes was strong, owing to the occupation by the Thebans of Oropus,[2] a frontier town which Athens claimed, and their treatment of the towns just mentioned, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes

... excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures— the price of which, to those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as their residence after life, is final death and annihilation. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... heart. Though an appreciation is shown of ancient forms of religion,(946) all are regarded as visionary; and, in looking forward to the future, philosophy affords no cheering hope: nothing remains, save the annihilation taught by ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... extra-ordinary beauty is to be lost to the world," I continued still watching her enthusiastically, "is horrible—all this glorious facial expression, this mysterious eye with its green fires, this demonic hair, this magnificence of body. The idea fills me with a horror of death, of annihilation. But the hand of an artist shall snatch you from this. You shall not like the rest of us disappear absolutely and forever, without leaving a trace of your having been. Your picture must live, even when you yourself have long fallen to dust; your ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... Saturday last, the 15th day of April, between four and five o'clock in the evening. The news of the Duc du Maine and his wife being arrested made her faint, and was probably the cause of her death, for from that time she had not a moment's repose or content. Her rage, and the annihilation of her hopes of reigning with him, turned her blood. She fell sick of the measles, and was for twenty days in great fever. The disorder then took an unfavourable turn, and she died. She had concealed two years of her age, for she pretended to be only eighty-four, while she was really ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... a wise thing to do, I think; although, no doubt, it was humane enough, as we understand humanity. Did not the 'dragons of the prime tear other in their slime,' and so thin out the horrible race, until Nature herself put the final claws of annihilation upon them? Why, in mercy, then, do we try to prevent the inevitable? War is a great clearer of the atmosphere; and one of our poets, Coleridge, I believe, says that 'Carnage is God's daughter'! a bold figure of rhetoric, not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... feeling, then it were better to be stones or clods, and destitute of conscious sensibility. If this be the happiness which men should seek, then is the Buddhist in the highest degree consistent when he prays for the promised Nirvana, or annihilation. But this is not happiness—it is only the absence of it. For happiness can only be increased by increasing the capacity for feeling, or emotion, and, when this is increased, the capacity for suffering is likewise necessarily increased, and suffering must be endured unless sufficient sagacity accompanies ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... of loss began to oppress him, a feeling of nakedness as though the soul of him were already slipping free, passing into an appalling void, leaving an appalling void behind. He lay quite helpless and sinking, sinking—slowly, terribly sinking into an overwhelming sea of annihilation. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... candidate for President, was finally declared elected according to the forms of law, yet the terms and conditions upon which he was allowed to be peaceably inaugurated were such as to complete the extinction and annihilation of the Republican party at the South. The price that the Hayes managers stipulated to pay,—and did pay,—for the peaceable inauguration of Hayes was that the South was to be turned over to the Democrats and that the administration was not to enforce ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... in this later time, when the strength of the nation had been wasted, when victory itself was dark with mourning for sons slain, the loss of the one wise leader to whom all turned with uplifted hearts seemed the signal for annihilation; and then, indeed, it appeared that the prophecy of Mary Ballard's old grandfather had been fulfilled and the curse of slavery had not only been wiped out with blood, but that the greater curse of anarchy and misrule ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine

... wherein the allusions do not now show clear, are, I know, barely excusable even thus curtly: but I choose to save a touch or two from annihilation. Here is another little bit; this time from a somewhat vicious parody on my rival Rickard's prize poem: it is fairest to produce at length first his serious conclusion to the normal fifty-liner, and then my ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... perfection and strength equal to his, he had taken the love and worship of that great pure heart as his due; he, so unworthy in the inner reality, so mean, so despicable, callous, and contemptuous towards the brother who had laid down his life to save him. He longed for utter annihilation, that so he might lose the agony of knowing himself so unworthy such perfect love. The frozen calm of death on the face appalled him. He dared not touch it with lips that had cursed so lately, with lips fouled by kiss of the horror that had ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... who have read so much about agnostic Buddhism, and about Nirvana meaning annihilation, it may seem bold in me to present Buddha as an undoubting believer in the fundamental truths of all religion, and as not only a believer in a spiritual world but an actual visitor to its sad and blissful scenes; but the only agnosticism I have been ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles

... hour had sufficed for the annihilation of nearly six hundred soldiers, the flower of the British Light Horse. The northern valley was like a shambles, strewn with the dead and dying, while all about galloped riderless horses, and dismounted troopers seeking to regain ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... Throughout that period he had dared to hope for nothing personal; he had belonged body and soul to unseen forces which had hurried him without explanation from one hell to another. He had had to subdue his pride to their authority and to train his courage to contemplate the shock of annihilation. Now, at the end of almost five years, the will and the body which had been so ruthlessly snatched from him, had been as ruthlessly flung back into his own keeping. All of a sudden, after having been enslaved in every detail, his will and body were set free and no one cared what ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... could not but fear that very serious obstacles might arise to prevent her union with the Greek. Generous as Maccabeus might be, it was not in human nature that he should favour the claims of a rival; and determined opposition from her kinsman and prince must be annihilation to the hopes of the maiden. There would be in many Jewish minds prejudices against an Athenian; Zarah was aware of this, though not of the intense hatred to which such prejudices might lead. The short interview held with Maccabeus had sufficed to cover Zarah's bright ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... great terror of their lives is the fear of birth,—that they shall have to leave the only thing that they can think of as life, and enter upon a dark unknown which is to them tantamount to annihilation. ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... worsted and discontented, and believing that the Almighty was displeased with them and with their President, Mr. Burgers, retired from the campaign. At the same time, in the south, Cetchwayo was itching to be on the warpath, and the general state of affairs suggested a possible annihilation of the Transvaal by an uncontrollable horde of natives. Things went from bad to worse, and in October 1876 Lord Carnarvon remonstrated with the President of the South African Republic regarding the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... siege of Adrianople, beat back the Saracen army at that point with great slaughter. The fugitives of that army served to throw into panic the troops encamped round the walls of Constantinople, already demoralized by disease, the death of their leaders, and the annihilation of the African and Egyptian fleets in ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... view gives us a somewhat different picture of the process of evolution from the old idea of a ferocious struggle between the individuals of a species with the survival of the fittest and the annihilation of the less fit. Evolution assumes a more peaceful aspect. New and advantageous characters survive by incorporating themselves into the race, improving it and opening to it new opportunities. In other words, the ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan

... an extremely secular and blood-thirsty character. There is not the faintest idea of Levi's sacred calling or of his dispersion as being conditioned thereby; the dispersion is a curse and no blessing, an annihilation and no establishment of his special character. But it is equally an impossibility to derive the caste from the tribe; there is no real connection between the two, all the intermediate links are wanting; the tribe succumbed at an early date, and the rise of the caste ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... drink his allotted cup of bitterness? And if that same cup proved bitter to the God of heaven, under a human form, why should I affect a foolish pride, and call it sweet? Why should I be ashamed of shrinking at that fearful moment, when my whole being will tremble between existence and annihilation, when a remembrance of the past, like a flash of lightning, will illuminate the dark gulf of futurity, when everything shall dissolve around me, and the whole world vanish away? Is not this the voice of a creature oppressed beyond all resource, self-deficient, ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... conspiracy. The son of Wou Sankwei and the other conspirators were immediately arrested and executed without delay. The Manchus thus escaped by the merest accident from a danger which threatened them with annihilation, and Kanghi, having succeeded in getting rid of the son, concentrated his power and attention on the more difficult task of grappling ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... as is its denial of our capacity for self-government, still it concedes to us more than any other Government on earth. Woman, over half the globe, is now and always has been but a chattel. Wives are bargained for, bought and sold, as other merchandise, and as a consequence of the annihilation of natural rights, they have no political existence. In Hindustan, the evidence of woman is not received in a court of justice. The Hindu wife, when her husband dies, must yield implicit obedience to the oldest son. In Burmah, they are not allowed to ascend the steps of a court of justice, but ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... it had any effect, would confer the privilege of a choice of employer, and Dutch Guiana would be depopulated in a day,—an easy means of increasing the supply of labour to the planters of Demerara, at the cost of entire annihilation of the cultivation of the estates in Surinam. But abandon your differential duties, give us the same price for our produce, and thus enable us to pay the same rate of wages, and I, for one, will not object to liberate ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... indeed, of this honour with several of the first, and best, and ablest in the kingdom; but I was behind with none of them - and I am sure that if, to the eternal disgrace of this nation, and to the total annihilation of every trace of honour and virtue in it, things had taken a different turn from what they did, I should have attended him to the quarterdeck with no less good-will and more pride, though with far other feelings, than I partook of the general flow of national joy that attended the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... has descended upon forest and river, holding both in its black embrace. Along with it a kindred feeling creeps over her—a thought darker than night, more sombre than forest shadows. It is that which oft prompts to annihilation; a memory of the past, which, making the future unendurable, calls for life to come to an end. The man to whom she has given her heart—its firstlings, as its fulness—a heart from which there can be no second gleanings, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... have given a lot to be out of such a house as Biffen's, and I know he utterly despised himself for having in a moment of inexplicable weakness consented to be permanent lead to Biffen's awful crowd on the Acres. He died a thousand deaths after each (usual) annihilation. Worcester and Acton had nothing in common, and, except that they were in the same house and form, they would not probably have come to nodding terms. Worcester, of course, looked up to the magnificent "footer" player as the average player looks up to the superlative. After ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... lives to be spared," Omar repeated. "But the army is under thy control, and I leave the final annihilation of the band of freebooters unto thee. Hast thou obtained any tidings of the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... "Annihilation of the individual, murder of the thought, criminal denial of the intelligence, the most sublime of ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... "halting," which is a condition of bodily helplessness and weakness, occurs also in Ps. xxxv. 15, and xxxviii. 18, as a designation of adversity and misery.—The expression, "to make a remnant," forms the contrast to total annihilation. While these words show that a limit will be put to the diminution, the following words predict a vast increase. In the words, "In Mount Zion," the contrast with iii. 12 appears once more at the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... necessary arrangements about the pinnace. It was wonderful what martial ardor was awakened by the possession of a vessel armed with two real guns. The boys chattered incessantly about savages, fleets of canoes, attack, defense, and final annihilation of the invaders. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of the features of this war that however thorough the victories of the Christians, the Saracens very speedily recovered from their effects. A Christian defeat was crushing and entire; the knights died as they stood, and defeat meant annihilation. Upon the other hand, the Saracens and Bedouins, when they felt that their efforts to win the battle were unsuccessful, felt no shame or humiliation in scattering like sheep. On their fleet horses and in their light attire they could easily distance the Christians, who never, indeed, dreamed of pursuing ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... foolish man, when he is detected, perishes through his own injustice, which is an evil of the soul. Take the analogy of the body: The evil of the body is a disease which wastes and reduces and annihilates the body; and all the things of which we were just now speaking come to annihilation through their own corruption attaching to them and inhering in them and so destroying ...
— The Republic • Plato

... ordinary environment of political life. Conscription, indeed, spreading a wider net than the voluntary system, may be described as an institution for exposing the best citizens of a state to abnormal risks of annihilation. As a matter of historic fact we are told, though I don't know on what authority, that the Napoleonic wars, how much less deadly than our own, reduced by an inch the average height ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato

... of God is being wrought. With Christian patience and self-annihilation, the Russian people of Galicia languished for centuries under a foreign yoke, but neither flattery nor persecution could break in it the hope of liberty. As the tempestuous torrent breaks the rocks to join the sea, so there exists no force which can arrest the Russian ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... Annihilation!—this, Was once, the startling bliss I forc'd my soul to fancy Death should give! But, whilst I shudd'ring bless The hopes—of—nothingness, A something sighs: "Beyond the grave I live!" Tophet! I thrill! for scorn'd Was the sere ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various

... mental, have been subjects of the most critical examination. In the course of these researches many have been at a loss to account for the change which takes place in the body at the time of death. By some it has been attributed to the flight of its tenant, and by others to its final annihilation. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... competition by controlling it. Other voices have been raised in denunciation of competition because "competition creates monopoly." In other words, competition, if carried to its logical conclusion, ends in the annihilation of competition. In this destruction of competition by competition we seem to have a loss of freedom by freedom, or, to state it in more general terms, unlimited liberty, without social control, ends in the negation of freedom ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... which he controlled politics during his two terms as President, which resulted almost in the total absorption or annihilation of the Federalist party, he exhibited the qualities of a tactician ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... against the Thebans only, and their king, Cleombrotus, had passed the frontier with ten thousand foot and one thousand horse, and not only subjection, as heretofore, but total dispersion and annihilation threatened, and Boeotia was in a greater fear than ever, — Pelopidas, leaving his house, when his wife followed him on his way, and with tears begged him to be careful of his life, made answer, "Private men, my wife, should be advised to look to themselves, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... repeated from farther up the ravine. Two more males were approaching at a lumbering run, smiting-stones in either hand. Uglik was a brave man, but he was also a cautious leader. He did not care to expose his tribe to almost certain annihilation and he led a wild retreat down the valley, Samo, with his arm hanging limp, bringing up the rear. The Neanderthalers did not follow into ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... the "types" they might blend or create, you saw men leaning drunken against lamp-posts whom you knew for the "type" that will charge with fixed bayonets into the face of death, and you found yourself unable to imagine little Bailey achieving either drunkenness or the careless defiance of annihilation. You realised that quite a lot of types were underrepresented in Chambers Street, that feral and obscure and altogether monstrous forces must be at work, as yet altogether unassimilated ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... leave of the United States Senate, Clinton probably gave little thought to the character of the place, whether it was a step up or a step down to the mayoralty. Just then he was engaged in the political annihilation of Aaron Burr, and he felt the necessity of entering the latter's stronghold to deprive him of influence. Out of six or seven thousand appointments made by the Council of Appointment not a friend of Aaron Burr got ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... Major March and his men when they found that neither Aguinaldo nor Pilar had fallen into their hands. Although they had come just in time to prevent the complete annihilation of the little company, the leaders had escaped with the remnant of their surprised forces. Scores of Filipinos were captured, dozens were killed and wounded. Eight of the dashing scouts who went out with Jerry Connell ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... breakfast there was held a conversation on The Highest Aim. Mr. Alcott said it was Integrity; I, Harmonic being; Lane, Progressive being; Larned, Annihilation of self; Bower, Repulsion of the evil in us. Then there was a confession of the obstacles which prevent us from attaining the highest aim. Mine was the doubt whether the light is light; not the want of will to follow, or ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... fight the harder. Turning, he urged the men to stand fast. They obeyed for a moment, but the increased force was too many for them; they were steadily beaten back. For a second it looked as though they were doomed to annihilation, for once they were scattered among those narrow streets they would be shot down like dogs. At this point Wilson became conscious of the presence of a gaunt figure, dressed in a long, black robe, bearing upon back and chest in gold embroidery the ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents toward itself, and makes the whole life its tributary. And the intensest form of hatred is that rooted in fear, which compels to silence and drives vehemence into a constructive vindictiveness, an imaginary annihilation of the detested object, something like the hidden rites of vengeance with which the persecuted have made a dark vent for their rage, and soothed their suffering into dumbness. Such hidden rites ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... pulpit cushions were not safe from their nibbling attacks. On every Sunday afternoon the Word of God and its sustaining cushion had to be removed to the safe shelter of a neighboring farmhouse or tavern, to prevent total annihilation by ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle

... little band instinctively backed towards the edge of the nullah. Diggle exulted as they were pressed remorselessly to the rear. Not a man dreamed of surrender; the temper of the assailants was indeed so savage that nothing but the annihilation of their victims would now satisfy them. Yet Diggle once again bethought himself that Desmond might be worth to him more alive than dead, and in the midst of the clamor Desmond heard him repeat his offer of reward to the man who should ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang



Words linked to "Annihilation" :   pulverisation, demolition, vaporisation, self-annihilation, disintegration, devastation, atomisation, vaporization, annihilate, atomization, destruction, wipeout



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