"Despot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was largely due to the fact that, at this period, Di had quite made up her mind that her grandfather was a hateful, unreasonable old despot, and that it served him right never to come to the family parties, nor to have any Christmas presents, nor to have seen the baby, which Mamma said was the prettiest of all her babies, and which Di considered the most enchanting object on the face ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... all agreed that our (American) political institutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... act of walking, is merely an unconscious application of the laws of gravity,) —helpless, irresolute, incapable of conceiving the flower Safety in the nettle Danger, much more of plucking it thence,—surely here, if anywhere, is an object of compassion. When such a one is a despot who has wrought his own destruction by obstinacy in a traditional evil policy, like Francis II. of Naples, our commiseration is outweighed by satisfaction that the ruin of the man is the safety of the state. But when the victim is ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... not that tyrannical master who kills us, damns us, or saves us, according to His pleasure. The God of Jesus is our Father. We hear Him in listening to the gentle inspiration which cries within us, "Abba, Father."[2] The God of Jesus is not the partial despot who has chosen Israel for His people, and specially protects them. He is the God of humanity. Jesus was not a patriot, like the Maccabees; or a theocrat, like Judas the Gaulonite. Boldly raising himself above the prejudices of his nation, he established the universal fatherhood of God. The Gaulonite ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... survival in creative work and offspring is its objective triumph. But for all men, since man is a social creature, the play of will must fall short of absolute freedom. Perfect human liberty is possible only to a despot who is absolutely and universally obeyed. Then to will would be to command and achieve, and within the limits of natural law we could at any moment do exactly as it pleased us to do. All other liberty is a compromise between our own freedom of will and ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... corrupt and the king surrounded by what even the mild-mannered Edmund Pendleton called "a rotten, wicked administration". Not until the eve of independence in 1776 were Virginians to think of George as a tyrant and despot. In fact, he was neither. He was a dedicated man of limited abilities in an age demanding greatness if the separation of the American colonies from the empire was to have been prevented. Perhaps even ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... Napoleon, of "his instinct of justice." But was it not a compact array of the selfish impulses against a weak instinct of justice, backed by a Titan's will, wielding a mighty intellect, that enabled Napoleon to be the disloyal usurper, then the hardened despot and the merciless devastator? Again, can it be said of Napoleon that he possessed good sense in a rare degree? Good sense is an instinctive insight into all the bearings of act or thought, an intuitive discernment of the relations and consequences of conduct ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... in France from liberator to despot is worthy of some attention. It is not good for a nation, any more than for an individual, to be too successful. Moreover, the doctrine of liberty, whether in the individualist or nationalist sense, if carried to extreme, is liable to abuse. All to-day are aware that sheer ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... the trampled despot's fate Forewarn the rash, misguided band To sue for mercy, ere too late, Nor scatter ruin o'er the land. The baffled traitor, doomed to bear A people's hate, his colleagues' scorn, Defeated by his own despair, Will curse the hour that he ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... sees afar the smoke curl slow, Feels his full eyes with transport overflow: So from the scene where Death and Anguish reign, And Vice and Folly drench with blood the plain, Joyful I turn, to sing how Woman's praise Avail'd again Jerusalem to raise, Call'd forth the sanction of the Despot's nod, And freed the ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... son of Paul I.; distinguished himself at Austerlitz; was commander-in-chief in Poland, where he ruled as despot; waived his right to the throne in favour of his brother ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... changed. Messieurs Buck and Huppenbauer, two German missionaries who were making a 'preaching-tour,' reported from Kumasi that King Mensah was afraid of war, and that his kingdom was 'on the point to go asunder.' The despot, with African wiliness, at once threw the blame of threatening Assin upon his confidant, Saibi Enkwia. No one believed that an Ashantiman would thus expose himself to certain death; but the explanation served for an excuse. The King also asserted that his 'Gold ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... have the power, because I am supported by the army.' But no, senor, they prefer to continue the old farce and say, 'I, the king, by the grace of God.' The little tyrant cannot leave the lap of the greater despot; it is impossible to them to maintain themselves ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... hereditary descent in his family. At each successive revolution the people were courted—were flattered—were promised transcendent felicity. The people swore eternal hatred to Monarchy, and eternal fidelity to Constitutions, till, heaven, weary of their perjuries, sent them a despot in his wrath. ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... made two other attempts to capture the royal scalp, but neither of them was more successful than the first, and on the last occasion his best horse met its death by a fall; so he gave up the chase in disgust and went back to Texas, leaving Lobo more than ever the despot of the region. ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... frightened, the pulse of the stock-market remains provokingly calm. General Cushing, infringing the patent-right of the late Mr. James, the novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on the edge of the horizon. The exegesis of the vision has been various, some thinking that it means a Military Despot,—though in that case the force of cavalry would seem to be inadequate,—and others the Pony Express. If it had been one rider on two horses, the application would have been more general and less obscure. In fact, the old cry ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... that the bloody, and treasonable, and revolutionary doctrine of public necessity can be proclaimed by a mob as well as by a Government. * * * When men accept despotism, they may have a choice as to who the despot shall be!" ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... would be preposterous to doubt her statement. But whether the inspiration ought not to have been sacrificed is another question. Her gift was her good angel and her evil angel as well, but in any case something of her despot. Here, assuredly, it ruled her ill. It is indisputable that, as she had pointed out, the sad history of the attachment of Lucrezia the actress and Karol the prince deviates too widely from that which was supposed to have originated it for just comparisons to be ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... his determination not to enter Salt Lake City until the flag of his country was waving there, holding it a shame that men should be detained there in subjection to such a despot as ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... this "frightful idea" come from? We are surprised, as we grow older, to find that the legendary hell of the church is nothing more nor less than the Tartarus of the old heathen world. It has every mark of coming from the cruel heart of a barbarous despot. Some malignant and vindictive Sheik, some brutal Mezentius, must have sat for many pictures of the Divinity. It was not enough to kill his captive enemy, after torturing him as much as ingenuity could contrive to do it. He escaped at last by death, but ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mocking England and God. Then tyranny's draught—once only—we drank to the dregs!—and the stain Went crimson and black through the soul of the land, for all time, not in vain! We bore the bluff many-wived king, rough rival and victor of Rome; We bore the stern despot-protector, whose dawning and sunset were gloom; For they temper'd the self of the tyrant with love of the land, Some touch of the heart, some remorse, refraining the grip of the hand. But John's was blackness of darkness, a day of vileness and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... to-day; it is the same, for instance, with the high-placed and high-paid official. Not only is the judge not judicial, but the arbiter is not even arbitrary. The arbiter decides, not by some gust of justice or injustice in his soul like the old despot dooming men under a tree, but by the permanent climate of the class to which he happens to belong. The ancient wig of the judge is often indistinguishable from the old wig of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... hang him, as we are told, but was persuaded by his friends not to go so far. These Spanish governors had the power to do almost anything they pleased, their distance from home enabling them to act the despot at will, and their influence at court saving them ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... of women; but I suppose I should not be taken very seriously if I propounded them. I should favour anything that would increase the present enormous authority of women and their creative action in their own homes. The average woman, as I have said, is a despot; the average man is a serf. I am for any scheme that any one can suggest that will make the average woman more of a despot. So far from wishing her to get her cooked meals from outside, I should like her to cook more wildly and at her own will than she does. ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... while in speaking of their chief they express but one opinion. In praise of their sovereign they are unanimous. Songs are composed in his honour, which the company frequently sing in concert; but they are so loaded with gross adulation, that no man but a Moorish despot could hear them without blushing. The king is distinguished by the fineness of his dress; which is composed of blue cotton-cloth, brought from Tombuctoo, or white linen or muslin from Morocco. ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of a mere portrait-painter's powers that the son of the Augsburg Bohemian came to lay his finger upon the very core and composition of perhaps the haughtiest, the subtlest, the most dread despot since the Caesars? Henry VIII. and Fisher; the Lais Corinthiaca, the Duchess of Milan, his brooding wife; dancing children, and dancing Death; Christ on the Cross, Christ in the Grave, Christ Arisen; lambs in the fields, woods and hills, gaping peasants, wild battle;—put them ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... governed by it like sheep. The administrator, however humble, is a despot; most people will even run forward to meet him halfway, like the servile ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... on and month followed month, covering her grief and memories with the dust of forgetfulness, Jeanne devoted herself entirely to her son. The child became the idol, the one engrossing thought, of the three beings over whom he ruled like any despot; there was even a sort of jealousy between his three slaves, for Jeanne grudged the hearty kisses he gave the baron when the latter rode him on his knees, and Aunt Lison, who was neglected by this baby, as she had always been by everyone, and was regarded as a servant by this master who could ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... from her tomb, fair Italy (Fairer than ever) cast her shroud away,— That tightly-fastened, triply-folded shroud! Around her, shameful sight! crowd upon crowd, Nations in agony lie speechless down, And Europe trembles at a despot's frown." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... of these things—not as if they were the doings in England, and therefore legalised matters of course—but think of them as the arts of some despot in a far-off colony, and oh, how all hearts would burn—all tongues curse and call for vengeance on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... forgave it to their patriotism, as I had to forgive many ugly facts in the history of the Romans to theirs. There was hardly any sort of bloodshed which I would not pardon in those days to the slayers of tyrants; and the swagger form of such as despatched a despot with a fine speech was so much to my liking that I could only grieve that I was born too late to do ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... second-class passengers, while the between-decks was devoted to the use of the steerage passengers. Thus there were three ranks of people on board; indeed, including the officers and crow, the good ship presented a little world of itself. Old Captain Westerway was the sovereign—a mild despot, however; but if he was mild, his first mate, Mr William Windy, or Bill Windy, as he was generally called, was very much the contrary, and he took care to bring those who trespassed on the captain's mildness ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... class of human beings, the proper field of action and the proper mode of employing the faculties which God has given them. If I understand aright the principles of liberty, just here is the point of controversy, between the despot and the champion of human rights, in any department. Just when one human being assumes to decide for another what is that other's sphere of action, just then despotism begins. Everything else is but ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... however, did insist upon it, and Gyges was compelled to yield. Whatever is offered as a favor by a half-intoxicated despot to an humble inferior, it would be death to refuse. Gyges allowed himself to be placed behind a half-opened door of the king's apartment, when the king retired to it for the night. There he was to remain while the ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... judicious questions, artfully put, soon elicited from the savage the information that the travellers were now in the country belonging to M'Bongwele, a fierce, cruel, and jealous despot, so suspicious of foreigners that the most stringent orders were in force to allow none such to cross his borders upon any pretence whatever. This king had been duly apprised, through the medium of the curious voice-telegraphic mode of communication already ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... kings of pouring wine over the animal slain by them in the hunt. The act is intended to secure divine favor towards a deed which involved the destruction of something that by all ancient nations was held sacred, namely, life. Even a despot of Assyria felt that to wantonly destroy life could not be safely undertaken without making sure of the consent of the gods. Significantly enough, Ashurbanabal offers his libations after the lion or bull hunts to Ishtar as the "goddess of battle."[1494] The animal ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... said of Louis Bonaparte, whether with friendly intent or otherwise,—for these strange beings have strange flatterers,—"He is a dictator, he is a despot, nothing more."—He is that in our opinion, and ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... ambassador to the United States. Let him announce to the Americans that the National Convention of France, from pure friendship to America, has consented to respite the sentence of Louis. Ah, Citizens, do not give the despot of England the pleasure of seeing sent to the scaffold the man who helped my beloved brethren of America to free ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... salutation, he angrily complained against them to his father. Nicholas, however, blamed the son for his unreasonable exaction. This vicious arrogance of the boy ripened afterwards into the haughtiness of the despot, being but slightly mitigated by a naturally melancholy disposition, which sometimes gave ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... The despot treads thy sacred sands, Thy pines give shelter to his bands, Thy sons stand by with idle hands, Carolina! He breathes at ease thy airs of balm, He scorns the lances of thy palm; Oh! who shall break thy craven calm, Carolina! Thy ancient ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... for a great number of the inhabitants, who, during the life of Philip II., conscientiously believed that they could not lawfully abjure the authority once recognized and sworn to, became now liberated from those respectable, although absurd, scruples; and the death of one unfeeling despot gave thousands of new citizens to ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... that the Charleses had done to break down the liberty of Englishmen, still the great corporate towns held out, intrenched behind their charters, and from that bulwark both annoyed the despot and defended the civil rights of the citizen. They also must be destroyed. So summons of quo warranto were served upon them, which frightened the smaller corporations and brought down their charters. Jeffreys ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... deceptive conduct of the Company, both in England and at Massachusetts Bay. Had Charles or his advisers cherished any hostile feelings against the Company, there was now a good opportunity of showing it. Had he been disposed to act the despot towards them, he might at once, on a less plausible pretext than that now afforded him, have cancelled his Charter and taken the affairs of the colony into his ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... detect in his thoughts that flavour which the soil of despotism generally communicates to all the fruits of genius. Eloquence was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate in a despot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amusement for the travelled nobles and the blue-stocking matrons of Rome. It is, therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war; it is a contest of foils, not of swords. He appears to think more of the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... proceeds to extremities regardless of consequences, on the other hand, is the easiest action in the world, and the lowest in type. Any one can show energy, when made quite reckless. An Oriental despot requires but little ability: as long as he lives, he succeeds, for he has absolutely his own way; and, when the world can no longer endure the horror of him, he is assassinated. But not to proceed immediately to extremities, to ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... postilion and notably quickened the gait of our horses. It was impossible to toss our caps, for they were not only tied upon our heads, but frozen fast to our beards. So here we were at last, in the true dominions of Winter. A mild ruler he had been to us, thus far, but he proved a despot before ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... clearly aware that their conflict would steadily continue—the old burgesses and the —metoeci— —who, like the English Whigs and Tories in 1688, were for a moment united by the common danger which threatened to convert the commonwealth into the arbitrary government of a despot, and differed again as soon as the danger was over. The old burgesses could not get rid of the monarchy without the cooperation of the new burgesses; but the new burgesses were far from being sufficiently strong to wrest the power out of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... no, my Lords; that imperial tyrant, State Necessity, is yet a generous despot,—bold is his demeanor, rapid his decisions, and terrible his grasp. But what he does, my Lords, he dares avow, and avowing, scorns any other justification, than the great motives that placed the iron sceptre in his hand. But a quibbling, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... where magnificence and savagery stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art labours for the rich alone; here she works for the poor no less. There the multitude produce only to give splendour and grace to the despot or the warrior, whose slaves they are, and whom they enrich; here the man who is powerful in the weapons of peace, capital, and machinery, uses them to give comfort and enjoyment to the public, whose servant he is, and thus becomes rich while he enriches others ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... beginning of the end," one of the students exclaimed. "Paris will assert herself, France will come to her assistance, and the Germans will find that it is one thing to fight against the armies of a despot, and another to stand before a ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... who should ever be employed in any similar inquiry that, if he wished to be paid, he must report what would please the assembly which held the purse of the state. In truth the House was despotic, and was fast contracting the vices of a despot. It was proud of its antipathy to courtiers; and it was calling into existence a new set of courtiers who would study all its humours, who would flatter all its weaknesses, who would prophesy to it smooth things, and who would assuredly ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... only despot, To end this painful feud I'd banish straight to Mespot The scribbling infant brood, And bar the importation, By that hustler, Uncle Sam, Of novels from the nursery And poems ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... thoroughly detested, the most hated man in Bartlesville. And those who hated feared him as they hated and feared the incendiary, the creeping thief, the midnight assassin; for he used their methods to attain his ends, along with a despot's power. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... danger, Told of cottages all empty, And of mansions grim and silent, Of the hearthstones all deserted, All the happy, quiet hearthstones. In this sad and fearful era, In the year of eighteen hundred Three and thirty, came a despot, More oppressive in his power Than the hosts of foreign armies, More insatiate in his passion Than the simoon of the desert. Came a despot whose invasion Struck the heart all dumb with terror, Drove ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... appearance and addresses a civil speech, to Malavika when he is interrupted by another pair of listeners, Iravati and her attendant. She commands Malavika's retreat, and leaves the king, in a violent rage, to inform Dharini of what is going forward. The King never behaves as a despot but always with much consideration for the ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... said poor Miss Jane afterwards in private to her sister, 'how I hate being told I am very kind! It just means, "You are a not quite intolerable jailor and despot," ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of which Rikiu invited him to a morning tea at his house. On the appointed day Taiko walked through the garden, but nowhere could he see any vestige of the convulvus. The ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and sand. With sullen anger the despot entered the tea-room, but a sight waited him there which completely restored his humour. On the tokonoma, in a rare bronze of Sung workmanship, lay a single morning-glory—the ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... taken when he first came to New York, clear-cut, handsome, courageous, apparently a type of progressive young manhood; the other, taken within the year, gross, lowering, tyrannical, obviously a type of indulged, self-indulgent despot. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... the noted prize fighter, was the "Boss" of Tammany Hall during the Civil War period. It pleased his fancy to go to Congress, and his obedient constituents sent him there. Morrissey was such an absolute despot that the New York City democracy could not make a move without his consent, and many of the Tammanyites were so afraid of him that they would not even enter into business ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... the royal captive is bewildered, and if obliged to act, he gropes, blunders, injures himself, and becomes incapable of decision in extremity of danger, reduced to the helplessness which marks the condition of the Eastern despot, or les rois faineans ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... her, and who had sworn to it himself. It was impossible, therefore, she reasoned, that the king should fail in keeping the promise which he had himself exacted from her, unless, indeed, Louis was a despot who enforced love as he enforced obedience; unless, too, the king were so indifferent that the first obstacle in his way was sufficient to arrest his further progress. The king, that kind protector, who by a word, a single word, could relieve her distress of mind, the king even joined her ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and of the other United States were very strict on the subject of citizenship, and no one but a native was competent to hold office in each Province. Doubtless, such regulations were narrow-spirited; but to fly in the face of them was the act of a despot, and this is what Leicester did. Reingault was a Fleming. He was a bankrupt merchant, who had been taken into the protection of Lamoral Egmont, and by that nobleman recommended to Granvelle for an office under the Cardinal's ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... time had (p. 056) stood the decayed town of Ravenspur. Landing boldly though with such a handful of men, he was soon joined by the Percies, and other powerful leaders; and so eagerly did the people flock to him as their deliverer from a headstrong reckless despot, that in a short time he numbered as his followers sixty thousand men, who had staked their property, their liberty, and their lives, on the same die. The most probable account of his proceedings up to his return to Chester, immediately ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... from the tribune. As soon as he is discredited the army will turn against him. It sympathises with the people from which it has recently been separated and to which it is soon to return. It will never support an unpopular despot. I have no fears therefore for the ultimate destinies of my country. It seems to me that the Revolution of the 2nd of December is more dangerous to the rest of Europe than it is to us. That it ought to alarm England much more than ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... The despot roves your fairest lands; And till he flies or fears, Your fields must grow but armed bands, Your sheaves be sheaves of spears! Give up to mildew and to rust The useless tools of gain, And feed your country's sacred dust With floods of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... of a God sitting above the clouds among the cherubim, who blow their loud uplifted angel trumpets before Him, and humour [sic] Him as though He were some despot in an Oriental tale; but we enthrone Him upon the wings of birds, on the petals of flowers, on the faces of our friends, and upon whatever we most delight in of all that lives upon the earth. We then can not only love Him, but we can do that without which love has neither power ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... was the Union made us free, Its loss, man's second fall would be. States linked in kindred glory save, Till the last despot finds a grave; And angels hasten here to see Man break his chains, the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... angry; it was going rather too far, they thought. Was it the province of a military man to advocate, still less to enforce, temperance? Had not the "black" an "equal right" to quench his thirst? The canteen-men thought so; some of them, indeed, were sure of it, and went so far as to defy "despot sway," by ignoring it. They continued ministering to the needs of the horny-handed sons of toil. But the police—miserable time-servers—would do their duty; they were forced to uphold the Colonel's law, and to requisition the services of the celebrated local "trappers." The ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... and he was the chief contributor to the public fountain under the big elm. If he carefully, or even jealously guarded his own interests, and held the leading law firm in the hollow of his hand, he was not oppressive, to the general knowledge. He was a despot, perhaps, but he was Blackstone's ideal of the head of a state, a good despot. In all his family relations he was of the exemplary perfection which most other men attain only on their tombstones, and I ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... the temptation to sell or gamble them away."[131] Descent through mothers is in force among the negroes of equatorial Africa, the man's property passing to his sister's children; but the father is an unlimited despot, and no one dares to oppose him. So long as his relation with his wives continues, he is master of them and of their children. He can even sell the latter into slavery.[132] In New Britain maternal descent prevails, but wives are obtained by purchase or capture, and are practically slaves; they are ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... hundred thousand men ready to crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the three years I have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts, and a great deal more blood was spilt. In Turkey, where the sole nod of the despot is death, insurrections are the events of every day. Compare again the ferocious depredations of their insurgents, with the order, the moderation, and the almost self-extinguishment of ours. And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... As a ruler it is easy to think of his policies under three heads, (1) His home policy. This was one of absolution. He became a despot and robbed the people of their freedom and put them under a yoke of oppression by imposing upon them heavy burdens of tax that he might carry out his unholy plans for selfish indulgence. (2) His foreign policy. This was a policy of diplomacy. ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... be, if we had been bred up masters over the bodies and souls of men, in some remote land where law and order had never come? Look at this Desmond, brought up a savage among savages, a Papist among Papists, a despot among slaves; a thousand easy maidens deeming it honor to serve his pleasure, a thousand wild ruffians deeming it piety to fulfil his revenge: and let him that is without sin among us cast the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... govern ourselves. Take from us the open Bible and, like Samson shorn of his locks, we would become as weak as any other people. Take away the Bible, and like Italy, Austria and Russia, we would need a despot on a throne, and a standing army of a half-million to ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... other word, and that is, that if I were a despot, I would cut down these branches to a very considerable extent. The next thing to be done beyond that which I mentioned just now, is to go back to primary education. The great step towards a thorough medical education is to insist upon the teaching of the ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... Wine, wafer, love, hope, truth, unlimited, Nothing kept back. For when a man is blind To starlight, will he see the rose is red? A bondsman shivering at a Jesuit's foot— "Vae! mea culpa!"—is not like to stand A freedman at a despot's and dispute His titles by the balance in his hand, Weighing them "suo jure." Tend the root If careful of the branches, and expand The inner souls of men before ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... world and his hopes for his future. Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk. They were talked to, and the talking to was intended for the benefit of their morals. As the unquestioned despot of the house at Bombay, Punch could not quite understand how he came to be of no account ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the government which was exercised in ancient times by a royal despot like Darius, and the character of the measures and management to which he was accustomed to resort to gain his political ends, are, in many points, very strikingly illustrated by ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... on the one hand by the strong desire to regulate the arbitrary and oppressive exactions, which cramped their energies and held them for ever at the mercy of their despot's caprice, and restrained on the other hand by their habitual reverence for their feudal princes. Artevelde stepped forth, and in their startled ears pronounced the word "Resist!" His eloquence was well seconded by the grasping ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... itself in his person as in a last stronghold of the disappearing order. When he died many things would pass away out of Dinwiddie—not only the soul and body of Cyrus Treadwell, but the vanishing myth of the "strong man," the rule of the individual despot, the belief in the inalienable right of the father to demand blood sacrifices. For in common with other men of his type, he stood equally for industrial advancement and for domestic immobility. The body social might move, but the units that formed the body social ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... The saddest vicissitude was that which befell the famous Duns—Duns Scotus, the greatest of the Schoolmen, the constructor of the memoria technica of ignorance, the ancient text-book of a priori knowledge, established for centuries the supreme despot in the Oxford lecture-rooms. "We have set Duns in Bocardo," says Leyton. He was thrown down from his high estate, and from being lord of the Oxford intellect, was "made the common servant of all men;" condemned by official sentence to the lowest ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... frequently changed; love may change to hatred and hatred to love, the sentiment of justice may lead to injustice, the loyal man may become a liar, etc. In fact the sexual appetite is let loose like a hurricane in the brain and becomes the despot of the whole mind. The sexual passion has often been compared to drunkenness or to mental disease. Even in its mildest forms it often renders the husband incapable of ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... were docile people, and they soon found out that the young princess was as absolute a despot in character as ever terrorized Rome or ruled the Russias. At the merest suggestion of opposition, the small aquiline nose seemed to quiver, the little head was thrown back, the brown eyes gleamed, the delicate gloved hand ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... in ashes. So at last Nicholas folded his arms and wrestled no more. For, apart from the trouble, there came ever in his dealings with thieves that old timid thought of his, that, if he examined too closely their chief tenure, they might examine too closely his despot tenure. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... reproaches mar the close of the strife. Seldom has so formidable a civil war been ended with so complete an amnesty. Observe the expression that David 'made a league with them... before the Lord.' The Israelitish monarch was no despot, but, in modern language, a constitutional king, between whom and his subjects there was a compact, which he as well as they had to observe. In what sense was it made 'before the Lord'? The ark was not at Hebron, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... people have had equal opportunities of acquiring, I think it is but proper deference in others to allow themselves to be convinced. In fact, I think it is only obstinacy which keeps them from acknowledging that they are. I am not a despot, I hope?' she asked, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... by the following note that this hourly account of himself was in consequence of the connubial mandate of his fair despot:— ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... though in the form of a Republic, was in truth a despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sober-mindedness, and the magnanimity of the despot.—i. 137. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... attractions. Impressionable and easily led, they become, according to the surroundings which hold them and the destiny which urges them, heroines or saints, courtesans or nuns, but invariably martyrs of that blind despot, their heart. ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... moment exhibiting the capricious disposition of a vain and would-be despot. Some half dozen miserable looking figures, who surrounded his couch, constituted his whole retinue, and appeared completely subservient to the ridiculous fancies of their master. But amongst these desperate ruffians, there ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... different passions. For a ruler's first end is to maintain his office, which is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by observing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the other of ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it we must attribute the frequent civil wars through which an Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to the princes of the reigning house; and, as soon as the fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the sword ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... never be reconciliation between you and me," said Alcibiades; "but for the present I will defer your chastisement. And I must beg you, Agathon, to give me back some of the ribbons that I may crown the marvelous head of this universal despot. I would not have him complain of me for crowning you, and neglecting him, who in conversation is the conqueror of all mankind; and this not once only, as you were the day before yesterday, but always." Then taking some of the ribbons, he crowned Socrates, and again reclined. When ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... must fight this war in hate— In bitter hate of blood in fury spilled; Of children, bending over book and slate, Slaughtered to make a Prussian despot great; In hate of mothers pitilessly killed. In hate of liars plotting wars for gain; In hate of crimes too black for printed page; In hate of wrongs that mark the tyrant's reign— And crush forever all within his train. Such hate shall be the ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... of instruction had been protracted and expensive, but the lesson had been learned at last. The independence of the press had been crushed by the domineering despot of Cooperstown. The controversy threatened to break out again in 1845, but it seems never to have got beyond words. There is a comic element introduced into the whole affair by the fact that the editor ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... Rome and her dependencies, it could not well be worse. The rulers fully understand that they are under no obligation to the people for the power they exercise, nor for the submission which it commands. The despotism which prevails is unmodified even by the hereditary despot's natural desire to secure the throne to his descendants by cultivating the good will of his people. The Pope is nominally sovereign, and all regard him as personally a pure and good man; but he exerts no actual power in the State, his time and thoughts being wholly devoted to the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Blue Star despot presently, "all I've got to say to you, Mike Murphy, is that you're certainly a hell of a seaman to stand idly by and see that young Joey do me up like this. Give an ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... was to them both a luxury and a novelty;—eating fruit fresh gathered from the trees and vines.—Old Morelli was by no means ambitious of this honor; he was too firm a friend to his degraded, but still redeemable country, to desire any intimacy with the military myrmidons of her Austrian despot; so that, notwithstanding the grave and correct moral deportment which is said to be the general characteristic of the Austrian officers, and of which he was aware, he saw their approach to his humble dwelling with a vague feeling ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... told her that freedom from the shackles of civilization might become wearisome in time, besides involving heavier, more intolerable forms of bondage; although she did not perceive that Maxwell Davison's dislike to her being a slave was only a dislike to her being somebody else's slave. He was a despot at heart and had accustomed himself to a frank despotism over women. Mildred's power over him, the uncertainty of his power over her, maddened him. But Mildred did not know what love meant. At one time she had fancied her affection for Ian might be love; now she wondered whether her strange interest ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... upon their political institutions. Conquest, which forces nations of different habits, characters, and languages into unity, is at last the parent of degrading servitude. These nations are only held together, as in the Roman empire, by the iron hand of military power. The despot, surrounded by a foreign soldiery, appears in the conquered provinces, simply to enforce tribute, and compel obedience to his arbitrary will. But the small Greek communities, protected by the barriers of their ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... mind! Despot!" roared Razumihin; but Raskolnikov did not and perhaps could not answer. He lay down on the sofa, and turned to the wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna looked with interest at Razumihin; her black eyes flashed; Razumihin ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... themselves. It is clear, if the people not only legislate, but, when in a state of irritation or excitement, they defy even legislation, that they are not to be compared to restricted sovereigns, but to despots, whose will and caprice are law. The vices of the court of a despot are, therefore, practised upon the people; for the people become as it were the court, to whom those in authority, or those who would be in authority, submissively bend the knee. A despot is not likely ever to hear ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... more correctly. He puts a high price on his services, and is said to have accumulated a handsome fortune, popularly estimated at about $300,000. Fat and sleek, and smooth of tongue, he can be a very despot when he chooses. He keeps a list of the fashionable young men of the city, who find it to their interest to be on good terms with him, since they are mainly dependent upon him for their invitations. Report says that, like a certain great statesman, Brown ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... life; pious, enlightened, energetic, he felt himself made for great undertakings. There is something in him which recalls Cardinal Lavigerie and all the prelates whose red robes cover a soldier or a despot rather ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... deals with the gross mismanagement of schools in Yorkshire, England. Squeers, a vulgar, crafty despot, is head of Dotheboys Hall. Nicholas is an usher or undermaster in the school; Smike, a little, friendless, starved pupil who has run away to escape from ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... Executive Council, but, so far from receiving any impulse from them, he invariably carried all before him at the Council Board, and was the be-all and end-all of the Administration. He was, in short, a beneficent despot, of high and disinterested views, who accomplished much good for Upper Canada, and would doubtless have accomplished more but for his too early removal. The moment his all-pervading influence was gone, however, the ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... painful, that it seemed to combine and exceed all the tortures which the tyrant had made his victims endure. Antiochus, glittering on his ivory throne, appeared to be in the prime of health as well as the zenith of power; none guessed how brief was the term of mortal existence remaining to the despot, on the breath of whose lips now hung fortune or ruin, whose angry frown was ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... of Augustus, his four and forty years of total, absolute, superhuman power, such as no despot has known even in his dreams! He had taken to himself every title, united every magistracy in his person. Imperator and consul, he commanded the armies and exercised executive power; pro-consul, he was supreme in ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... occasionally the favorite Oriental turn of parable or apologue. He is mild in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into his hands, and ready to forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He has none of the pride of the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on terms of equality with those about him. We cannot be surprised that the Persians, contrasting him with their later monarchs, held his memory in the highest veneration, and were even led by their affection for his person to make ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... rude, coarse, and fierce old despot was Frederick William, first King of Prussia, son of the great Elector and father of Frederick the Great. He hated France and the French language and culture, then so much in vogue in Europe; he despised learning and science; ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... Ideally Best Polity."—Every student who has access to Mills' Representative Government should read the chapter with the heading at the beginning of this paragraph. He combats the proposition, "if a good despot could be insured, despotic monarchy would be the best form of government." Granting that much good might be done, he shows that the very passivity of the people must result in deterioration, "that is, if the nation had ever attained anything ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... with him, and he forgets poor bleeding, groaning, down-trodden, long-suffering Russia. It is the common way of Englishmen. They do not realise Siberia and Poland and the Third Section, and all the rest of it; they think only of Alexander as of the benevolent despot who freed the serf and befriended the Bulgarian. They never remember that they have all the freedom and privileges themselves which you poor Russians ask for in vain; they do not bear in mind that he has only to sign his name to a constitution, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... taken into account the obtuseness of a barbaric despot. When the commissioner of the executive, who accompanied the expedition, sent next day a flag of truce into the Abyssinian headquarters, announcing to John that Freeland was still prepared to treat ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... no imperial dignity, nor could any dignity be bestowed upon the nonagenarian Dandolo greater than that which he actually enjoyed as doge of his native republic. He accepted, however, the title of Despot of Romania.[50] The emperor must therefore be chosen from among the French or Flemings. Two of the chiefs might show strong claims for the choice. Of these two, the Marquis of Montferrat, who at first seemed the most likely to be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... first smooth-tongued, slippery demagogue, the first bloody, conquering soldier, grasps them, and is the King, Dictator, Emperor, of Rome! Never yet in the history of nations, has despotism sprung out of oligarchic sway! Never yet has democracy but yielded to the first despot's usurpation! They have not read in vain the annals of past ages, if you have ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... genius in that direction, and it was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the lofty contempt of an Eastern despot. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... sound of Martin Luther's hammer nailing his thesis to the door of his Wittenberg church continues to echo around the world; the battle-cry of Cromwell's Ironsides shouting, "The Lord of Hosts!" still causes the tyrant and the despot to tremble upon their thrones; out of the fire and blood of the French Revolution, "Liberty and Equality" survive; Abraham Lincoln comes from the backwoods of Kentucky, and the prairies of Illinois, to receive the approval of all succeeding generations ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... had decided his plan of action some moments before. He was prepared to remind his daughter in tones of haughty dignity that he was "not in the habit of playing the part of a despot in his own family, and that as she and her future husband were so very positive in their very singular opinions, and so entirely regardless of his wishes or feelings, he should, of course, not force his hospitalities ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... annoyance and walked along the footway in the direction of his own glass-house, glad to go back to a place where he was absolute despot. But he had been really surprised that Marietta should boldly take the Dalmatian's side against him, and his narrow brain brooded upon the unexpected circumstance. Besides the dislike he felt for the young artist, his small pride resented the ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... consular service. He was, in all respects, well fitted for his post; but, unfortunately for him, when he entered Abyssinia he had to deal with a fascinating, vainglorious, shrewd man, hiding his cunning under an appearance of modesty: in a word, with Theodore who had become an over-bearing despot. On his first arrival, Cameron was received with great honours, and treated by the Emperor with marked respect, and when he left in October, 1862, he was loaded with presents, escorted by the Emperor's servants, and almost acknowledged as a consul. ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... whom our system of distributing among a few the privileges and delights that are procured by the toil of the many, will seem just as wasteful, as morally hideous, and as scientifically indefensible, as that older system which impoverished and depopulated empires, in order that a despot or a caste might have no least wish ungratified, for which the lives or the hard-won treasure of others ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... The state of our "consciences" at the North is jury, judge, and executioner. There is no "conscience," we think, in Southern churches, ministers, judges, citizens, except that which is defiled. Probably there is not on earth this day a greater despot, or one more prepared for inquisitorial proceedings, ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... despot,' said Mark, moving off, with a bow to Theodora; Mrs. Finch, following, spoke a few words, and then shut ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... become a Christian and would burn his idols. He proved himself to be sincere, for, as we have seen, he persuaded all his people to do likewise. I use the word "persuaded" advisedly, for, like all the other Feejee chiefs, Tararo was a despot, and might have commanded obedience to his wishes; but he entered so readily into the spirit of the new faith that he perceived at once the impropriety of using constraint in the propagation of it. He set the example, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... very great capacities will get on better with a man of extremely limited intelligence than with a man of ordinary intelligence; and it is for the same reason that the despot and the plebeians, the grandparents and the grandchildren, are ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... expedition to the Polar regions. He afterwards followed him to St. Petersburg, and there, after some vicissitudes of fortune, Morok became one of the imperial couriers—these iron automata, that the least caprice of the despot hurls in a frail sledge through the immensity of the empire, from Persia to the Frozen Sea. For these men, who travel night and day, with the rapidity of lightning there are neither seasons nor obstacles, fatigues nor danger; living projectiles, they must ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... piety, was one of the prominent elements of his youthful character. He had learned, in early life, to honor and obey his parents; and this taught him to love and reverence his country, instead of making himself a despot, as most successful generals do. But, at the bottom of all, was the religious element. Religious principle controlled his conduct both in private and ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... from view at the time when Xerxes dismissed him to return to Susa at the first crossing of the Hellespont. This second Artabanus was the captain of the king's body-guard and, consequently, the common executioner of the despot's decrees. Being thus established in his palace, surrounded by his family, and protected by Artabanus and his guard, the monarch felt that all his toils and dangers were over, and that there was nothing now before him but a ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... of time, grew to be very proud of her master, the despot of Power-house Gully. She revealed her pride every time she fell in with acquaintances on the way to church. In reply to an oft-repeated question as to why Mr. Fry did not go to church with her any longer, she invariably ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... line he wrote, verse or prose, with a dignity as of an heroic age. This gives consistency to all his utterances. The doctrinaire republican of to-day cannot understand how the man who approved the execution of the would-be despot Charles Stuart, should have been the hearty supporter of the real autocrat Oliver Cromwell. Milton was not the slave of a name. He cared not for the word republic, so as it was well with the commonwealth. Parliaments or single rulers, he knew, are "but means to an end; if that ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison |
