"Browbeat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thought of becoming Christians from fear of Hell. Such men are not honest with God, and are simply trying to browbeat God on the subject of Hell. Proof: the same men will flee to safety from fear of smallpox, from fear of yellow fever, etc. Shall men be looked upon as sensible when they flee to safety for their bodies, and be scorned for fleeing to ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... his force of character, and his overbearing disposition, Stanton did not undertake to rule the President—though this has sometimes been asserted. He would frequently overawe and browbeat others, but he was never imperious in dealing with Lincoln. Mr. Watson, for some time Assistant Secretary of War, and Mr. Whiting, Solicitor of the War Department, with many others in a position to know, have borne positive testimony to this fact. Hon. George W. Julian, a member of the House Committee ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... you yapping hound! I'm about ready to freeze you, anyway, for the second time—mark that, will you?—for the second time. No, keep your hands where I can see 'em, or I'll knife you right where you sit! You can bully and browbeat a lot of railroad buckies when you're playing the boss act, but I know you! You come with me or I'll give the whole snap away to Vice-President Ford. I'll tell him how you built a street of houses in Red Butte out of company material and with company labor. I'll prove to him that you've scrapped ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... attempted to surprise him upon his trial in the absence of his witnesses and counsel, contrary to a previous agreement with the prosecutor's own attorney. Nay, he even appeared in person upon the bench at the trial, in order to intimidate the evidence, and browbeat the unfortunate prisoner at the bar, and expended above a thousand pounds in that prosecution. In spite of all his wicked efforts, however, which were defeated by the spirit and indefatigable industry of Mr. M—, the young gentleman was honourably acquitted, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... one thing to browbeat and assault a convict like Dacey or Chicago Red, but quite another to employ the like violence against a youth of Dick Gilder's position in the world. Demarest understood perfectly, but he was inclined to be sceptical over the Inspector's ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... Benlian. I didn't then. And for a chap just to stalk into a fellow's place, and tell him to photograph him, and order him about ... but you'll see in a minute. I took the shade off my eyes, just to show him that I could browbeat ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... won't say that men forget easier than women, but you have never suffered one tenth the heartaches over Esther McLeod that she has over you. You can afford to be generous with her, Tom. True, she allowed an older sister to browbeat and bully her into marrying another man, but she was an inexperienced girl then. If you were honest, you would admit that Esther of her own accord would never have married Jack Oxenford. Then why punish the innocent? Oh, Tom, if ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... and at the inquest, was this: As they talked further together, after Michael left the room, the Vicar went on to browbeat him shamefully about the new chimes, vowing they should never play, never be heard; at last, rising in an access of passion, the Parson struck him (the Captain) in the face. He returned the blow—who wouldn't return it?—and the Vicar fell. He believed his head must have struck against the ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... old Mr. Loughead, whose chief object in life since Pickering had been pronounced out of danger, had been to browbeat the trained nurse, and usurp the authority in Pickering's sick-room, "if Mrs. Cabot would keep out, or take it into her head to return home. To state it mildly," continued the old gentleman, not lowering his tone in the least, "that lady doesn't ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... the wood-cutter was less grieved than his wife, but she browbeat him, and he was of the same opinion as many other people, who like a woman to have the knack of saying the right thing, but not the trick of ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... encounter. The exasperated opponents, personally courageous, but deficient in clear and fixed ideas, mutually contrive to avoid the things essential to be discussed, while wantoning in all the forms of discussion. They assert, brag, browbeat, dogmatize, domineer, pummel each other with the argumentum ad hominem, and abundantly prove that they stand for opposite opinions; we watch them as we watch the feints and hits of a couple of pugilists ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... and diplomatic affairs in this state and with Austria still holding out for her impossible conditions, 'twas easy for Dumouriez and the war party to browbeat the wellnigh desperate King into a declaration of hostilities that was to convulse the whole of Europe for nearly a quarter of a century. This was done on the 20th of April, three days after Mr. Calvert had joined Lafayette at Metz, and was almost instantly followed by orders from Dumouriez ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... the world like Forbes could hardly fail to see that he was in a false position, and that any persistent attempt to browbeat the detective would not only meet with utter failure but ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... Catholic, was of itself a sufficient proof of guilt. The chief justice,[**] in particular, gave sanction to all the narrow prejudices and bigoted fury of the populace. Instead of being counsel for the prisoners, as his office required, he pleaded the cause against them, browbeat their witnesses, and on every occasion represented their guilt as certain and uncontroverted. He even went so far as publicly to affirm, that the Papists had not the same principles which Protestants have, and therefore were not entitled to that common credence, which the principles ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... Tommy is a scrapper when it comes to his rations. He reminds me of an English sparrow. He's always right in there wangling for his own. He will bully and browbeat if he can, and he will coax and cajole if he can't. It would be "Hi sye, corporal. They's ten men in Number 2 section and fourteen in ourn. An' blimme if you hain't guv 'em four loaves, same as ourn. Is it right, I arsks ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... his side; if he allowed these Dickersons, father and son, to browbeat him this once, it would only ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... election of 1765. No portion of our parliamentary history is less pleasing or more instructive. It will be seen that the House of Commons became altogether ungovernable, abused its gigantic power with unjust and insolent caprice, browbeat King and Lords, the Courts of Common Law and the Constituent bodies, violated rights guaranteed by the Great Charter, and at length made itself so odious that the people were glad to take shelter, under the protection of the throne and of the hereditary aristocracy, from ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Since when has it been true that might makes right, and that peace can be secured only by acting the part of a bully? It is unjust, it is unpatriotic, it is unstatesmanlike, for men to argue that the United States should browbeat the world into submission; that she should build so many battleships that the nations of the Eastern hemisphere will be afraid to oppose the ironclad dragon of the Western Hemisphere. Peace purchased at the price of brute force is unworthy of the name. Surely the United States ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... at the Blue Goose. On these occasions the underground furnace glowed ruddily, and Pierre would stow the pilfered gold among other pilfered ingots, and would in due time emerge from his subterranean retreat in such cheerful temper that he had no heart to browbeat the scared-looking Madame. Whereupon Madame would be divided in her honest soul between horror at Pierre's wrong-doing and thankfulness for a temporary ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... imperious and displayed bad temper in debate. Once he endeavored to browbeat Colonel Benton, bringing up "Old Bullion's" personal recontre with General Jackson, and charging the former with having said that, should the latter be elected President, Congress must guard itself with ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... there are women of coarse fibre, who imagine that they vastly increase their own importance by being selfishly exacting in the matter of men's self-sacrificing attentions. They may browbeat the men who are in their power; but, outside of this narrow world of their own, they are held in thorough contempt by the very men whose admiration they had hoped to gain by their aggressive and ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... have been killed?" exclaimed the cowboy. "Everythin' square? Why, when he said that Johnnie was cheatin' and acted like such a jackass? And then in the saloon he fairly walked up to git hurt?" With these arguments the cowboy browbeat the Easterner and reduced ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... again from this paper. (An extract implying that among the measures taken to browbeat the Convention into receiving Miss Brown, was the forming of a society instantly, under the special urgency of herself and friends, for this especial object, etc.) That again is a statement without foundation. I intend to-night to use ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... her unfortunate class. On her way, a strong hand is put out to save her. It is that of a gigantic young clergyman, who allows her to think that she has decoyed him to her room, but who really goes there to endeavor to turn her from her course of life. She scorns his exhortations, and attempts to browbeat him; but she finds him ready for a row upon the spot. He offers to fight her crowd of bullies singlehanded, and when she locks the door upon him, twists the lock off, hasp and all, with a turn of his wrist. Although they part,—he none the worse, she none the better, for the interview,—it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... to set things right is to come here and browbeat a poor girl before the children till her eyes be pink as garden daisies! Go'st 'way home, thou sorry fool! ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rival newspaper men, even while they admitted Ford obtained facts that were denied them, claimed that they were given him from charity. Where they bullied, browbeat, and administered a third degree, Ford was embarrassed, deprecatory, an earnest, ingenuous, wide-eyed child. What he called his "working" smile begged of you not to be cross with him. His simplicity was apparently ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... Governor Bernard threw off all disguise. He formally announced to the Council that troops were coming, and asked this body to provide them quarters. And now began a long, irritating, and arrogant endeavor on the part of the Executive to browbeat the local authorities in the matter of providing quarters for the troops. The official record is voluminous. The Patriots kept strictly to the law, and won a moral victory: the royal officials persisted in virtually urging burly British will as law, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... Sam, who was working among the flower-beds with his master, sought safety in flight when Bud Goble's coming was announced, and, standing concealed behind an evergreen in the garden, saw and heard all that passed between the minister and the man who had come there to browbeat him. When Bud was ejected from the grounds Sam came out ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... Kaunitz himself is altogether life-like: a solemn, arrogant, mouthing, browbeating kind of man,—embarrassed at present by the necessity not to browbeat, and by the consciousness that "King Friedrich is the only man who refuses to acknowledge my claims to distinction:" [Rulhiere (somewhere) has heard this, as an utterance of Kaunitz's in some plaintive moment.]—a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... down to the centre of the glade with the sculptors, between Acis and the Newly Born] Do not try to browbeat me, Arjillax, merely because you are clever with your hands. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... arrive upon the scene was taking his turn at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard of belated wayfarers,—messenger-boys, slatternly drabs, hackmen, loafers, and one or two plain citizens conspicuously out of their reputable grooves,—who were drifting in at the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... eyes are too funny to live. You feel like kissing them and sending them to bed. And the airs they put on! One of their soldiers happened to elbow a lieutenant the other day, and the chap ran him through with his sword, and no one called him to account. The officers jostle and browbeat any civilian who will submit to it, and then try to get him into a duel, but I believe they're a cowardly lot at bottom. No man of real courage would bluster all over the ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... Adolphus said to Pauline,—"If any one else had undertaken this job in our place, we should have deserved to be shut out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. Why,—why,—he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... its attempt to browbeat the accused, in its empty airs of authority, in its utter indifference to the truth involved, in its contempt for the preachers and their message, in its brazen denial of responsibility, its dread of the mob, and its disregard of the far- off divine judgment, his bullying speech ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... and seemed, though a liberal in creed, to be really a nursling of that early age when Anabaptists fed the fires of Smithfield. From his years, practised talent, and position, he was well able to browbeat an unhappy juvenile who incurred his displeasure; and, though he really was a kind-hearted man at bottom, he not unfrequently misused his power. Charles did not know how to answer his question; and on his silence it was repeated. At length ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... a mistake for a man to allow events to browbeat him. He ought to fight back, hitting where he could. An event, once in a while, was strangely a coward. Besides that, if Destiny found a man always ready to strip, she came after a while to accord to him the courtesies of ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... assemblies, but had been deterred by fear. Then came Mr Stumfold in person, and, of course, nothing about the assembly rooms was said by him. He made himself very pleasant, and Miss Mackenzie almost resolved to put herself into his hands. He did not look sour at her, nor did he browbeat her with severe words, nor did he exact from her the performance of any hard duties. He promised to find her a seat in his church, and told her what were the hours of service. He had three "Sabbath services," but he thought that regular attendance twice every Sunday was enough for ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... emphatically repudiated by some eminent English lawyers, but both in practice and theory the profession have differed widely in different courts, times and countries. How far, for example, is it permissible in cross-examination to browbeat or confuse an honest but timid and unskilful witness; to attempt to discredit the evidence of a witness on a plain matter of fact about which he had no interest in concealment by exhuming against him some moral scandal of early ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... it," says York, "I dinna like that—I dinna like it at all; attack a man that has summat, I say, and not one that has nought, and then that will luck mair like a man!" And with such hearty John Bull notions as these did canny Yorkshire browbeat his crony ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... angry King was not easily to be appeased. "I am not wont to be so browbeat," said he hotly. "This is your Squire, Master John. How comes it that you can stand there and listen to his pert talk, and say no word to chide him? Is this how you guide your household? Have you not taught him that every promise given ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... William the Conqueror, and that he was descended from any number of potentates. But he lived. He was a rip at first—ah, yes, I'm glad of that as well, —and he became a religious fanatic because his oldest son died very horribly of lockjaw. And he browbeat people and founded banks, and made a spectacle of himself at every Methodist conference, and everybody was afraid of him and honoured him. And I fancy I am prouder of Old Tim Ingersoll than I am of any of the emperors and things that make such a fine show in the Musgrave ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... go at once and browbeat Jack (who's never seen the lady you know) into admiring her at ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... bargain of which it was no one's duty to inform him? He lashed at his own impotence, for the ignominy of his position increased with his growing consciousness. Here was the Prime Minister respectful but compulsive, able to threaten, to browbeat, to dictate terms; but he himself had no counter means to extract from that minister on what terms he was consenting to do these things or what price he was paying to get them done. How constitutionally was he to obtain knowledge ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... a confidence in the Dauphin which was nothing less than tacitly transferring to him a large part of the disposition of public affairs. This was a thunderbolt for the ministers; who, accustomed to have almost everything their own way, to rule over everybody and browbeat everybody at will, to govern the state abroad and at home, in fact, fixing all punishments, all recompenses, and always sheltering themselves behind the royal authority "the King wills it so" being the phrase ever on their ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... knees, the caller leaned forward tensely, wondering over the present spectacle of himself. He heard loud words in the rear. "I know what he wants." Old Henderson's voice rose and cracked. "It isn't the first time he has tried to browbeat me into holding my tongue. He's heard what I've said, and wants to threaten me with prosecution. But that won't stop me. I'll tell him what I think to his teeth—the low-lived, thieving dog! He did steal my ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... woefully undeceived. His first interview with the captain opened his eyes. Captain Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that he never used the cat, which, as Bulger said, was ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... Marian, flushing slightly, and looking steadily at him. Then, controlling her voice with an effort, she added, "Do not try again to browbeat me into telling you ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... alternative of giving offense to the hierarchy of powers, or of leaving the commonwealth in danger, they ought to hesitate." Sometimes, as at Arras, they impose themselves illegally on the Directory in session and browbeat it so insolently as to make it a point of honor with the latter to solicit its own suspension.[2460] Sometimes, as a Figeac, they summon an administrator to their bar, keep him standing three-quarters of an hour, seize his papers and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... willing, an' do all that's asked you—you'll soon find the differ 'twixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men 'll soon make a sailor of you: you'll soon see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and looked jealous on!" ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... his pains. A man who told him of a prediction or a dream wonderfully accomplished was sure of a courteous hearing. "Johnson," observed Hogarth, "like King David, says in his haste that all men are liars." "His incredulity," says Mrs. Thrale, "amounted almost to disease." She tells us how he browbeat a gentleman, who gave him an account of a hurricane in the West Indies, and a poor Quaker who related some strange circumstance about the red-hot balls fired at the siege of Gibraltar. "It is not ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... day, and all the next, and a great part of the third, but we do not purpose going into it in detail. The way in which Mr Rasp (Captain Dunning's counsel) and Mr Tooth (Captain Dixon's counsel) badgered, browbeat, and utterly bamboozled the witnesses on both sides, and totally puzzled the jury, can only be understood by those who have frequented courts of law, but could not be fully or adequately described in ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the coarse and savage style of which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite so easy to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in their own hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended on his favour or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man whose life has been passed in attacking and domineering, whatever may be his talents and courage, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... planters the idea of a negro's testimony being as good as a white man's is very unpleasant, and occasional attempts are made to bully and browbeat a colored witness upon the stand. The attempt is never made twice. Once I pitted a lawyer against a negro witness, held the parties on the cross-examination, and the lawyer was badly beaten. Some of the freedmen can conduct a case ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... seems never to have entered his mind, (or if it did, he intended that it should never enter the mind of anybody else,) that the object of the chapter could be to deprive the king of the power of putting his creatures into criminal courts, to pack, cheat, and browbeat juries, and thus maintain his authority by procuring the conviction of those who should transgress his laws, or incur ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... hearts. A hollow roar rolled down the Nevskii Prospekt—a guard burst into the palace and put the women under arrest. The pent-up Revolution at last had burst—anarchy howled around the capital—the isolated Czar was captive, and plotting princelings joined hands with puny lawyers to browbeat courageous women and drive ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... grew undone and weak, disposed to let tears flow, and yield once more to depression and apathy. The house was stronger than she. But—but—only stronger, surely, if she consented to turn craven and give way to it?—Whereupon she consciously, of set purpose, defied the house, denied its right to browbeat thus and enslave her. For had not she this afternoon, up on the moorland, found a finer manner of mourning than it imposed, a manner at once more noble and so more consonant with the temper and achievements of her beloved dead? She believed ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... arose. A human soul was involved, and no man, be he lawyer or lover, should browbeat or ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... it. What a rash, head-long sort of creature you must think me! Why, I was as bad as Nan herself, to go over there and simply browbeat her as I did! Do you suppose she will ever really ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... don't know that I blame people for things. There are times when it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, without control of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been in a position to answer they might have told him that it required far less skill to play upon a man than any other instrument. Most of us, in fact, go sounding ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... but I won't stand that. Come out from behind that bar till I clean you! You want to drive us out, do you, you sneakin' underhanded hound! Come out from behind that bar! I'll learn you to bully and badger and browbeat a gentleman that's forever trying to befriend you and keep you out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to browbeat them on that account just then, for the men of the North are easier led than driven—up to a certain point. Yet it is no bad plan to remind them of the ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... market-place. The melancholy part of the situation is that one feels that these excellent people, for all their admiration, have not learnt the real lesson of the incident in the least. They would be prepared to browbeat and contemn originality just as vigorously as their predecessors. They would speak of a modern Keats as a self-indulgent dilettante; of a modern Shelley as an immoral Republican. The fact that the two have stepped silently into Parnassus, receiving nothing but contempt ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... feel towards the fearless, out-spoken Willy? Very angry, of course; but, if you will believe me, he respected him more than ever. Pompous boys are often mean-spirited and cowardly; they will browbeat those who are afraid of them; but those who look down on them and despise them, they hold in the highest esteem. Willy had never scrupled to tell Fred just what he thought of his conduct; and for that very reason Fred liked him better than any other ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... Carrington was never content to let a pupil fail and sit down. She nagged and browbeat poor Nellie until the girl lost her nerve and began to cry. By that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and that physics recitation was bound to ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... she might have put an end to heresy. Philip would have seen every soul in Europe consigned to eternal perdition before he would have yielded up an iota of his claims to universal dominion. He could send Alva to browbeat the Pope, as well as to oppress the Netherlanders. He could compass the destruction of the orthodox Egmont and Farnese, as well as of the heretical William. His unctuous piety only adds to the abhorrence with which we regard him; and ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... the circumstance, the vessel bore off his family for ever from the island! After some days he recovered, and came to ask advice of me. What could an Englishman do in such a case? I felt the blood boiling within me; but I conquered. I browbeat my own manhood, and gave him the humblest advice ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... of it. He is not a party to his father's schemes. If James Bansemer has not already told Graydon, he never will. It is not his plan to do so; his only object has been to browbeat me into submission. David, it will all come out right in the end, won't it? You'll ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... suppose that the out-voted minority is necessarily always a minority? Women, for instance, can seldom expect to be a majority; artists must always be the few; ability is always rare, and black folk in this land are but a tenth. Yet to tyrannize over such minorities, to browbeat and insult them, to call that government a democracy which makes majority votes an excuse for crushing ideas and individuality and self-development, is manifestly a peculiarly dangerous perversion of the real democratic ideal. It is right here, in its method and not ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... up!" Jason shouted right back. "Remember? You're not allowed to browbeat the help anymore. There are no secrets here. Not only that, but I probably know more about this thing than you do just by looking at it. Oil, water and fuel go in these three openings, you poke a light in somewhere, probably in that smoky hole under ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... thousand of it. It strikes me, that you would do well to put on a manner in your intercourse with the tenants, as much opposed to Hickman's as possible. Be generally angry, speak loud, swear roundly, and make them know their place. To bully and browbeat is not easily done with success, even in a just cause, although with a broken-spirited people it is a good gift; but after all I apprehend the best method is just to adapt your bearing to the character of the person you have to deal with, if you wish, as you ought, to arrive at that ascendency ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... heart and little speech, Slow, stubborn countrymen of heath and plain, Now have ye shown these insolent again That which to Caesar's legions ye could teach, That slow-provok'd is long-provok'd. May each Crass Caesar learn this of the Keltic grain, Until at last they reckon it in vain To browbeat us ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... from the Reichstag that did not pass under his cold eye before it went to the duke for his signature, his approval, or veto. Not a copper was needlessly wasted, and never was one held back unnecessarily. Herbeck was just both in great and little things. The commoners could neither fool nor browbeat him. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... we get Sir Gregory Grogram?" Mr. Low shook his head. "I know very well that if you get men who are really,—really swells, for that is what it is, Mr. Low,—and pay them well enough, and so make it really an important thing, they can browbeat any judge and hoodwink any jury. I daresay it is very dreadful to say so, Mr. Low; but, nevertheless, I believe it, and as this man is certainly innocent it ought to be done. I daresay it's very shocking, but I do think that twenty thousand pounds spent among ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... on his side he ought to browbeat a woman!" she exclaimed. "And even if he is in the wrong it's the best way to make a woman see things through his eyes. Dion Leith ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... you good luck, I'm sure." Mrs. Van Zandt leaned over and kissed Polly impulsively. "He'll browbeat you a bit but he'll stick by you. Guess I'll make some more coffee," and ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... and gestures better suited to a large and stormy assembly than to the body of which he was now a member. A short altercation followed, and he was told very plainly that he should not be suffered to browbeat the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... first commandment, to love my neighbour as myself, for I should have to hate him as I hate myself. It's true that I'm a scamp. I've always suspected it; and because I never wanted life to fool me, I've observed 'others' carefully. When I saw they were no better than I, I resented their trying to browbeat me. ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... fight, whatever the chances of success. He was, moreover, never hampered by deference for the bench. It was the practice of the magistrates, most of them local land-owners and all of them belonging to the propertied classes, to browbeat any local solicitors who showed signs of presumption—that is to say, of independence and lack of what was regarded as proper respect in their conduct of cases before the court. Lloyd George said things and did things which the most experienced ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... abilities, independent attitude, and stainless private character. All the other ambassadors at Paris were directed to act in accordance with his advice. In 1807 he concluded the treaty of Fontainebleau, which was most favorable to Austrian interests. He was the only man at court whom Napoleon could not browbeat or intimidate in his affected bursts of anger. Personally, Napoleon liked him as an accomplished and agreeable gentleman; as a diplomatist and statesman the Emperor was afraid of him, knowing that the Austrian was at the bottom of all the intrigues and cabals against him. Yet he ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... and where some of our meetings were held. Percy evidently expected that Armand would try and communicate with him at that address, for when the lad arrived in front of the house he was accosted—so he says—by a big, rough workman, who browbeat him into giving up the lodger's letter, and finally pressed a piece of gold into his hand. The workman was Blakeney, of course. I imagine that Armand, at the time that he wrote the letter, must have been under the belief that Mademoiselle Lange was still ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... know." Honeycutt cackled and rubbed his hands at the admission. "But I'm going to find out. So, probably, is Brodie. Now, look here, Honeycutt; I haven't come to browbeat you as Brodie did. I am for making you a straight business proposition. If you know anything, I stand ready to buy your knowledge. ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... the inmates shivered with horror and the terrified neighbours fled the haunted castle as a lazar-house. Once in possession of a family secret, he felt himself secure, and henceforth he was free to browbeat his employer and to flog his pupil to the satisfaction of his waspish nature. Moreover, he was endowed with all the insight and effrontery of a trained journalist. So sedulous was he in his search after the truth, that neither man nor woman could deny him confidence. And, as vinegar ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... plays upon every note in the gamut of public feeling; that he may rouse the apathetic, confirm the wavering, dumbfound the malignant; where there was zeal, to fan it into flame; where there was opposition, to sow and browbeat it by indignant scorn and terrific denunciation. The first of these manifestoes was (1) Of Reformation touching Church Discipline, of which I have already spoken. This was immediately followed by (2) Of Prelaticall Episcopacy. This tract was a reply, ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... bishops also like domestic servants;— "matinet bien main!" To the public, as to us, the justice of the rebuke was nothing to the point; but that a friend should exist on earth or in heaven, who dared to browbeat a bishop, caused the keenest personal delight. The legends are clearer on this point than on any other. The people loved Mary because she trampled on conventions; not merely because she could do it, but because she liked to do what shocked ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... to it all with sullen irritation. On the whole, perhaps, it might be admitted that rough justice was done, but it exasperated the assistant that his chief trusted his instinct rather than the evidence. He would not listen to reason. He browbeat the witnesses and when they did not see what he wished them to called ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... ease. But the fact that other people were made uncomfortable by his chronic irascibility moved Sir Morton not at all, so long as he personally could enjoy himself in his own fashion, which was to browbeat, bully and swear at every hapless household retainer that came across his path in the course of the day. He was more than usually choleric and fussy in the 'distinguished' presence of Lord Roxmouth, for though that individual had gone the social pace very thoroughly, and was, to put it mildly, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... I'll go with you and explain all these matters to our old mistress and my lady; for I've nursed you till I've brought you to this age, and now that you don't feed on milk, you thrust me on one side, and avail yourself of the servant-girls, in your wish to browbeat me." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... have you here: and it will only be for a short time till the trial is over. Lawyer Shanks told you himself that if you stayed, they would have you into court and cross-examine you to death; and you know quite well you could not keep in one story if they browbeat and puzzled you." ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... to deliver the city. Nothing crude, partial, superficial, or one-sided, ever came from him. His judgments were clear, comprehensive, and decisive. He was slow, critical, and cautious in forming his opinions, and where he settled there he stayed. No man could cajole or browbeat him out of ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... I tell you, turn out more!" exclaimed the stranger, becoming more and more angry. He had expected to get his own way without trouble. If Herbert had been a man, he would not have been so unreasonable; but he supposed he could browbeat a boy into doing whatever he chose to dictate. But he had met his ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... go-between to reconcile the ill-assorted pair. One of them brought to the alliance the confidence and support of the people; the other, Court management, borough interest, and parliamentary connections. Newcastle was made First Lord of the Treasury, and Pitt, the old enemy who had repeatedly browbeat and ridiculed him, became Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons and full control of the war and foreign affairs. It was a partnership of magpie and eagle. The dirty work of government, intrigue, bribery, and all the patronage ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... I'm comin' out there, Polenski! I'll show you who's the man here! You Hunnyacks try to browbeat me! ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington
... premeditated rashness of his presumptuous colleague. The next night the Cabinet questioned the insubordinate Minister 'how he had ventured to depart on so essential a point from the profession of the whole Ministry;' and he browbeat them all. 'I appeal to you,' said he, turning to Conway, 'whether the House is not bent on obtaining a revenue of some sort from the colonies?' Not one of the Ministry then in London (Pitt being absent and ill) had sufficient authority to advise his dismission, and nothing less could ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... one's breath, stop one's breath; make one tremble &c; haunt; prey on the mind, weigh on the mind. put in fear, put in bodily fear; terrorize, intimidate, cow, daunt, overawe, abash, deter, discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c 909. Adj. fearing &c v.; frightened &c v.; in fear, in a fright &c n.; haunted with the fear of &c n.; afeard^. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, restless, fidgety; more frightened ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... but an echo of what my heart feels," answered the baron, looking about him proudly, as if he would browbeat any who should presume to think that he had consented to corrupt the blood ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... who was Governor of Hispaniola—as if he were a lackey. M. de Cussy defended himself by urging the thing that Captain Blood had so admirably urged already on his behalf—that if the terms he had made with the buccaneers were not confirmed there was no harm done. M. de Rivarol bullied and browbeat him ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... was only a big drum, full of emptiness and sound; but the local lawyers found it best to treat him with respect; and until the Seminary boys took his Majesty in hand he had never been worsted. No doubt an Edinburgh advocate, who had been imported into a petty case to browbeat the local Bench, thought he had the Bailie on the hip when that eminent man, growing weary of continual allusions to "the defunct," said that if he heard anything more about "the defunct" he would adjourn ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... that make? Isn't it a fair fight? Don't you want anybody to sit down or stand up till you tell them to? Is it your view you shall tyrannize, browbeat, batter, and then that everybody you love, or pretend to love, shall bow down before you as though you were eternal law? I'm glad I didn't. I'm making my own life. You gave me a chance in your business, and I tried it, and declined it. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was in their custody he was impatient to browbeat the youth and taunt him with his helplessness. But Arnold Baxter would not listen to it, so the graceless son ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... law, they chose to swim with the tide, and sacrifice men whom they knew in their hearts to be innocent. It is this that adds tenfold guilt to the brutality of their conduct. We cannot forget that they were dishonest in their very cruelty; that they insulted their victims, browbeat the witnesses, trampled on judicial forms to gain the favor of an infuriated mob, whose madness they laughed ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... saw the old man and Mr. Frank, and they were both polite in a sort of way—no shouting nor anything, though, of course, Mr. Frank tried to browbeat me—but very firm that nothing had got to happen; no engagement or running away or anything. She was to come home and I was to go back to Canada—they'd pay my fare ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... was named after him. P. V., Pope 1566 to 1572, also of humble birth, was severe in his civil and ecclesiastical capacity, both in his internal administration and foreign relationships, and thought to browbeat the world back into the bosom of Mother Church; issued a bull releasing Queen Elizabeth's subjects from their allegiance; but the great event of his reign, and to which he contributed, was the naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... his shoulders. 'Oh, well,' he said, 'if you invoke the sacred names of Power.... But I don't call it fair play. Especially as you know perfectly well, and just want to browbeat me into telling lies. I shall not tell lies. I shall tell ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... great lover of rules and boaster of famed examples . . . and sets rigid bounds to that liberty to which genius often owes its supreme glory. . . Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies?. . . Let not great examples or authorities browbeat thy reason into too great a diffidence of thyself. . . While the true genius is crossing all public roads into fresh untrodden ground; he [the imitative writer], up to the knees in antiquity, is treading the sacred footsteps ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... face. Crosby was her property, to browbeat and maltreat as seemed best to her. She felt that Irene's interference in a matter that was purely personal was unwarranted as ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... said, "'The King of the Jews,' but that 'He said, I am the King of the Jews.'" But Pilate's courage, which had oozed away so rapidly at the name of Caesar, had now revived. He was glad in any and every way to browbeat and thwart the men whose seditious clamor had forced him in the morning to act against his will. Few men had the power of giving expression to a sovereign contempt more effectually than the Romans. Without deigning any justification of what he had done, Pilate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... utterly contradict); his designs and sketches were far superior to his finished compositions. His friends, presuming to judge of this artist's qualifications, ventured to counsel him accordingly, and were thanked for their pains in the usual manner. We had in the first place to bully and browbeat Clive most fiercely, before he would take fitting lodgings for the execution of those designs which we had in view for him. "Why should I take expensive lodgings?" says Clive, slapping his fist on the table. "I am a pauper, and can scarcely afford to live in a garret. Why ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the theft which he had suffered, or a party to assisting the fugitives. The important official, if he did not actually accuse the manager of having aided the prisoners supposed to have purloined the articles of clothing, inferred it certainly, glared at the unhappy man, browbeat him in regular Germanic manner, and made him regret deeply that he had ever called for ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... here, you. What's all this trouble about? You mustn't think you can browbeat these boys, because you can't. See? I'm telling you the law and you can take it or leave it just as you like. If you've got any kick, go to the railroad. If you're not satisfied to wait until this car goes away, start it going. You stand between those two tracks or on ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... defect of all foreign Clubs is, the existence of some one, perhaps two tyrants, who, by loud talk, swagger, an air of presumed superiority and affectation of "knowing the whole thing," browbeat and ride rough-shod over all their fellows. It is in the want of that wholesome corrective, public opinion, that this pestilence is possible. Of public opinion the Continent knows next to nothing in any shape; and yet it is by the unwritten ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... "Portygee." Miss Donaldson could not, of course, produce the latter forthwith, but she directed her irate visitor to the theater where the opera company was then performing. To the theater Captain Zelotes went. He did not find Speranza there, but from a frightened attendant he browbeat the information that the singer was staying at a certain hotel. So the captain went to the hotel. It was eleven o'clock in the morning, Senor Speranza was in bed and could not be disturbed. Couldn't, eh? By the great and everlasting et cetera ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... that he was not a gory-handed freebooter is against Lafitte, there is one great thing in his favor. When the British were making ready to attack New Orleans in 1814, they tried both to bribe and to browbeat Lafitte into joining forces with them. As the American government was planning, at this very time, a punitive expedition against him, it would perhaps have seemed good policy for the pseudo-pirate to ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... most difficult of all specialties to sell. Yet, in nine cases out of ten, policyholders will agree that their benefits far exceed those derived by the salesmen who persuade them to purchase. The life insurance salesman is not attempting to hoodwink, hypnotize, cajole, or browbeat his client in a case where their interests clash, but simply, by skilful setting forth of facts and appeals to the feelings, to persuade his client to act ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... point after point by unexpected evidence and rulings of law, often involving such instantaneous decisions as to change his whole combinations and method of attack; examining witnesses with unerring skill, whom he was at once too chivalrous and too wise to browbeat; arguing to the court unexpected questions of law with full and available legal learning; carrying in his mind the case, and the known or surmised plan of attack of his antagonist, and shaping his own case to meet it; holding an exquisitely sensitive ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... a reasonable man. He doesn't argue and browbeat me the way you do. When I tell him that the removal of Simpkins, and consequently his own future happiness and comfort, depend very largely on our being able to keep Sir Gilbert Hawkesby out of Ballymoy, he will believe me at once and act in a ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... entered those circles a much greater knave than most of those whom he found there. But there, at least, he learned to set a yet higher value on his youth, and strength, and comeliness—on his readiness of resource—on the reckless audacity that browbeat timid and some even valiant men—on the six feet one of faultless symmetry that captivated foolish, and some even sensible women. Gaming was, however, his vice by predilection. A month before Arabella met him, he had had a rare run of luck. On the strength of it he had resolved to return ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
