"Tyranny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... give effect to popular conviction when deliberately and duly expressed by the lawmaking body. The courts are to be highly commended and staunchly upheld when they set their faces against wrongdoing or tyranny by a majority; but they are to be blamed when they fail to recognize under a government like ours the deliberate judgment of the majority as to a matter of legitimate policy, when duly expressed by the legislature. Such lawfully expressed and deliberate judgment should be given effect by the courts, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... and inhuman servitude of twelve years, two young citizens, who were Plato's disciples, and had been instructed in his maxims, formed a conspiracy against Clearchus, and slew him; but, though they delivered their country from the tyrant, the tyranny still subsisted. ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... never failed to press as indispensably necessary, and thought the least delay of compliance an act of rebellion. The pride of an author made this treatment insufferable, and I thought any tyranny easier to be borne than that which took from me the use ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... many of the private Stainton Moses' records (thanks to my friendship with the executor, with whom these journals were left), and in all those referring to Imperator's communications, there was to my mind the same note of cock-sureness and mental tyranny. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... amended state, is utterly contradictory to all ideas of freedom. The parish persecution of men whose families are likely to become chargeable, and of poor women who are near lying-in, is a most disgraceful and disgusting tyranny. And the obstructions continuity occasioned in the market of labour by these laws have a constant tendency to add to the difficulties of those who are struggling to support themselves ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... Orde gathered from his talk with Gerald. Though he fretted under the tyranny exacted, he could see nothing which could relieve the situation save his own withdrawal. He had already long over-stayed his visit; important affairs connected with his work demanded his attention, he had the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... up the Nile may be considered as presenting an epitome of the moral history of man. We meet at almost every stage with the monuments of his superstition, his tyranny, or his luxury; but with few memorials of his ingenuity directed with a view to real utility. We also every where behold the traces of the vengeance of Almighty Justice upon his crimes. Everywhere on the banks of the ancient river we ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... that the Bible is the history of mankind's deliverance from all tyranny, outward as well as inward, of the Jews, as the one free constitutional people among a world of slaves and tyrants, of their ruin, as the righteous fruit of a voluntary return to despotism; of the New Testament, as the good news that freedom, brotherhood, ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... portraiture of the nose and mouth and forehead of him whom she had loved so dearly and lost so soon, she could not but think him perfect. When she was told that the master of Lazarus had desired that her son should be removed from his college, she had accused the tyrant of unrelenting, persecuting tyranny; and the gentle arguments of Sir Peregrine had no effect towards changing her ideas. On that disagreeable matter of the bills little or nothing was said to her. Indeed, money was a subject with which she was ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... at Fort Pitt, a secret and friendly understanding, looking to the almost certain result of the commotions which were agitating America, then was the battle at Point Pleasant, virtually the first in the series of those brilliant achievements which burst the bonds of British tyranny; and the blood of Virginia, there nobly shed, was the first blood spilled in the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... knew the life that thou are leading In sin and shame is Satan's tyranny, Thou wouldest kneel and with the Lord be pleading That He thy soul from bondage would set free. Oh, how the Saviour would rejoice If thou today should'st listen to ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee: and under the shadow of thy wings shall be my refuge, until this tyranny be over-past. ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... spirits of his conception the Highlander left, as one would expect him to do, the impress of his own character—his shrewdness and high sense of honour, his love of music and gaiety, his warmth of heart and love of comrades, and his indelible hatred of tyranny and wrong. ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... no sooner arrived at Palpa than he found himself absolutely dependent upon Harry's knowledge of Spanish; and this advantage on Escombe's part served in a great measure to place the two upon a somewhat more equal footing, and gradually to suppress those acts of petty tyranny which Butler had at first evinced a disposition ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... and Wisest Ape in All the World, when he had heard the Deputation, "you did right in ridding yourselves of tyranny, but your tribe is not sufficiently advanced to dispense with the forms of monarchy. Entice the tyrant back with fair promises, kill him and enthrone. The skeleton of even the most lawless despot makes ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... old flag means so much—it means all that our fathers have been, all that we ought to be for the world's sake. Anger, private resentment, bitterness under tyranny—these are little things; for, after all, the flag still stands for what we ought to be—you and I and those who misuse us, wittingly or otherwise.... Where are the papers ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... of immoderate rigor. The Porcian and Valerian laws prohibited the magistrates from inflicting on a free citizen any capital, or even corporal, punishment, and the obsolete statutes of blood were artfully, and perhaps truly, ascribed to the spirit, not of patrician but of regal tyranny. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... occasion from liveryman Neighbors, went slowly along through the hill country south of Bidwell. He had hauled hundreds of young men with their sweethearts. Ambling slowly along, thinking perhaps of his own youth and of the tyranny of man that had made him a gelding, he knew that as long as the moon shone and the intense voiceless quiet continued to reign over the two people in the buggy, the whip would not come out of its socket and he would not ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... shrine behold a gentler bard Gaze on the mystic vase with fond regard— But see, Thalia checks the doubtful thought, 'Canst thou, (she cries,) with sense, with genius fraught, Canst thou to Fashion's tyranny submit, Secure in native, independent wit? Or yield to Sentiment's insipid rule, By Taste, by Fancy, chac'd through Scandal's school? Ah no—be Sheridan's the comic page, Or let me fly with Garrick from the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... historical grasp of everything, stultification became the sole aim of these philosophical admirers of "nil admirari." While professing to hate every form of fanaticism and intolerance, what they really hated, at bottom, was the dominating genius and the tyranny of the real claims of culture. They therefore concentrated and utilised all their forces in those quarters where a fresh and vigorous movement was to be expected, and then paralysed, stupefied, and tore it to shreds. In this way, a philosophy which veiled the Philistine confessions of its ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... roof with nasal echoes, and troubling the quietude of my mind with insistent vibrations. I derived small satisfaction from cursing William the Conqueror, who, the history book told me, was responsible for this ingenious tyranny. The long pauses between the strokes held me in a state of strained expectancy until I wanted to howl. I would look about me for sympathy and see the boys at their lessons, and the master on duty reading quietly at his table. ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... happiness of the people; and, on the contrary, where the personal qualifications of the sex are the only objects of consideration, as is the case in all the despotic governments of Asiatic nations, tyranny, oppression, and slavery are sure to prevail; and these personal accomplishments, so far from being of use to the owner, serve only to deprive her of liberty, and the society of her friends; to render her a degraded victim, subservient to the sensual gratification, the caprice, and the jealousy ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... is pure hurts no one, unless, indeed, his appetite has been vitiated through alcoholic indulgence, and even then I have sometimes thought that the moderate use of strictly pure wine would restore the normal taste and free a man from the tyranny ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... "greatly impressed with the unmistakable signs of muscular ability shown by their opponents." This means most undoubtedly hacking and tripping, under the guise of tackling, and if Association football is to go on and prosper such disgraceful acts of tyranny on the football field must forever cease. These "accidents" can, of course, be avoided, and as there are distinct rules forbidding them, clubs would do well to see that ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... he understood the event, but was entirely without sympathy, he would have the aesthetic emotion of the careless tyrant, to whom the notion of suffering is no hindrance to the enjoyment of the lyre. If the temper of his tyranny were purposely cruel, he might add to that aesthetic delight the luxury of Schadenfreude; but the pathos and horror of the sight could only appeal to a man who realized and shared the sufferings ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... from eastern Maryland, to middle Georgia the case of democracy seemed doomed. John Randolph had denounced it as a monstrous "tyranny of King Numbers"; Judge Gaston, one of the purest and best men of North Carolina, declared that the cry, "let the people rule," was fallacious, and asked with great concern, "What is then to become of our system of checks and balances?" While the radical spokesmen ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... the richest pasturage, and enjoying a climate celebrated for coolness and serenity, we are a healthy and a hardy race; and, notwithstanding the numerous exactions of our governors, were happy in our poverty. We live so far within the mountains, that we are more distant from the tyranny usually exercised upon those who abide nearer great towns, the residences of governors; and, secluded from the world, our habits are simple, and our modes of life patriarchal. I had an uncle, my father's brother, a deacon, and an attendant upon ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... India itself. The native princes, reared in vice and indolence, will be speedily found unfit to meet the requisitions of a people growing in instruction. The race will perish, and their power will be made over to England. The Indian, hitherto the slave of a capricious tyranny, will then become the object of a judicious protection,—his property secure, his person safe, his rights guarded, and with equal law, in place of the grasping avarice of a crafty minister, or the hot fury of a drunken ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... granted permission 291 to speak freely, he said: "The western country, long ago governed by the rule of your ancestors and predecessors, and that city which was the head and mistress of the world,—wherefore is it now shaken by the tyranny of the Torcilingi and the Rugi? Send me there with my race. Thus if you but say the word, you may be freed from the burden of expense here, and, if by the Lord's help I shall conquer, the fame of Your Piety shall be glorious there. For it is better that I, your servant and your ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... brute that Lieutenant is!" thought Aunt Maria. "Make those poor fellows carry those monstrous packs? Nonsense and tyranny! How different from Mr. Coronado! He fairly ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... of a higher order, formed to inhabit serener regions, inaccessible to care or sorrow; yet, believe me, prince, there was not one who did not dread the moment, when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... of being amusing has somewhat dimmed your fame—for a moment. The shadow of this tyranny will soon be overpast; and when "La Curee" and "Pot-Bouille" are more forgotten than "Le Grand Cyrus," men and women—and, above all, boys—will laugh and weep over the page of Alexandre Dumas. Like Scott himself, you take us captive in our ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... easier to yield to wrong than to resist it. Call it passion, temperament, character, what you will,—it is an inclination to evil. We cannot always control its action. Everyone has felt more or less the tyranny of concupiscence, and no child of Adam but has it branded in his nature and flesh. Passion may rob us of our reason, and run into folly or insanity; in which event we are unconscious agents, and do nothing voluntary. It may so obscure the reason as to make us less ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... a very general opinion, that if we succeed in establishing our liberties, we shall, as soon as peace is restored, receive an immense addition of numbers and wealth from Europe, by the families who will come over to participate in our privileges, and bring their estates with them. Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world, that the prospect of an asylum in America, for those who love liberty, gives general joy, and our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind. Slaves naturally become ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... Expedition into Florida. Its Sad Fate. De Soto. His March. Hardships. Discovers the Mississippi. His Death. End of his Expedition. French Settlement in Florida. St. Augustine. French-Spanish Hostilities. Reasons for Spain's Failure to Colonize far North. Her Treatment of the Natives. Tyranny ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... in his annual wanderings through the country, he delivered to the poor and to the rich, to the Brahman and to the sinner, to princes and peasants, to women as well as to men, his message of spiritual and social deliverance from the thraldom of the flesh and from the tyranny of caste. ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Henry the Sixth and still more under Edward the Fourth this largeness of borough life was roughly curtailed. The trade companies which vindicated civic freedom from the tyranny of the older merchant gilds themselves tended to become a narrow and exclusive oligarchy. Most of the boroughs had by this time acquired civic property, and it was with the aim of securing their own enjoyment of this against any share of it by "strangers" that ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... prisoners, both civilian and military, constituted the principal butt for the spleen of Major Bach, we never raised the slightest audible complaint or protest, although inwardly and in the seclusion of our barracks we chafed at the unrelenting tyranny to which we were exposed and against which we were completely helpless. In strict accordance with the instructions of the Commandant we were always the last to receive attention. If we ever had to go to the hospital to receive any treatment ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... party and faction, liberated from prejudice and infatuation and the tyranny of tradition, these watchers on the threshold of another world are vaguely conscious of the simplicity of the present and the yawning possibilities ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... of the country, and the Act debars them from settling anywhere, not even in Natal, although Natal witnesses (like the Chairman of the Commission) have definitely claimed the exemption of their Colony from this form of Union tyranny. ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... means of this. still the king persisted in that practice and in his blameworthy intent of the killing of damsels and the despoilment of maidens concealed by veils,[FN452] wherefore the girls sought succor of the Lord of All-might, and complained to Him of the tyranny of the eking and of his oppression. Now the king's Wazir had two daughters, sisters german, the elder of whom had read the books and made herself mistress of the sciences and studied the writings of the sages and the stories of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... fashion of youthful natures, accorded to her the respect due to recognized authority. When to this authority, which was evident, she added a depreciation of the major, I fear that some common instinct of feminine tyranny responded in Rose's breast, and that on the very threshold of the honest soldier's home she tacitly agreed with the wife to look down upon him. Mrs. Randolph departed to inform her son and daughter of their guest's arrival. As a matter ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... in atrocity, the most notable villain who figures on the stage of Webster's latest masterpiece. Bosola is not quite a possible Bonaparte; he is not even on a level with the bloody hirelings who execute the orders of tyranny and treason with the perfunctory atrocity of Anicetus or Saint-Arnaud. There is not, or I am much mistaken, a touch of imaginative poetry in the part of Flamineo: his passion, excitable on occasion and vehement enough is as prosaic in its homely ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... France had risen against the tyranny and oppression of the French kings and nobles, and out of the welter of the Revolution Napoleon rose to power and, by his magnetic personality, welded the chaotic elements into unity, framed laws which are still in operation, and led his country ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... men, help me deeply to bewail this man, inspired of God, and to pray Him yet again to send us an enlightened man. Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the wicked tyranny of worldly power, the might of darkness, prevails. Hear, thou knight of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus. Guard the truth. Attain the martyr's crown. Already indeed art thou a little old man, and myself have heard thee say that thou givest thyself ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... common people, whether Chinese or German, Esquimaux or French; to tell them things, things found neither in books nor in pictures nor in stone, neither above the earth nor in the waters below; to liberate them from the tyranny of laws and beliefs and commandments; to preach the new dispensation of Lingwood Evans—magnificent, brutal, and blood-loving—ah! if Illowski could but discover this hidden philosophers stone, this true Arcana ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... possess the political power. This principle constitutes the very corner-stone of our government—indeed, of all republican government. Upon that basis our separation from Great Britain was justified. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." This famous aphorism of James Otis, although sufficient for the occasion when it was put forth, expresses but a fragment of the principle, because government can be oppressive through means of many appliances besides that of taxation. The true principle is, that all government over persons ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... St. George's Hall, which seemed to him comparatively insignificant in the educational world, should loom so large in this man's horizon that the towers which stood to him for star-gazing and cloistered study and old tradition should appear to Emmet merely the bulwarks of class privilege and social tyranny. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... a right which was fulfilled. There were other rights. There was another side to the medal. Purity and high-mindedness—the beautiful, but unbearable tyranny. The beautiful, unbearable tyranny of Miss Frost! It was time now for Miss Frost to die. It was time for that perfected flower to be gathered to immortality. A lovely immortel. But an obstruction to other, purple ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... speaks the things that others think and hide. With the author of Supernatural Religion, he holds that we gain infinitely more than we lose in abandoning belief in the reality of revelation; and he looks forward to the day when the old tyranny shall have been broken, and when the anarchy of transition shall have passed away. But he is an Eastern. When he repeats the Greeks Remember not to believe, he means Strive to learn, to know, for right ideas lead to right actions. ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... cannot be without sin, we cannot live without weariness and trouble. Gladly would we have rest from all misery; but because through sin we have lost innocence, we have lost also the true happiness. Therefore must we be patient, and wait for the mercy of God, until this tyranny be overpast, and this mortality ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... add to my first petition that of being married to you this very day. I cannot bear to see you subjected to the tyranny of your family and I wish to conduct you ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... some hundreds of his ryots came to the kacheri, and with joined palms stood at the door. "Give us justice," they said, "O your highness; we cannot survive the tyranny of the naib (a law officer) and the gomashta. We are being robbed of everything. If you do not save us, to ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... president at the last session of this club. I have no doubt that the issue would have been quite otherwise. Yet, I hope that no one will misunderstand my position. It is merely my tendency toward the strong upholding of constitutional rights as opposed unalterably and forever to tyranny and the forces of disorder and anarchy. Naturally, there can be no doubt as to the ultimate election of one at least of the candidates in this particular instance, inasmuch as that particular candidate is the relation of a member of the ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... spirited and was made from three directions simultaneously. It was resisted with determined valor on the part of the Hojo. The city was finally set on fire by Nitta, and in a few hours was reduced to ashes. Thus the power and the arrogant tyranny of the Hojo family were sealed. It had lasted from the death of Yoritomo, A.D. 1199, to the destruction of Kamakura, A.D. 1333, in all one hundred and thirty-four years. It was a rough and tempestuous time and the Hojo have left a name in their ...
— Japan • David Murray
... Beauseant. Who can ever know what it is that keeps you beside us? Our persistent coldness of heart is the cause of an unfailing passion in some of you; other men ask for an untiring devotion, to be idolized at every moment; some for gentleness, others for tyranny. No woman in this world as yet has really read the riddle of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Dalgard's face whitened. The other had come from no outlaw ship, seeking a refuge across space, as his own people had fled to a new life from tyranny. His first fears had been correct! This was a representative of Pax, doubtless sent to hunt down the descendants of those who had escaped its throttling dictatorship. The slender strangely garbed Terran might be of the same blood ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... In the very land where popery had fixed its seat, there its falsehood and corruption were most steadfastly resisted. For centuries the churches of Piedmont maintained their independence; but the time came at last when Rome insisted upon their submission. After ineffectual struggles against her tyranny, the leaders of these churches reluctantly acknowledged the supremacy of the power to which the whole world seemed to pay homage. There were some, however, who refused to yield to the authority of pope or prelate. They were determined to maintain their allegiance to God, and to preserve ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... mother, sternly, "and mark it well. Even these Northern people will no longer submit to the Lincoln tyranny. He may win a few brief triumphs, but the day is near when our own princely leaders will dictate law and order everywhere. The hour has air passed when he will have the South only to fight;" and in her prejudice and ignorance ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... those fellows, gazing over our heads at their own dwellings, where their wives and children or their aged parents were perhaps suffering for the necessaries of life, and certainly (so their reasoning would run) cowering under the tyranny and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... these words of Ernest Wagner: "He who shakes off the tyranny of time and delivers us from it will, as far as one can see, give ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... is but the record of their cupidity; and when the fury of gaming appears on the scene, it has never failed to double the insolence and atrocities of tyranny. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... do all I can, as the presiding officer, to keep things pleasant at the meetings, but it will be difficult. You've never been in public life and can't understand it, but you see there are women among the delegates who've suffered the tyranny of man so long that they will cook anything their husbands demand; women who believe in eating any kind of food, and hold that the principal trouble lies in bad cooking; women who will give up meat, but still ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... discovered for him the more logical Republican creed. As the leader of a loose-living, hard drinking set, such as was to be found in every parish, he was a determined and free-spoken enemy of the kirk, whose tyranny he several times encountered. In his writing he is as vehement an anti-clerical as Shelley and much more practical. The political side of romanticism, in fact, which in England had to wait for Byron and Shelley, is already full-grown ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... become residents; so that, as an Englishman informed me, Stockholm is much more pleasant the first year than the second. The principle, on the whole, is about the same as governs English, and most American society, only in Sweden its tyranny is more severely felt, on account of the French imitations which have ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... To all of these hypotheses there are two very obvious and decisive objections. The first is, that Robin Hood, as already remarked, is not so much as named in contemporary history. Whether as the unsubdued leader of the Saxon peasantry, or insurgent against the tyranny of Henry or Edward, it is inconceivable that we should not hear something of him from the chroniclers. If, as Thierry says, "he had chosen Hereward for his model," it is unexplained and inexplicable why his historical fate has been so different ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... overweening confidence of Brutus in the goodness of their cause and the assistance of others. Thus it has always been. Those who mean well themselves think well of others, and fall a prey to their security. That humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... said that to myself a thousand times," she gravely replied, "but it doesn't answer the question. There's no compulsion in the world so universal as the tyranny of weakness over strength. Haven't you seen it everywhere? Wherever people have to live together you find it. You find the strong submitting to all sorts of petty persecutions, and petty persecutions are the kind that kill, because the ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... away. He ran away from school. But then the school was one which it made your hair stand on end to hear of. The master must have been a monster of tyranny, the boys little prodigies of wickedness and misery, and the food such as would have been rejected ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... long; the dim, swinging lamp shed its light over the dark hole in which we lived, and many and various reflections and purposes coursed through my mind. I had no apprehension that the captain would try to lay a hand on me; but our situation, living under a tyranny, with an ungoverned, swaggering fellow administering it; of the character of the country we were in; the length of the voyage; the uncertainty attending our return to America; and then, if we should return, the prospect of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... of Buerglen, at the entrance of the Schaechenthal, a half-hour from Altorf, in Uri,—son-in-law of Walther Fuerst, and a man of some substance, for he had the steward-ship in fee in Buerglen of the Frauenmuester Abbey in Zuerich,—one of the conspirators. Out of wanton tyranny, or suspicious of the breaking out of disturbances, Gessler determined to discover who bore the joke most impatiently; and, after the symbolical way of the times and the people, set up a hat, (it was on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... fetters We raise up Greece again, And write, in bloody letters, That tyranny is slain,— Oh, not till then the smile shall steal Across those darkened faces, Nor one of all those warriors feel His children's dear embraces. —Reap we not the ripened wheat, Till yonder hosts are flying, And all their bravest, at our feet, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Gods, and, in the midst of a debauch, betrayed the mysteries of the rites of Eleusis? Who would venture to declare himself his admirer, after Athens was abandoned, and Decelea fortified by the enemy—the admirer of one whose sole aim in life was tyranny? But, as the divine Plato says, as long as his chin was beardless, he was beloved by all; but, when he passed from boyhood to manhood, when his imperfect intelligence had reached its maturity, he ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... tells;—in ferocity, avarice, dishonesty and disruption. All admit the folly and wickedness of forcing a people into uniformity in matter of religion. Now it is just as unreasonable, just as absurd, just as wicked to force the people into uniformity in the matter of education. One species of tyranny as well as the other disregards the just claims of conscience, tramples on the most vital rights of individuals, and usurps the most sacred right of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... were the little Harvilles, whom she was sedulously guarding from the tyranny of the two children from the Cottage, expressly arrived to amuse them. On one side was a table occupied by some chattering girls, cutting up silk and gold paper; and on the other were tressels and trays, bending under the weight of brawn and cold pies, where riotous boys were holding high ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Then with pale cheek and flashing eye, Shouted with fearful energy,— "Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread Too near the body of my dead! Nor touch the living boy—I stand Between him and your lawless band! No traitor he—but listen! I Have cursed your master's tyranny. I cheered my lord to join the band Of those who swore to free our land, Or fighting, die; and when he pressed Me for the last time to his breast, I knew that soon his form would be Low as it is, or ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... a vileness, as you say! And even if you were right, if I really had determined on a vile action, is it not merciless on your part to speak to me like that? Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It is despotism; it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself.... I am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you so pale? Rodya, darling, what's ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... their good name, as Cleopatra did, as Sophonisba, Syphax's wife did, Hannibal did, as Junius Brutus, as Vibius Virus, and those Campanian senators in Livy (Dec. 3. lib. 6.) to escape the Roman tyranny, that poisoned themselves. Themistocles drank bull's blood, rather than he would fight against his country, and Demosthenes chose rather to drink poison, Publius Crassi filius, Censorius and Plancus, those ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the catalogue of most pious men and eminent scholars who underwent purification, as it is termed, in this den of superstition and tyranny. The culprit was not permitted to speak with his attorney, except in the presence of the inquisitor and a notary, who took notes, and certified what passed; and so far from the names of the informer or of the witnesses being supplied, every thing that could ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII., No. 324, July 26, 1828 • Various
... France has altered much within the last two months: the seat of power is less fluctuating and the exercise of it more absolute— arbitrary measures are no longer incidental, but systematic—and a regular connection of dependent tyranny is established, beginning with the Jacobin clubs, and ending with the committees of the sections. A simple decree for instance, has put all the men in the republic, (unmarried and without children,) from eighteen to forty-five at the requisition of the Minister of War. A levy of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... time of the Austrian occupation of Florence. On the whole the Austrian troops behaved well; and their doings, and the spirit in which the job they had in hand was carried out, were very favourably contrasted with the tyranny, the insults, and the aggressive arrogance, with which the French army of occupation afflicted the Romans. The Austrians accordingly were never hated in Florence with the bitter intensity of hate ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to send his for the same purpose. This, however, he positively refused to do, adding, that if an attempt were made to take them by force, he would shoot them through the head in the middle of the road, rather than submit to such an act of tyranny upon a foreigner who was merely a temporary resident in the country. Whether his answer was ever reported to the higher authorities I know not; but his horses were suffered to remain unmolested in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... monastery, the humming life of the land of white fire—the desert, the million looms of all the weavers of the world weaving, this she heard in the sunlight, with the sand rising like surf behind her horse's heels. The misery and the tyranny and the unrequited love were all behind her, the disillusion and the loss and the undeserved insult to her womanhood—all, all were sunk away into the unredeemable past. Here, in Egypt, where she had first felt the stir of life's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Clarke's preaching was one of his keenest delights. And upon this evening he was moved beyond his wont as the young master spoke from his heart to his listeners, not striving to arouse their passions against tyranny or bigotry, but rather seeking to urge them to patience, to that brotherly love which endures all things and hopes all things, and turns to the Almighty Father in never-ceasing faith and joy, imploring His help to open the ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cap. 20. The pre-existing, unrealities with respect to the election of bishops explain the unreality of the new arrangement, and divest it of the character of wanton tyranny with which it appeared prima facie to press upon the Chapters. The history of this statute is curious, and perhaps explains the intentions with which it was originally passed. It was repealed by the 2nd of the 1st of Edward ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... four rivers, at least, was neither tyranny nor slavery. Those who took refuge in St. Guthlac's peace from cruel lords must keep his peace toward each other, and earn their living like honest men, safe while they did so; for between those four rivers St. Guthlac and his abbot were the only lords, and neither summoner, nor sheriff ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... lying asleep in the bottom of her heart. She was at this time in all the vigour of her youth and of her resplendent beauty. Nisida was not one of the weak and timid natures that are broken by suffering or domineered over by tyranny. Far otherwise: everything around her had contributed towards shaping for her a calm and serene destiny; her simple, tender soul had unfolded in an atmosphere of peace and happiness. If she had not hitherto loved, it was the fault, not of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... age, which for natural strength and inaccessibility is unrivalled, and which, for beauty and pleasantness, is a proverb among the most sagacious beholders, became secretly an object of my wishes, BECAUSE I received constantly accounts of the tyranny of the rulers of that region. Accordingly, in a very short time, my brave warriors annexed that kingdom to my dominions. Though the princes of that country were not remiss in their exertions, yet, as my intentions were established on the basis of equity, it was ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... midst of our gaiety, the contraction of his deep and noble brows showed that he was wandering far away from the slight topics of the table; and I could imagine what he might be, when struggling against the gigantic strength of Pitt, or thundering against Indian tyranny before the Peerage in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... condemn the tyranny which keeps him in bed in the morning and lying down all day. "I could have got up and gone downstairs, Mrs. Bailey, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... few. To her lover she was all and more than woman had ever been before, in charm and grace and beauty, and he who among men was noted for his stern resolve and unyielding demeanor was as wax in the hands of the young woman, who ruled him with gentle tyranny. ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... freed, not because she deserved or asked for freedom, not because English rule has been a tyranny, a moral failure, a stupidity and sin against the light; not because Germany cared for Ireland, but because her withdrawal from English control appeared to be a very necessary step in international ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... Maddelena, as she was now—believed her lover dead, for her father had given her good proofs of this, and she believed him; nevertheless she refused to marry another, and seized upon the convent life as a blessed relief from the tyranny ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... therefore the nephew of Henry IV. of England. Perceiving and commiserating the wretchedness of the people, and casting about him for a remedy, Henry saw but one: that was departure from the land, emigration, colonization, escape from the tyranny of the soil, of nobles and of ecclesiastics—a tyranny which both his illustrious rank and his piety forbade him to oppose. Hence his intense devotion to the discovery and colonization of strange lands, which is in vain to be accounted for on the ground ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... a time when Aristotle and "the Angelic Doctor" ruled the minds of men with an almost unexampled tyranny: when science was more dogmatic than theology; when it was thought a sufficient and satisfactory explanation to say that bodies falling to the earth descended because it is their nature to descend—Columbus regarded natural phenomena with the spirit ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... of liberty which inspired his whole life. A deep, uncompromising hatred of kings is seen in every drama, where invariably a tyrant figures as the villain. There is a constant declamation against tyranny and slavery. Liberty is portrayed as something dearer than life itself. The struggle for freedom forms the subjects of five of his plays,—'Virginia,' 'The Conspiracy of the Pazzi,' 'Timoleon,' the 'First Brutus,' and the 'Second Brutus.' One of these ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... transcribed and edited the work of his two predecessors, and continued the history from 1235 to 1259. He shows himself in it a warm advocate of English rights and liberties, and an opponent of papal and regal tyranny. It is the best early history we have of our own country up to the beginning of the Barons' War, and is also an authority on Continental affairs. He wrote too an abridgement of this work, leaving out the parts dealing with ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... king's house. He played the harp for them then, and he had them laughing and crying, till he put them asleep at the end with a sleepy tune. And when Nuada saw all the things Lugh could do, he began to think that by his help the country might get free of the taxes and the tyranny put on it by the Fomor. And it is what he did, he came down from his throne, and he put Lugh on it in his place, for the length of thirteen days, the way they might all listen to ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... exercised the right of suffrage as late as 1835, and some of them, in spite of galling restrictions, attained to a considerable degree of prosperity, and dreamed of a still brighter future, when the growing tyranny of the slave power crushed their hopes and crowded the free people back upon the black mass just beneath them. Mis' Molly's father had been at one time a man of some means. In an evil hour, with an overweening confidence in his fellow men, he indorsed ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... observed, he did not provide for the security even of that poor portion. If he were ready to give up the liberty or the free constitution of the country in which he resided, ready to live under tyrants and tyranny, how could he be secure for a year, a day, even an hour, of his ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... republican forms of government (the one set up in 1792, and the second established in 1848), they were such mere makeshifts and so very short-lived that they could not have taught the country very much of the real genius of republican institutions. The centralization and tyranny of centuries brought revolt and hatred of the past, but did not prepare the people for self-government; while here the principles of civil liberty, transplanted from the mother country and flourishing in congenial conditions under colonial administration, found apt and natural expression ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... affirmative, Malibran, for it was she, said, "Allow me, signora, since I have no wreath of flowers to offer you, to twine you one with your own beautiful hair." Mme. Persiani's artistic tour through Italy, in 1835, culminated in Florence with one of those exhibitions of popular tyranny and exaction which so often alternate with enthusiasm in the case of audiences naturally ardent and impressible, and consequently capricious. When the singer arrived at the Tuscan capital, she was ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... on their own ground,—should this dream be verified I say, should success attend him, and Rome be humbled to the dust, then Hannibal would be in a position to become the dictator of Carthage, to overthrow the corrupt council, to destroy this tyranny—misnamed a republic—and to establish a monarchy, of which he should be the first sovereign, and under which Carthage, again the queen of the world, should be worthy of herself and her people. And now let us speak of it no more. ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... with traps, and will not allow it to be indifferent whether a man eats fish or flesh, drink beer or wine, when both agree with him; a micrology which, if adopted into the doctrine of virtue, would make its rule a tyranny. ...
— The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics • Immanuel Kant
... will, and, I hope, kindle a flame that shall purge the earth of tyranny and oppression for ever. Richard, what must my father be thinking of just now down ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... a different character, as it was caused by the tyranny of the captain, and had very different results, took place ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... almost intolerable splendor was seen against a dark background of tragic possibilities. This English coronation was less brilliant, perhaps, but also less barbaric than that august, overpowering ceremony over which it seemed there might hover "perturbed spirits" of men slain in mad revolts against tyranny—of youths and women done to death on the red scaffold, in dungeons, in midnight mines, and Siberian snows; and about which there surely lurked the fiends of dynamite. But this pure young girl, trusting implicitly in the loving loyalty of her subjects—relying on Heaven for help and guidance, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... King." In the districts the Proclamation has been heartily welcomed by the middle and lower classes; while even the higher orders, who of course lose much in a native state by the cessation of corruption and tyranny, have ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... oppressed or needy constituted the first element of a call to enlist in their service. (2) The divine element. God heard the cry of his people and remembered his covenant with Abraham and appeared to Moses in a burning bush and sent him to deliver them from under the tyranny of Pharaoh. Like Isaiah (Is. Ch.6) he not only saw the need of his people but also the holy God calling him ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... said that when he himself was in bad odour for his early Civil List speeches, so that he had been exposed to serious disturbances, and a break-up of his intended meeting at Bristol was threatened, Newman, from sheer dislike to mob tyranny, came forward to take the chair; and through a tempest of shouts and rushes, and amid the stifling smell of burnt Cayenne pepper, sat in lean dignity, looking curiously out of place, but serene in vindication of a principle. [Footnote: See ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... has so far been only a garden of roses—was utterly routed by the stern and dreadful realities which had been recently enacted around him, and just in proportion as he was impressed with the lies, tyranny, cruelty, and falsehood of man, so did his thoughtful regard for the truth and the love of God increase, especially those truths that were most directly opposed to the traffic in human flesh, such as—"love your enemies," "seek peace with all men," "be kindly affectioned ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... 'FLOWER'S CAMBRIDGE INTELLIGENCER;' a Newspaper, the style and composition of which would claim distinguished praise, even among the productions of literary leisure; while it breathes everywhere the severest morality; fighting fearlessly the good fight against tyranny, yet never unfaithful to that religion, whose service is perfect freedom. Those, on the other hand, who expected from it much and varied original composition, have naturally relinquished it in ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... frontier! Oh, the joy of it—the indescribable relief—the wet-eyed thankfulness! Shall I ever forget it? I did not know until then what depths Tyranny had furrowed into my consciousness. Here were men and women laughing and talking in the streets and people daring to drive in their own carriages, and everybody reading newspapers—I felt as if I would spend my last sou ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... flying from the driven lintels, the screams of maids, the crying of women, a stray corpse or two flung on to the street, and then the procession as before, arms and legs, with a mercenary soldier between each pair, fore and aft. All this was repeated and repeated, till the dull monotony of tyranny began to wear through the long Teutonic patience to the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... who instead of the pains of labour wast filled with joy of spirit, and who for thy refreshment didst listen to the sweet songs of the angels as they praised thy Son, thou hast now seen slain before thine eyes with the greatest cruelty and tyranny. How manifold was that sorrow of thine, which thou wast permitted to escape at His birth, when thou sawest thy blessed and only Son hanging in such torment on the Cross, in the presence of a cruel and furious crowd, who showered upon Him all the insults and contumely and shame that they ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... upon the people. There springs from this silence a certain mysterious fullness, which filters and freezes into brass in the thoughts. Compression in the history produces conciseness in the historian. The granitic solidity of some celebrated prose is only a condensation produced by the Tyrant. Tyranny constrains the writer to shortenings of diameter which are increases of strength. The Ciceronian period, hardly sufficient upon Verres, would ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... woman with all the imperious obstinacy, all the domineering superiority of the female of the species as it has evolved in the countries of the South. Cleanliness and frugality in Remedios took the form of unendurable tyranny. She scolded her husband if he brought the slightest speck of dust into the house on his shoes. She would turn the place upside down, flay all the servants alive, if ever a few drops of oil were spilled from a jar, or a crumb of bread ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the rulers of petty kingdoms near Arthur had occasion to bless him for brave assistance, and among them was Leodegrance, king of Cameliard, whom Arthur, in a fierce battle in which ten thousand men were slain, freed from the tyranny of King Rience. After the battle, Leodegrance entertained Arthur and his friends at a great feast, at which Guinevere, the beautiful young daughter of the host, served the table. At the sight of the fair maid Arthur's heart was won, and ever after ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... good words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, if they ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... stood here and there in groups, doing as they chose. The foremen did not dare to speak to them; if they made a friendly remark they were met with insults. The workers were taking advantage of the fact that they were indispensable; their behavior was sheer tyranny, and they were continually harping on the fact that they would just as soon go as stay. These words made them the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... greengrocer bowed very humbly while these little epithets were bestowed upon him, in the true spirit of the very smallest tyranny; and when everybody had said something to show his superiority, Mr. Tuckle proceeded to carve the leg of mutton, and to help ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... nearer Colchester, and the village folk began to learn who we were, and so would gather with gifts for the good-natured Norsemen who came to release them from the tyranny of the thingmen, now and then a face that I knew would start, as it were, upon me from among a little crowd. But none knew me, nor were they likely to do so. Hardly could I think myself the same as the careless ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... to flatter myself, that, when you return, you will find me mended. I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule, by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and court the government of others, when long experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern themselves[1079]. If I were to visit Italy, my curiosity would be more ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... He's dabbled in our universities, studied in France, Italy, Switzerland, is a political refugee from India, and he's hitched his wagon to two stars: one, a new synthetic system of philosophy; the other, rebellion against the tyranny of British rule in India. He advocates individual terrorism and direct mass action. That's why his paper, Kadar, or Badar, or something like that, was suppressed here in California, and why he narrowly escaped being deported; and that's why he's up here just now, devoting himself ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... nothing to do with my story. The Revolutionists were no match in numbers for the mercenaries of the Dictator, but they fought with the stormy desperation of the ancient Scythians, and they won, as they deserved to win: for this was another revolt of freedom against oppression, of conscience against tyranny, of an exasperated people against a foreign despot. Every eye shone with the sublimity of a great principle, and every arm was nerved with a strength grander and more enduring than that imparted by the fierceness of passion or the sternness of pride. As I flew from one part of the field to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... question how much and what apparel we should take with us, and that point was still unsettled when the apple trees came to their blossoming. It is a theory of mine that the chief delight of a vacation from one's usual occupations is freedom from the tyranny of plans and dates, and thus much ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... to earn his bread as a schoolmaster, what a different preceptor he would probably have made! Dionysius must have been hated by his scholars as much as by his subjects, for it is said, that "he[20] practised upon children that tyranny which he could no longer ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... one imbibes disdain for all unrighteous restraint. No wonder the inhabitants dwelling among the Swiss Alps could not bear the crushing yoke of tyranny thrust upon them. The very atmosphere they breathed had in it an elixir, and the lofty, snow-clad hills, as they gazed upon their seeming unchangeableness, were only loftier principles that led their souls ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... their own country, which is so sadly in need of educated men. Are all these discriminations against Jewish people essential for the great Russia, which is now called upon to free nations and peoples from a foreign tyranny? ...
— The Shield • Various |
