"Usurp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... refrained from striking, that he might seem to usurp no share in Grom's amazing achievement. He stood leaning upon his spear, calmly watching the last feeble paroxysm, till Grom came scrambling down from the ledge and stood beside him. He took the bow and arrows, and examined them ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to usurp the rights of a husband and father, he thought to play his part still better by deceiving the mistress also . . . . Ah! it is amusing, is it not? You also, Rose, you thought he was your old lover! Well, I at least am ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... conduct of it, I should willingly have assisted my country with my person or my counsels; but, my lords, this man, who engrosses all authority, seems, likewise, to believe that he is in possession of all knowledge, and that he is equally capable, as he is equally willing, to usurp the supreme and uncontroulable direction both of civil ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... world come into the harbour. The people streamed down with the wildest jubilation and all the church bells were rung. The same evening the Pinta also sailed in, but was very differently received, for it was already known that Pinzon wished to usurp the honour of the discovery, being convinced that Columbus's vessel had been lost in the storm. No one took any notice of him, and he died a few days later, probably ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... need in this country is a "vigilance committee," and we need it badly, and we need it right away, and this committee should be instructed to impeach every public official who endeavors to usurp the law in favor ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... royal insignia on the altar, and addressing the king and his surrounding prelates, said, "There are the crown and sceptre which Canute intrusted to my charge. To you, I neither give nor refuse them, you may take them if you please; but I strictly forbid any of my brother bishops to usurp an office, which is the ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... observation, but it is certainly true, that the brute creation differs not more from the rational in many respects, than a man from himself: That by suffering passions to usurp the dominion of the soul, human nature is stript of its dignity, debased to the beasts that perish, and still rendered more ignominious by the complications of guilt. We have already seen the duke of Wharton set up as the idol of an admiring people; an august senate listened to the enchantments ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... itself in power, in consolidating that power, and in acting as a powerful unity, according to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. The CONSTITUTION—bear that word well in mind—the Constitution which suffers no State to usurp a single power belonging to the General Government, and which was expressly framed for the purpose of making all its freemen the citizens of one great nation. Let the reader consult the Constitution, study its unmistakable plan of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... state you much deplore, In general terms, but will not say wherefore; What medicine shall I seek to cure this woe If th' wound so dangerous I may not know? But you, perhaps, would have me ghess it out, What hath some Hengist like that Saxon stout, By fraud or force usurp'd thy flow'ring crown, Or by tempestuous warrs thy fields trod down? Or hath Canutus, that brave valiant Dane, The Regal peacefull Scepter from the tane? Or is't a Norman, whose victorious hand With English blood bedews thy conquered land? Or is't Intestine warrs ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... on work; or else it is a Divine Miracle, like that of Peter's not sinking, or that of the Iron that swam at the Word of Elisha. And shall Men try whether God will work a Miracle to make a discovery? If a Crime cannot be found out but by Miracle, it is not for any Judge on Earth to usurp that Judgment which is reserved for the ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... For proof that I acknowledge you the Author Of giving me my Birth, I have discharg'd A part of my Obedience. But if now You should (as cruel fathers do) proclaim Your right, and Tyrant-like usurp the glory Of my peculiar honours, not deriv'd From successary, but purchas'd with my bloud, Then I must stand first Champion for my ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... monsieur, you will have the goodness to repeat to me a part of your tragedy presently, by way of dessert, for instance. That will be sugared roast meat,—mordioux! Ah! pardon me, monsieur, that was a little oath which escaped me, because it is a habit with my lord and master. I sometimes allow myself to usurp that little oath, as it seems in pretty good taste. I take this liberty only in his absence, please to observe, for you may understand that in his presence—but, in truth, monsieur, this cider is abominable; do you not think so? And ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is Egypt's, the world became less mysterious, more familiar. Things relating to the day's work forced themselves upon Michael's mind. His bath and breakfast and many other practical things began to usurp his thoughts, while the barking of dogs, the movement in the hut of the "boys," brought him back to the common, everyday ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... and shared their reverses with equal dignity, and that they had stood like a rampart when the kingdom was invaded by the levelling doctrines of Republicanism and equality. And though the Kalonays were men of stouter stuff than their cousins of Artois, they had never tried to usurp their place, but had set an example to the humblest shepherd of unfailing loyalty and good-will to the King and his lady. The Prince Kalonay, who had accompanied the Dominican monk to Messina, was the last of ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... Requetes (say Master in Chancery) at twenty, and at thirty-five Procureur-General (or Attorney-General) of the Parliament of Paris, which was only a court of justice, although it frequently attempted to usurp legislative, and even executive functions. During the rebellious troubles of the Fronde, the Procureur and his brother, the Abbe Fouquet, remained faithful to Mazarin and to the throne. The Abbe, in the ardor of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... Men being the illiterate Body of the Nation, are consequently thrown together into a Class below the three Learned Professions. I mention this for the sake of several Rural 'Squires, whose Reading does not rise so high as to the Present State of England, and who are often apt to usurp that Precedency which by the Laws of their Country is not due to them. Their Want of Learning, which has planted them in this Station, may in some measure extenuate their Misdemeanour; and our Professors ought to pardon them when they offend in this ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... convinced of my powerlessness to love, that the thought of a serious passion did not at first enter my mind. However, a remembrance of my beautiful traveller pervaded my thoughts more and more, and threatened to usurp the place of everything else. I then subjected myself to a rigid analysis; I sought for the exact location of this sentiment whose involuntary yoke I already felt; I persuaded myself, for some time yet, that it was only the transient excitement of my brain, one of those fevers of imagination ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... the drinking-scene in ——, and others equally outrees, in which the author, having turned probability out of doors, ends by throwing possibility out of the window—leaving folly and madness to usurp their place—and play a thousand antics for the admiration of the public, who, pleased with novelty, cry ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... English nobility manage to usurp all the offices of State, and to secure all the plums for themselves, it is not they who really govern the country. No doubt the landed aristocracy are politically the most fit to govern. They have no commercial or industrial interests that may bring corrupt and undesirable influences ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... large and rapid liners, many of them built on the Clyde, that fought to surpass the Cunard ships. The White Star Line also took a hand in the game and built others. In the contest, alas, America has been far behind until gradually she has let other countries slip in and usurp the major proportion of ocean commerce. It is a pitiful thing that we should not have applied our skill and wealth of material to building fine American steamship lines of our own instead of letting so many of our tourists turn their patronage ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve—a world, above all others, of equality, where every one believed that M. d'Espard was ruined, and where all, from the lowest to the highest, refused the privileges of nobility to a nobleman without money, because they were all ready to allow an enriched bourgeois to usurp them. Thus the lack of communion between this family and other persons was as much moral as it ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... materials to work with; yet it is not every man's hand that they will suit. In the hands of common-place, they are simply revolting. In the hands of folly and affectation, their repulsiveness is aggravated by the simpering conceits which usurp the place of the strongest passions of our nature. He only is privileged to unveil these gloomy depths of erring humanity, who can subdue their repulsiveness by touches of ethereal feeling; and whose imagination, buoyant above the waves ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... sight each faithful light obscur'd, And led him wildering, sinking pale with fear! Not he more bless'd by Cynthia's light allur'd, Onward his course with happier thoughts doth steer, Than I, O Hope! blest cheerer of the soul! Who, long in Sorrow's darkening clouds involv'd, When black despair usurp'd mild Joy's control, Saw thee, bright angel, fram'd of heavenly mould, Dip thy gay pallet in the rainbow's hue, And call each scene of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... Heligoland. Came Paradies, the little German trader, in his finest blacks, and chose a seat off in one corner of the room. Then "Foxy Grandpa" and the "Arizona Babe" arrived, and the old maid from Zamboanga, who, when expression failed her, would usurp the conversation with a "blab, blab, blab!" And as the serpent made for old Laocooen, so she now made for ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... fumes and calmer follies fed; Nor thoughts of when, or where, or how to come, The canvass general, or the general doom; Extremes ne'er reach'd one passion of his soul, A villain tame, and an unmettled fool; To half his vices he has but pretence, For they usurp the place of common sense; To half his little merits has no claim, For very indolence has raised his name; Happy in this, that, under Satan's sway, His passions tremble, but will not obey. The vicar at the table's front presides, Whose presence a monastic life derides; The ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... been pretty sterile, those long solitary evening hours. He'd worked fitfully, grinding away by brute strength for a while, without interest, without imagination, and then, in a frenzy of impatience, thrusting the legal rubbish out of the way and letting the enigma of his great failure usurp, once more, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... a stand of wheat; Harolde Dugald, of the neighboring fief. Geoffrey was on coldly polite terms with Dugald—he had no use for the other man's way of treating his serfs—and now he felt a prickle of indignant rage at this attempt to usurp a share of his glory. He saw Dugald's turret begin to traverse, and hastily tried to get the finishing shot into The Barbarian's tankette before the other Leaguesman could fire. But Dugald was not aiming for The Barbarian. First he had to eliminate Geoffrey ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... has always been: man, the highest of God's creatures, apart from all the rest, is still a creature, and he never has been able to usurp the power which belongs to ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... which covered several months, Mrs. Hutchinson defended herself at great length and with much skill; but what the clergymen demanded was an absolute retraction, and a promise that she would no longer usurp their special ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... are marked in the Spectator by one of the letters in the name of Clio, and in the Guardian by a hand; whether it was, as Tickell pretends to think, that he was unwilling to usurp the praise of others, or as Steele, with far greater likelihood, insinuates, that he could not without discontent impart to others any of his own. I have heard that his avidity did not satisfy itself with the air of renown, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... had resolved that the royal ministry had no right to impose taxes so long as the assembly was unable peaceably to pursue its deliberations, and designed, by giving this resolution the form of a law, to lead the people in this manner to break loose from the Government. This attempt to usurp authority was doomed to be disappointed. The assembly, having overstepped its prerogatives, lost its influence. The king found himself again in possession of the reins of power. It rested with him to punish the temerity of the people by tightening the reins, or on his own ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with their own stupid families, the faithful husband and wife sitting opposite to each other in their own chimney corners, yawning models of constancy. And this they call virtue! How the meanest vices usurp the name of virtue! Leonora's is a jealousy of the most illiberal and degrading species; a jealousy of the temper, not of the heart. She is too cold to feel the passion of love.—She never could be in love; of that I am certain. She is too reasonable, too prudish. Besides, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... she be zafer wiz a young woman, ignorant and—" cried the baroness, furious at this attempt to usurp her authority. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... furnished a topic of eager discussion among the maids. More or less covertly, they nearly all hated and feared her. They fancied that she was making good her footing with 'the Master;' and that she would then oust Mrs. Rusk—perhaps usurp her place—and so make a clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little housekeeper ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... that the Duke of Chartres was aware of this design. It is certain that in the army, as well as among the moderates of the interior, the prince would have found a crowd of adherents. But he was too conscientious to usurp a crown which had just fallen in blood—too good a son to authorize proceedings which would have endangered the life of his father; in short, too enlightened, too prudent, notwithstanding his extreme youth, to be instrumental in any ambitious or ill-conceived ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... limited monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and adorned the dignity of human kind. The acquiescence of the provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction of rank, and to disregard the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... have listened to much excited eloquence upon this question. It is too manifest that Congress, moving on with that impetus which is ever the result of excessive political power. seeks to usurp those powers which are by the Constitution vested in the other Departments of the Government. I do not propose to discuss this subject or answer the speech of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Logan] with any words of my own. I have before me a paper which is ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... hesitates to admit their ultimate success. No difficulties discourage us, no disasters appal. We move on with indomitable will and determination, looking through all the obstacles to the grand result as already accomplished. Does slavery stand in the way, and cotton seek to usurp the throne of universal empire, dictating terms to twenty millions of freemen, and demanding the acquiescence of the world? The first is annihilated by a word proclaiming universal liberation; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the Roman people, [78] and Nicholas the Fifth, the last who was importuned by the presence of a Roman emperor. [79] I. The conflict of Eugenius with the fathers of Basil, and the weight or apprehension of a new excise, emboldened and provoked the Romans to usurp the temporal government of the city. They rose in arms, elected seven governors of the republic, and a constable of the Capitol; imprisoned the pope's nephew; besieged his person in the palace; and shot volleys of arrows into his bark as he escaped down the Tyber in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... and the magazines should not be allowed to usurp the place of conversation. If the art of talking is rapidly dying out, as some assert, we should do our share to revive it. We may not again have the wit and repartee, the brilliant intellectual combats of those other days, but we can at least each have a cultivated ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labours or usurp their honours, but that I might spare a perpetual repetition by one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the reverence due to instructers and benefactors, Junius appears to have excelled in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... silence, with all subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... this is placed in the ceremonies, I have already made it plain, from the testimonies of our opposites. This, sure, makes those ceremonies so to encroach upon the confines and precincts of the nature and quality of sacraments, that they usurp something more than any rites which are not appointed by God himself can rightly do. And if they be not sacraments, yet, saith Hooker,(791) they are as sacraments. But in Augustine's dialect, they are not ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... Yes. The holy brothers in assembled synod to elect a brother holier than themselves. Nay, I do forbid. I, the Abbot who have loved ye all, refuse permission to your meeting. Disperse, disperse. Do ye not hear? Is there no charity alive? Who dares usurp my chair, and I not yet entombed? What! is justice driven out where heavenly men should dwell? I see it. I mark it. The leaven of pride is kneaded in the brotherhood. Intriguing hypocrites usurp the House of God. What! brother John, the fat, the corpulent, the lazy! of whom I know ten thousand ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurp'd, from God not given. He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By His donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to Himself Reserving, human ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... having been created by man in his own image, with his own desires and passions, stand in constant need of being recreated. They change as the habits and temper of the race which adores them alter; they are ever bound to do something fresh, lest man should forget them, and new divinities usurp their place. Hence came endless avatars in Hindoo mythology, reproducing all the dreamy monstrosities of that passive Indian mind. Hence came Jove's adventures, tinged with all the lust and guile which the wickedness ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... money perhaps by your father or mother Was furnish'd you but with that view; If so, you were only the steward of another, And the praise you usurp is their due. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the case, I ask, as a mere layman, what right has the Bible to usurp the title of "the word of God"? What evidence can be sharked up to show that it is any more a holy or an inspired book than any book of Thomas Carlyle's, or John Ruskin's, or William Morris'? What evidence is forthcoming ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... the daring burglar eyeing with confidence the counsel learned in the law's defects, fee'd by its produce to defend its quondam owner. The effigies of Pride, Extravagance, honest Distress, and reckless Plunder, all by turns usurp the scene. In my last waking sleep, just as I had composed myself in delicious indolence, a parcel fell with more than ordinary force on one beneath. These were two of my talking friends. I stirred not, but sat silently to listen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... perplexed, as if she could not understand how it could be otherwise than wrong for a girl to usurp ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... to usurp the place of the sweetest pleasure! A kiss and a blow! glory and shame! light and darkness! fire and ice! life ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... country, of wishes unfulfilled and passionate indignation. At such a time, in drawing an imaginative picture, not love alone, but hatred too, flows freely and readily from the pen—practical tendencies are apt to usurp the place of poetic fancy; and, instead of a genial tone and temper, the reader is apt to find an unpleasing mixture of blunt reality ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... tyrants would be wretched themselves, and compelled to make sacrifices which would cost them dear; but that would only extend, as it were, the pernicious egoism of that part of their being which they had allowed to usurp a universal empire. The twang of intolerance and of self-mutilation is not absent from the ethics of Mr. Russell and Mr. Moore, even as it stands; and one trembles to think what it may become in the mouths of their disciples. Intolerance itself is a form ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... me. When the goldenrod flings its velvet cushions along the edge of the copses, or when the dandelion spangles the meadows, they are things of beauty as well as any tulip or tiger-lily. But when they or their rivals, silverweed, burdock, false ragweed, thistles, gumweed, and others usurp the landscape and seem to choke up the very earth and the very air with ceaseless monotony and repetition, then they become an offence to the eye and a reproach to those who tolerate them. To-day, however, they all lent their stalks to support the hoarfrost, to double and quadruple ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... is said is true. For it is wrong to seek to learn from the devil when we have the Divine Scripture": Besides, it is dangerous, since the demons frequently mix falsehood with truth. Or, as Chrysostom [*Cyril of Alexandria, Comment. in Luc.] says: "It was not meet for them to usurp the prerogative of the apostolic office. Nor was it fitting that the mystery of Christ should be proclaimed by a corrupt tongue" because "praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner" [*Cf. Theophylact, Enarr. in Luc.]. Thirdly, because, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... Legislature at the same time, and the instantaneous election of a new one; on the other hand, it excludes that common interest from taking place that might tempt a whole Legislature, whose term of duration expired at once, to usurp the right of continuance. I go now to speak ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... his "stoep" and smoked his pipe in lordly silence; nor did it ever enter his brain that the active, restless Yankee, whom he saw through his half-shut eyes worrying about in dog day heat, ever intent on the main chance, was one day to usurp control over these goodly Dutch domains. Already, however, the races regarded each other with disparaging eyes. The Yankees sneeringly spoke of the round-crowned burghers of the Manhattoes as the "Copper-heads;" ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... sure but that Belle will soon usurp your place in his regard, nor would I object, for I am very anxious about the child. I know that her present life seems dull to her, and the temptations of the city to a girl with a nature like hers are legion. He can be a very useful friend to her, and he seems to me manly and trustworthy. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... sharpest sort: Good Jove! what sense hast thou to be a sense! Since from the first foundation of the world, We never were accounted more than five. Yet you, forsooth, an idle prating dame, Would fain increase the number, and upstart To our high seats, decking your babbling self With usurp'd titles of ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... be in haste to conclude his own merit so great or conspicuous, as to require or justify singularity: it is as hazardous for a moderate understanding to usurp the prerogatives of genius, as for a common form to play over the airs of uncontested beauty. The pride of men will not patiently endure to see one, whose understanding or attainments are but level with their own, break the rules by which they have consented to be bound, or ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... Mozart, and being the contemporary of Verdi and Wagner, he witnessed almost the origin of the two modern classical schools of France and Germany, their rise to perfection, and, if not their decline, the arrival of a time when criticism would usurp the place of creation, and when to propound new rules for art claims higher consideration than to act according to its ever unalterable principles. His artistic life indeed was a rainbow based on the two extremes of modern music which shed light and glory on the great art-cycle ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel. A superstitious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday's illness as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been liable to the suspicion ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... his thoughts becoming confused again, as the spirit merged back into the child; in another minute the boy would usurp the older self. ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... of seeing an eye, warns you that watchful enemies are seeking the slightest chance to work injury to your business. This dream indicates to a lover, that a rival will usurp him if he is ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... day these leaders and agitators tend more and more to usurp the place of the public authorities in proportion as the latter allow themselves to be called in question and shorn of their strength. The tyranny of these new masters has for result that the crowds obey them much more docilely than they have obeyed any government. If in consequence of some accident ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... was very pleasant; there was no question. He did not at all usurp her office, nor interfere with it. But when he saw her getting weary of a parliamentary discussion, or a long discourse on politics or parties, his hand would gently draw away the paper from hers and his voice ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... poor a prison thou didst lie; After, enabled but to suck and cry. Think, when't was grown to most, 't was a poor inn, A province pack'd up in two yards of skin, And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age. But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee; Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty; Think, that a rusty piece discharg'd is flown In pieces, and the bullet is his own, And freely flies; this to thy soul allow, Think ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... with him, often a whole hour. Lebrun visited but seldom. Notwithstanding his elevation, his character remained unaltered; and Bonaparte considered him too moderate, because he always opposed his ambitious views and his plans to usurp power. When Bonaparte left the breakfast-table it was seldom that he did not add, after bidding Josephine and her daughter Hortense good-day, "Come, Bourrienne, come, let us ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... propagated, for their own advantage. It was said that, during the times of the Galwegian independence, one Hanlon MacDingawaie, brother to the reigning chief, Knarth MacDingawaie, murdered his brother and sovereign, in order to usurp the principality from his infant nephew, and that being pursued for vengeance by the faithful allies and retainers of the house, who espoused the cause of the lawful heir, he was compelled to retreat, with a few followers whom he had ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... fellow-creature be in any respect justifiable. And although this rule appears to me to be scarcely applicable to our state in this stage of trial, seeing that such non-resistance, if general, would surrender our civil and religious rights into the hands of whatsoever daring tyrants might usurp the same; yet I am, and have been, inclined to limit the use of carnal arms to the case of necessary self-defence, whether such regards our own person, or the protection of our country against invasion; or of our rights ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... unchangeable decree was appointed to happen; and that, therefore, it was their duty to acquiesce. OMAR then beckoned with his hand for audience a second time, and told them, that ALMORAN had not only practised the arts of sorcery to deprive HAMET of ALMEIDA, but that he meditated a design to usurp the sole dominion, and deprive him of the share of the government to which he had a right by the will of Solyman his father. This also they heard with the same sentiments of wonder and acquiescence: If it is decreed, said they, that ALMORAN shall be king alone, who can prevent it? and if ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... some essential facts in the case. There is so much in it that is grateful and beautiful that we cannot wonder at its reception where the tender instincts of the heart are stronger than the stern decisions of the conscience, where the kindly sentiments usurp the province of the critical reason and sit in judgment upon evidence for the construction ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... his claim to intelligence well supported by his messages, the medium will do well to rely on his or her own good judgment and intuition. As a writer has well said: "The medium must keep a level head and proceed cautiously. He should never allow any spirit, in or out of the body, to usurp his right of private judgment or exercise any undue authority over him. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; you must use your own discretion and try the spirits before you ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... kept that commandment all the other commandments would be obeyed. If we secure this queen-bee we are given the swarm. To put nothing "before" God! What is left in the circle of obedience? God first, always and everywhere. Nothing allowed to usurp His throne for an hour! I was once allowed to sit on an earthly throne for a few seconds, but even that is not to be allowed with the throne of God. Nothing is to share His sovereignty, even for a moment. His dominion is to be unconditional and unbroken. ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... infidels themselves allow,[81] a state of freedom from responsibility dangerous at all times, it must be peculiarly so in that season of temptation, youth, when the passions are sufficiently disposed to usurp a latitude for themselves, without taking a licence also from infidelity to enlarge their range. It is, therefore, fortunate that, for the causes just stated, the inroads of scepticism and disbelief should be seldom ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... Part of her intense charm was the ready tact with which she was careful never to usurp the place of any one else. She put aside the muslin that was to form covers for the boxes, and slipped her ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... of the mother which forms the basis of the first conception of the mother. After that, the gradually discriminated taste of the mother, and scent of the mother. Till gradually sight and hearing develop and largely usurp the first three senses, as medium ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... be right to dwell in the midst of false images, even though these are known to be false. The time will come when the illusory image will usurp the place of the just idea it has seemed to represent. We shall not reduce the part of the infinite and the mysterious by employing other images, by framing other and juster conceptions. Do what we may, this part can never be lessened. ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... referred to. In later years (it is Mr Humphry Ward, I think, who is our sufficient authority for it) poetry was but occasional amusement and solace to him, prose his regular avocation from task-work; and there is abundant evidence that, willingly or unwillingly, he never allowed either to usurp the place of the vocation which he had accepted. Not everybody, perhaps, is so scrupulous. It is not an absolutely unknown thing to hear men boast of getting through their work somehow or other, that they may devote themselves to parerga which they like, and which they are ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... known. His legs indeed were no less bowed than of yore; nor was his hair less red; but the round face appeared rounder than ever by reason of a thick fringe of whiskers. His body had filled out, and he moved with a rolling gait that caused him to usurp more than one man's ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... is always closed with a diplomatic review of the representatives of lawful Princes, who introduce on those occasions their fellow-subjects to another subject, who successfully has seized, and continues to usurp, the authority of his own Sovereign. What an example for ambition! what a lesson ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... no country, however abject its inhabitants may appear, where the most daring and ambitious can venture to usurp the supreme power without first obtaining a hold on public opinion; we cannot have a stronger proof of this fact, as applicable to Persia, than what we find in the conduct of Nadir upon this memorable occasion. Though that chief had revived the military spirit of his country, and roused a nation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... nor had they any wish to meddle with the common administration of government. It was only in exceptional instances of evil counsel, when some favourite like Buckingham broke the union of the nation and the king, that they demanded a change. To Charles however their demand seemed a claim to usurp his sovereignty. His reply was as fierce and sudden as the attack of Eliot. He hurried to the House of Peers to avow as his own the deeds with which Buckingham was charged; while Eliot and Digges were called from their seats and committed prisoners to the Tower. ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... to usurp Jussuf's place? Who dares here to pass for Jussuf's wife? I am Jussuf, who was thought lost! Where is the impostor? Let him come here, that he may receive the ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... executive power was wielded by the Council depended on the personal character of the monarch. Henry VIII was always master; Elizabeth was more guided than guiding; the Councils of the Valois and Hapsburgs profited by the preoccupation or the stupidity of their masters to usurp the royal power for themselves. In public opinion the Council occupied a great place, similar to that of an English Cabinet today. The first Anglican prayerbook {478} contains petitions for the Council, though it did not occur to the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... know what power a writer needs who would show the proud how great is the virtue of humility. For the law of our King and Founder is this: "God is against the proud but gives grace to the humble"; but the swollen and insolent soul loves herein to usurp the divine Majesty, and itself "to spare the subject and subdue the proud." Wherefore I may not pass over in silence that earthly city also, enslaved by its ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... sea without which these different nations' independent power on land cannot subsist. All governments ought to give their immediate and most serious attention to this subject, as the English now threaten to usurp the whole world's seaborne commerce ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... thou learned What God accounteth happiness, Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess What hell may be his punishment For those who doubt if God invent Better than they. Let such men rest Content with what they judged the best. Let the unjust usurp at will: The filthy shall be filthy still: Miser, there waits the gold for thee! Hater, indulge thine enmity! And thou, whose heaven self-ordained Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained, Do it! Take all the ancient show! The woods shall wave, the rivers flow, And men apparently pursue Their works, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... be callit lordis and dominators over their subjectis, whom they govern civilly; bot it is proper to Christ onlie to be callit Lord and Master in the spirituall government of the kirk, and all utheris that beiris office therein aucht not to usurp dominion therein, nor be callit lordis, bot onlie ministeris, disciples, and servantis. For it is Christis proper office to command and rewll His kirk universall, and every particular kirk, throw His Spirit and Word, be the ministrie of men."[265] But it is ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... thyself, Thou know'st those arts which blast with envious praise, Which aggravate a fault with feigned excuses, And drive discountenanced virtue from the throne; That leave blame of rigour to the prince, And of his every gift usurp the merit; That hide in seeming zeal a wicked purpose, And only build ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... who have the Paraclete himself in the person of the new prophets, saying: "The Church has the power to forgive sins, but I will not do it, lest they commit still others."{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} I now inquire into your opinion, to discover from what source you usurp ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... means, honest ends are the only ends. The party owes its right to existence to the people's will; when its life must be prolonged by artificial stimulants it is fit that it should die. It is not the people's master, but the people's servant; if it should usurp the oppressor's place, it ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... been hard and wild enough at first, but just now, when she slipped down upon the door-step with her back turned to the wretched man within—when it came upon her that, traitor as he was, she herself had given him the right to take her bright-faced lover's place, and usurp his tender power—when the fresh sea-breeze blew upon her face and stirred her hair, and the warm, rare sunshine touched her, even breeze and sunshine helped her to the end, so that she broke down into a sharp sob, ...
— One Day At Arle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Last effort meeting him, his strength restored, And wing'd for flight his agile limbs anew? The son of Peleus, as he ran, his brows Shaking, forbad the people to dismiss A dart at Hector, lest a meaner hand 240 Piercing him, should usurp the foremost praise. But when the fourth time to those rivulets. They came, then lifting high his golden scales, Two lots the everlasting Father placed Within them, for Achilles one, and one 245 For Hector, balancing the doom of both. Grasping it in the midst, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... wine-industry has much the same features as that of the Rhine, but there is a great difference between the French wines, which are mostly red, and the German, which are mostly white. Among the latter hundreds of spurious, horrible concoctions for the foreign market usurp the name of Mosel wine. It is hardly necessary even to mention the pretty names by which the real wines are known, and which may be found on any wine-card at the good, unpretending inns that make Mosel travelling a special delight. The Saar wines are included among the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... intolerance, and of that kind of hardness which makes one anathematize and curse; it is to carry a corrective to admiration even of Bossuet, and for all who, after his example, exult, were it only in words, over their enemy dead or dying; who usurp I know not what holy speech, and involuntarily believe themselves to be, with the thunderbolt in their hand, in the region and place of the Most High. Men eloquent and sublime, you are far too ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... injured innocence, wrote to Henry VIII., telling him that she and her party are in great trouble till they know what help he will give them; that her enemies continue to usurp the king's authority in Parliament, holding her and her friends to be rebels; and she entreats him to hasten his army against Scotland by sea and by land.* This was clearly as much an act of treason as if she had deliberately invited any other ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... against the encroachments of the church, and the untoward incident of Becket's murder impaired the success of Henry's efforts to establish royal supremacy. But this supremacy must not be exaggerated. Henry did not usurp ecclesiastical jurisdiction; he wanted to see that the clerical courts did their duty; he claimed the power of moving them in this direction; and he hoped to make the crown the arbiter of disputes between the rival spiritual and temporal jurisdictions, realizing that the only alternative to this ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... for Love to heaven is fled, Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name; Under whose simple semblance he hath fed Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame; 796 Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves, As ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... letters, one addressed to the Metropolitan, the other to the people of Moscow. This action struck terror among the nobles and the people. The former dreaded that the people might rise and avenge the czar, and the people were afraid that the nobles would once again usurp the government. The nobles and priests consulted and decided to beg Ivan's pardon and to submit to any punishment he might impose. Ivan consented to return to Moscow (p. 117) but on his own terms. This was accepted. ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... are exceptions, I hope," he said. "Love, like everything else that is great, is very, very rare. We call the disposition to usurp and absorb another person by that name, but woe betide him or her who is the object of such a sentiment. Yet happily, the real thing is to be found now and again. And from ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... "feeding." "Feeding," in the Roman sense, means to burden Christendom with many human and hurtful laws, to sell the bishoprics at the highest possible price, to extract the annates[70] from all benefices, to usurp authority over all foundations, to force into servitude all the bishops with terrible oaths, to sell indulgences, to rob the whole world by means of letters, bulls, seals and wax, to prohibit the preaching of the Gospel, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... not in the nature of things that hostility to these institutions can spring from this source, or any opposition to their course of business, except when they themselves depart from the objects of their creation and attempt to usurp powers not conferred upon them or to subvert the standard of value established by the Constitution. While opposition to their regular operations can not exist in this quarter, resistance to any attempt to make the Government ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... men, as very many of them could easily have contrived to do, woe unto the poor impostors! They were hunted down from city to city as few felons would be, and finally done to death—"serve them right!" being the grim commentary regarding their fate for having sought to usurp the ineffable privilege of whitemanship! All this, Mr. Froude, was [121] the rule, the practice, in America, with regard to persons of colour up to twenty-five years ago. Now, sir, what is the phenomenon which strikes your vision ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... she said, with a lift of her sleek brown head, "didn't she usurp my prerogatives at the wedding? The best man belongs, for that evening alone, to the maid of honour—he can't escape it—it is his fate. Common civility should have chained him to my chariot wheels, but with that white-headed Lilith at work on him, with her half-shut eyes, she had him queered before ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... generically. In the natural object it indicates any species of useless weed that occupies the ground and injures the growing crop: in the spiritual application it points to the worldly cares, whether they spring from poverty or wealth, which usurp in a human heart the place due to Christ ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... to spoil One right of our homes, or one foot of our soil, One privilege pluck from our keeping, or dare Usurp one blessing 'tis fit ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... clown, Who yet knew something of the town, Beheld the mimic of his whim, And on the morrow challenged him Declaring to each beau and belle That he this grunter would excel. The morrow came—the crowd was greater— But prejudice and rank ill-nature Usurp'd the minds of men and wenches, Who came to hiss and break the benches. The mimic took his usual station, And squeak'd with general approbation; Again "Encore! encore!" they cry— "'Tis quite the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... that it was the coming of the children that had made the difference, since a big strong man, naturally, had to take second place to those helpless little mites. But my Dinky-Dunk had a place in my heart which no snoozerette could fill and no infant could usurp. He was my man, my mate, my partner in this tangled adventure called life, and so long as I had him they could take the house with the laundry-chute and ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... have held him—would have made him remember what was best for her among this crowd of hostile women—flew to the winds. He must go to her—must show her he loved and would protect her, and, above all, that he would permit no other man to usurp ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... by no means imbued with the belief that the Presbyterian was the one true Church, and that all others were in error. Nor did he attempt, in the very slightest degree, to usurp the functions of his chaplains. Although he invariably went to sleep during their sermons, he was deeply interested in their endeavours, and gave them all the assistance in his power. But he no more thought of taking their duties on himself ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... because our printers ravin on the agonies of their victims, as wolves do on the blood of the lamb. But the printers and the public are very different personages. The former may lead the latter a little out of their track, while the deviation is insensible: but the moment they usurp their direction and that of their government, they will be reduced to their true places. The two last Congresses have been the theme of the most licentious reprobation for printers thirsting after war, some against France, and some against England. But the people wish for peace with both. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... invaluable as an aid to work with the sword, it may be remarked that there are two reasons, and those important ones, why the single-stick should not be first placed in the hands of the beginner, and why it should never altogether usurp the place of the more lethal ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... were not going to allow business to usurp their time and thought during this joyful season! The children must have their trees, hung with gifts; the needy must be especially cared for, and visits must be exchanged; so the City was left to take care of itself, while each household was busy making ready for the ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... more will the boys be encouraged. For your married belles like to have men about them younger than themselves—it makes them appear younger, or at least they think so; and besides, such youths are more easily managed and more subservient. But, still worse, the more these boys usurp the place of men in society, the more boyish and retrograde will the few men become who continue to divide the honors of society with them. When Plato enumerated among the signs of a republic in the last stage of decadence, that the youth imitate and rival old men, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... A cloud of black against the crimson sky, Spoke, as a man may hardly speak but once: "My seamen, oh my friends, companions, kings; For I am least among you, being your captain; And ye are men, and all men born are kings, By right divine, and I the least of these Because I must usurp the throne of God And sit in judgment, even till I have set My seal upon the red wax of this blood, This blood of my dead friend, ere it grow cold. Not all the waters of that mighty sea Could wash my hands of sin if I should now Falter upon my path. But look to it, you, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... their own chiefs, not with a hard and fast rule, but all in friendly relations. By virtue of this friendship they were obliged to aid their chief, both in his wars and in the cultivation of his fields; and all to aid one another mutually. But no one was able to usurp the property which belonged to another, even though he were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... to Dunham than she could realize. It was some strangeness in her, possibly some unconscious gaucherie, that so often called his attention to herself. Surely she should blush forever that, so soon as her thoughts escaped control, the subject began to attempt to betray her Princess and usurp ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... she could not read the book she had in hand; its phrases seemed to fall into triviality. Yet—she reasoned at a later time—it should not have been so; the haggard gaze of fate should not daunt one; pity is but an element in the soul's ideal of order, it should not usurp a barren sovereignty. It is the miserable contradiction in our lot that the efficiency of the instincts of beauty-worship waits upon a force of individuality attainable only by a sacrifice of sensibility. Emily divined this. So ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... no longer able to master his passion for royal power, made an attempt to usurp the throne, and succeeded without difficulty, since Zeno, together with his wife, sought refuge in Isauria, which was his native home. [471 A.D.] And while he was maintaining his tyranny for a year and eight months he was detested by practically everyone and in particular by the soldiers ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... Mordaunt. It appears to me that, under the pretext of acting as guardian to my father, you oppose a reconciliation between us, without even consulting his wishes; and it is strange that a niece, a granddaughter only, should usurp the position of the eldest son, and refuse to ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... Colbert," asked Mrs. Dunmore; "or do you trespass upon the hours necessary to your repose and recreation that you are so much thinner and paler than you used to be? I fear I must usurp your prerogative and turn preacher if you are really destroying your health by too great devotion to ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... led him to usurp a power to which the Romans were not willing to submit, it appears that he used it with unexampled moderation. He was beloved and revered by the people, honoured and almost adored by his friends, and esteemed and admired ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... considered and said, "Be it known unto thee, most noble sir, that the king harboureth against thee the suspicion, that thou wouldest usurp his kingdom, and he spake, as he spake, to sound thee. Arise therefore, and crop thy hair. Doff these thy fine garments, and don an hair-shirt, and at daybreak present thyself before the king. And when he asketh thee, 'What ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... clemency of Alexander and Caesar, which nature had so grossly erred in giving them, as a painter would who should dress a peasant in robes of state or give the nose or any other feature of a Venus to a satyr. What had the destroyers of mankind, that glorious pair, one of whom came into the world to usurp the dominion and abolish the constitution of his own country; the other to conquer, enslave, and rule over the whole world, at least as much as was well known to him, and the shortness of his life would give ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... warms, it too often happens that, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them.[52] Hence so frequently it arises that, in persons of this temperament, we see some bright but artificial idol of the brain usurp the place of all real and natural objects of tenderness. The poet Dante, a wanderer away from wife and children, passed the whole of a restless and detached life in nursing his immortal dream of Beatrice; while Petrarch, who would not suffer ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Absolute Veto and led the fight for the sequestration of the property of the Church. This course made him a popular idol and in the early days of the Revolution he was the leader of the extreme wing of the Republicans. When he saw, however, that mob law was about to usurp the place of the Republican institutions for which he had striven, he leaned towards the court and advocated the sacrosanctity of the King's person. Denounced as a renegade, with his life threatened and his influence lost, he retired to his native province. In August ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... the pride of her name was powerfuller than the heart in her bosom. But to what end had the true heart counselled her of late? It had been a home of humours and languors, an impotent insurgent, the sapper of her character; and as we see in certain disorderly States a curative incendiarism usurp the functions of the sluggish citizen, and the work of re-establishment done by destruction, in peril of a total extinction, Aminta's feverish anger on behalf of her name went a stretch to vivify and give her dulled character a novel edge. She said good-bye to cowardice. 'I have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for them in Europe. Pius VII. had long studied canonical interdictions; he consulted neither his ministers nor his doctors; it was a personal reply he addressed to the emperor. "It is out of our power." said he, "to pronounce the judgment of nullity; if we were to usurp such an authority that we have not, we should render ourselves culpable of an abominable abuse before the tribunal of God; and your Majesty yourself, in your justice, would blame us for pronouncing a sentence contrary ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... which was an object of abhorrence to the great comic genius; and Thucydides, a born aristocrat, of strong oligarchical sympathies, looked with cold scorn and aversion on the coarse mechanic, [Footnote: Cleon was a tanner by trade.] who presumed to usurp the place, and ape the style, of a ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... detect at once. Let her make her ultimatum, and there are enough generous minds in Europe that will counteract her in the balance. Of course her motive is to cripple a power that rivals her in commerce and manufactures, that threatens even to usurp her history. In twenty more years of prosperity, it will require a close calculation to determine whether England, her laws and history, claim for a home the Continent of America or the Isle of Britain. Therefore, finding us in a death-struggle for existence, she ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying, afterward, the very engine which had lifted them ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... led the young man to a small chamber where they were greeted by Princess Eleanor, his wife, and by Bertrade de Montfort. The girl was frankly glad to see him once more and laughingly chide him because he had allowed another to usurp his prerogative and rescue her from ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it into the world or remaining idle; when with a clearer vision she saw that her help in governmental affairs, especially where they touched her own interests, was much needed—right about face she turned and said to the southern man: "I don't wish to usurp your place in government but it is time I had my own. I don't complain of the way you have conducted your part of the business but my part has been either badly managed or not managed at all. In the past you have not ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... there's Tim," I protested, for I did not care to usurp to myself the sum of all the virtues ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... much of it he understood. I think it one of the happiest circumstances of his training, that nothing was ever explained to him, and that there was no professedly intellectual person in the family to usurp the place of Providence and supplement its shortcomings, in order to make him what he was never intended to be. His mind developed itself; intentional cultivation might have spoiled it.... He used to invent long stories, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... ye reverend senators! That ye have lent your credence to these proofs; And if I be indeed the man whom I Protest myself, oh, then, endure not this Audacious robber should usurp my seat, Or longer desecrate that sceptre which To me, as the true Czarowitsch, belongs. Yes, justice lies with me,—you have the power. 'Tis the most dear concern of every state And throne, that right should ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... may usurp That honoured swinging seat; His seasons pass with pipe and glass Until ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... son, had, like his father, never consented to have a patriarch there. The archbishops of Novgorod supplied their place in certain things, as occupying the chief see after that of Moscow, but with scarcely any authority that the Czar did not entirely usurp, and more carefully still after King William had given him the counsel before alluded to; so that by degrees he had become the real religious chief of his ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... and that, not owning himself, he may not destroy himself. But, leaving this metaphysical argument for what it is worth, we observe that man has a Master, Owner, Proprietor, and Sovereign Lord, God Almighty. To take your own life is to usurp the dominion of God. It is wronging the Lord of life and death. But none is wronged against his will: God is willing that murderers should be hung, may He not also be willing that men in misery should hang themselves? ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... this view, are inclined to take the opposite view. At Athens there was a great tribunal composed of men learned in, and competent to interpret, the law. The people could not tolerate such an institution, so laboured to destroy it and to usurp its functions. The crowd reasoned thus. "We can interpret and carry out laws, because we make them." The conclusion was right, but the minor premise was disputable. The retort can be made: "True, you ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... right,' you cannot, of course, object to my acting on it. In virtue of that law, I claim these prisoners as mine, so you may get up and go about your business. You see, lads," he added, turning to the men, while Swinton rose and retired, "though I have no wish to domineer over you or to usurp authority. I have a right to claim that my voice shall be heard and my reasons weighed. As Swinton truly remarked, no man is master now, but as he followed this remark by making himself master, and laying down ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... heart: Can these be true gods, or have I perchance been duped? Thenceforward I held my peace, and set myself to watch, and now after much watching—alas! I must say it to my shame—I have discovered that they are no true gods, but wicked liars who have sought to usurp the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard |
