"Throttling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in contact with nothing palpable. Therefore I clutched at the fingers which were dug into my windpipe, and found them to be small—as the marks show—and hairy. I managed to give that first cry for help, then with all my strength I tried to unfasten the grip that was throttling the life out of me. At last I contrived to move one of the hands, and I called out again, though not so loudly. Then both the hands were back again; I was weakening; but I clawed like a madman at the ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... and I are up, and find it is not over: a small thoroughbred, white bull-terrier, is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great courage. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... different powers, with 130 lb. absolute pressure, and various ratios of expansion, with a series giving approximately the same powers at a constant ratio of expansion, but with varying pressures, being practically a trial of automatic expansion against throttling. Starting with 40 indicated horse power, 130 lb. absolute pressure, four expansions, and a consumption of 20.75 lb. of water, the plan of varying the expansion, as compared with throttling, showed a gain of about 7 per cent. at 30 indicated horse ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... five times as long as fifteen. It is hard—but I can't help it. Hawes wouldn't let me live to be a man; he is stronger than I am. Will it be a long job, I wonder. Some say it hurts a good deal; some think not. I shall soon know—but I shall never tell. That doesn't trouble me, it is only throttling when all is done; and ain't I throttled every day of my life. Shouldn't I be throttled to-morrow if I was such a spoon as to see to-morrow. I mustn't waste much more time or my hands will be crippled with cold and then I shan't be ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... not possible here to present even in condensed form the outline, much less the full narrative, of the labyrinth of tricks, conspiracies and frauds which the railroad magnates have resorted to, and still practice, in the throttling of the small capitalists, and in guaranteeing themselves a monopoly. A great array of facts are to be found in the reports of the exhaustive investigations made by the United States Industrial Commission in 1901-1902, and by the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... to secure the casket, I did not immediately address myself to flight, but strove to wrest it from her by force. She, however, opposed me in this design with all her strength, and throwing it aside fell upon me with a most ungentle embrace, throttling me and burying ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... not necessary to touch more than briefly the evidence of Germany's designs, and the intrigues through which she sought world domination and the throttling of human liberty. The facts are now too well established to need further confirmation. The ruthless manner in which the Kaiser's forces prosecuted the war, abandoning all pretense of civilization and ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... trained without difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions when Nature asserts her violated dominions;—but then the devouring of a man-at-arms, or the throttling of a consecrated bull, is a circumstance of too little moment to be more than hinted at ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Then they will find that Belgium had been in league with the Allies long before the conflagration broke out, only to be left to its own resources when the critical hour arose. They will further find that it is not Germany but England and her allies that are throttling commerce, maiming cables, stopping mails, and breaking neutrality and other treaties to further their aims; that, finally, today England has established a world rule on the sea to which even America must submit. They ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... one of the demons of darkness. There is essentially no distinction to the mind of the primitive man between the Panis, who steal Indra's bright cows and keep them in a dark cavern all night, and the throttling snake Ahi or Echidna, who imprisons the waters in the stronghold of the thunder-cloud and covers the earth with a short-lived darkness. And so the poisoned arrows of Bellerophon, which slay the storm-dragon, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... population of Paris (whatsoever is not solid, and fixed to work) inundating these outer courts, like a loud destructive deluge; the very Basoche of Lawyers' Clerks talks sedition. The lower classes, in this duel of Authority with Authority, Greek throttling Greek, have ceased to respect the City-Watch: Police-satellites are marked on the back with chalk (the M signifies mouchard, spy); they are hustled, hunted like ferae naturae. Subordinate rural Tribunals send messengers of congratulation, of adherence. Their Fountain of Justice ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... life, none for the honor of our national legislature, none for the character of our country abroad, can restrain the slaveholding members of Congress from the most disgraceful personal encounters on the floor of our nation's legislature—smiting their fists in each other's faces, throttling and even kicking and trying to gouge each other—that during the session of the Congress just closed, no less than six slaveholders, taking fire at words spoken in debate, have either rushed at each other's throats, or kicked, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... victim of the insatiate greed of the monster, caught and choked by one of those millions of tentacles suddenly reaching up from below, from out the dark beneath his feet, coiling around his throat, throttling him, strangling him, sucking his blood. For a moment he thought of the courts, but instantly laughed at the idea. What court was immune from the power of the monster? Ah, the rage of helplessness, the fury of impotence! ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... were to hear that his house was on fire, would he need lengthy explanations before hastening away to extinguish it? If ye were to hear that robbers had broken into your houses and were plundering your goods—if ye were to hear that ruffians were throttling your little children or your aged parents, or threatening the lives of your wives with drawn swords, would you wait for further confirmation or persuasion before doing anything, or would you not rather rush away of your own accord to slay these robbers and murderers? ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... from its restrictions of rhyme and metre. But while the tendency of poetry has always been away from its restrictions, the mise-en-scene in the drama has continually, with the attempts to make it conform to nature, tightened its throttling bands on the ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... own worst enemy. You're fighting phantoms which have no existence at any time or place. The devil has done nothing to you, nor have you stepped into any snare. And no one is throttling you either. That is all nonsense. And ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... your shirt-front starched like a board," he blustered, "and your collar throttling you, and smile till your face is sore, and reel off small talk to a girl whose last name you can't remember! Do I have any fun, does it do me any good, do I get ideas for yarns? What do I do it ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... shaped like a motor-boat and as low to the ground Mr. Charley Cox turned in and with a great throttling and choking of engine drew up among the dim-eyed monsters of the grove and directly alongside an eight-cylinder roadster with a snout like ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... Chick had heard that bell before. In his present condition his memory refused to serve him. He was covered with blood; he tried to rise, to crawl to this snarling animal that was throttling the Senestro. But something seemed to snap within him, and ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... contra, no employer shall require any statement from a person seeking employment as to his participation in a strike. Eight states have enacted statutes exempting labor organizations from their respective anti-trust laws. The unscrupulous employer may yet find the labor union the best means of throttling his competitors and securing a monopoly." There seems at times to be a frenzy for such legislation. Only a vivid imagination can adequately picture what might result if Congress and the state legislatures, or the inconstant majority of ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... creek mouth, throttling back. It would be hard to anchor precisely where the houseboat had been anchored that first night, but he was sure they could find the spot within twenty feet. Scotty went up on the bow ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... applaud the noble Knight, cry counsel in his extremities, or invoke blessings on his enterprise. At each mention of the Ladies Eleanor and Alfrida, she shook her fist, and made signs with her old fingers, as of throttling, in the air. And when the clerkly messenger, arriving to speak with the Lady Alfrida—who, Saint Luke be praised, was by that time dying—found the Knight awaiting him with a noose flung over a strong bough, old Antony had laid down the chopper that she might the better hug herself with ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... great things,' he pleaded, in a voice of longing, with a wistfulness of tone that made my blood run cold. 'And now for this stupid scoundrel—' 'Your success in Europe is assured in any case,' I affirmed, steadily. I did not want to have the throttling of him, you understand—and indeed it would have been very little use for any practical purpose. I tried to break the spell—the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness—that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... man goes on adding one to one, His hundred's soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. {120} That, has the world here—should he need the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find him. So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled HOTI's business—let it be!— Properly based OUN— {130} Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic 'De', Dead ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... make plans under such sudden circumstances, and for some minutes our efforts were rather futile. We could not get an inch on the main trace of the sledge or on the leading rope, which was binding Osman to the snow with a throttling pressure. Then thought became clearer. We unloaded our sledge, putting in safety our sleeping-bags with the tent and cooker. Choking sounds from Osman made it clear that the pressure on him must soon be relieved. I seized the lashing off Meares' sleeping-bag, passed the tent poles across the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... I had hung on the lips of Peace Advocate Doctor Starr Jordan during his Australian visits, and how I had wondered at his stories that Krupp's, Vicker's, and other great gun-building concerns were financially operated by political, war-hatching syndicates; that the curse of militarism was throttling human progression, and that the doctrine of "non-resistance" was noble and Christianlike, for "all they that take the sword ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... ungovernable fury by the sight of these hated renegades, the entire regiment leaped forward with a roar and rushed on the advancing detachment, stabbing, shooting, clubbing, throttling. Mutual hatred made the contest terrible beyond words; no quarter was given on either side. I saw men strangle each other with naked hands; kick each other to death, fighting like dogs, tooth and nail, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force he pushed Tom backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so that Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and, almost throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was up again, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act of swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down, and got his knees firmly ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... at the mustache, when M. Dubuis, with a back stroke of his hand, flung aside the officer's arm, and, seizing him by the collar, threw him down on the seat. Then, excited to a pitch of fury, his temples swollen and his eyes glaring, he kept throttling the officer with one hand, while with the other clenched he began to strike him violent blows in the face. The Prussian struggled, tried to draw his sword, to clinch with his adversary, who was on top of him. But M. Dubuis crushed him with his enormous weight and kept punching him without taking ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... face stared up—the priest! Wes leaped at him, his steely fingers thumbing into the man's throat and throttling its scream to a gasping choke. All the American's pent-up fury went into a lunge that the priest could not begin to stand against. He was bowled sharply over and went down. Craig on top, and there ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... reeled back, kept from falling only by the support of the deckhouse. There was no report of a weapon, no outcry, yet, before I could strike again, I was suddenly gripped from behind by a pair of arms, which closed about my throat like a vise, throttling me instantly into silent helplessness. I struggled madly to break free, straining with all the art of a wrestler, exerting every ounce of strength, but the grasp which held me was unyielding, robbing me of breath, and defeating every ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... could spend their evenings in paying visits they managed to get along till bedtime; but after they were compelled to stay at home those evenings became like a parching desert. Sometimes persons passing through the quiet little square would hear unearthly noises as though the brother were throttling the sister; a moment's listening would show that they were only yawning. These two human mechanisms, having nothing to grind between their rusty wheels, were creaking and grating at each other. The brother talked of marrying, but ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... his legs gave way under him, and he fell. He began to shiver. Every muscle in his body trembled. His teeth clicked. His eyes grew wide, and it was impossible for him to move. And then, like a hand throttling him, there came a strange stiffness in the back of his neck, and his breath hissed chokingly out of his throat. The stiffness passed like a wave of fire through his body. Where his muscles had trembled and shivered a ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... that Imperial attention would be too much engrossed with the war to notice such insignificant affairs as the throttling of the South African Blacks, seem to have decided that now or never was the opportune moment for degrading the aborigines into helots; therefore, the Chairman, finding that he could not persuade his colleagues to adopt his view of things, indited the following ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... we are unconscious of our cruelty we may not be to blame. But if, after our pity is aroused, we persist in throttling our feelings simply in order to join others in their preying upon life, we insult all that is good in us. I have decided ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... notation! This is not the place to treat the history of our music. The curious can find enlightenment at such sources as Mr. Louis C. Elson's "National Music of America." It must be enough for me to say that the throttling hands of Puritanism are only now fully loosened. Some of our living composers recall the parental opposition that met their first inclinations to a musical career, opposition based upon the disgracefulness, the heathenishness, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... modesty was not his only admirable characteristic. He had, also, a dependable sense of humour. It came to his relief now—he thought of his host, a chuckle throttling the beginnings of a second sigh deep ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... the imprisonment. The synagogues, which had not been allowed to resound with the moans of the martyrs, were now opened for the prayers of the liberated. The state of siege which for nine long years had been throttling the city was at last taken off; the terror which had haunted the ostracized community came to an end. A new leaf was added to the annals of Jewish martyrdom, one of the gloomiest, in spite ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... second place, it had to countercheck the game of those who wanted either to make Saloniki a free city or to incorporate it in a Big Bulgaria, and who were using with some effect the argument that the annexation of the city to Greece meant the throttling of its trade and the annihilation of its prosperity. The interests of the city of Saloniki, the interests of Greece, and the interests of Servia all combined to demand the free flow of Servian trade by way of Saloniki. And if no other ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... rich, and force them, often under torture, to reveal their treasures. No longer are Thugs, professional murderers, left to arrange their plans for insinuating themselves into the goodwill of travellers, with a view, when the opportunity came, to throttling their victims, robbing them, and then burying them, that all mark of their deeds might be effaced. From Dacoity and Thuggery Europeans had nothing to fear, but natives suffered frightfully; and special departments were formed for their suppression. In Northern India, at least, these ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... dark secrets of his soul might be, at which so many dimly guessed, Alphege Cherbuliez was invariably tender and considerate to his wife; and now, as he gently disengaged the little hands that were throttling him from his throat, he said kindly, but with a gravity which always awed and restrained her, "I think she is better, my dear, but it is impossible to predict in such cases; and all we can do is to wait ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... that of defeating the mayor. From some quarter, not exactly identified, was issued a call for a civic committee of fifty, which should take into its hands the duty of rescuing the city from what was termed a "throttling policy of commercial oppression and anarchy." Democrats, republicans, liquor and anti-liquorites, were invited to the same central meeting place, and came. Money was not lacking, nor able minds, to prepare campaign literature. It ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... piracy which was carried on by the Algerines against all nations that did not pay them "black-mail," but it must not be supposed that this disgraceful submission was the result of fear or of indifference. The truth is, that the great powers were so busily engaged in throttling each other that they had no time to give proper attention to the Algerine wasps that stung them, and the wasps themselves were so besottedly ignorant of European affairs and of their own relative insignificance, so puffed up indeed by their supposed greatness—a delusion which was shamefully fostered ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... shining upon him, and that she probably had no cause for expecting to find him here, Thurstane believed that she had discovered who he was and that her mute gesture confirmed his rejection. Under this throttling of his last hope he made no protest, but silently wished himself on the battle-field, falling with his face to the foe. For several minutes they ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... his own way now. He's got a man who wouldn't blink at throttling his own brother, if it'd do him any good. Tarboe is iron and steel; he's the kind that succeeds. He likes to rule, and he's going to get what ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the soft music of the spinning purr, When no stiff hair disturbs the glossy fur, The whining wail so piteous and so faint, When through the house Puss moves with long complaint, To that unearthly throttling caterwaul, When feline legions storm the midnight wall, And chant, with short snuff and alternate hiss, The dismal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... has been a melancholy day—most melancholy. I am afraid poor Charles found me weeping. I do not know what other folks feel, but with me the hysterical passion that impels tears is a terrible violence—a sort of throttling sensation—then succeeded by a state of dreaming stupidity, in which I ask if my poor Charlotte ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... side, and he alternated the splendid revel with the cell of the monk. In these days, and for long after, the Borders were disturbed, and the Highland clans, setting royal authority at defiance, were throttling each other in their mists. The Catholic religion was yet unsapped, and the wealth of the country resided in the hands of the nobles and the churchmen. Edinburgh towered high on the ridge between Holyrood and the Castle, its streets reddened with ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... takes place a choking of the exhaust port. You might inquire, why not make the port wider, but this would increase the minimum amount of load on the valve, and this must not be overlooked. Then the cut off is a fixed one, and we can govern only by throttling the pressure we have raised in the boiler or by using a cut off governor and the consequent wastes of an enormous clearance space. You will observe, therefore, that the plain slide valve engine gives the most general satisfaction at about two-thirds ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various |
