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Dictatorial   Listen
adjective
Dictatorial  adj.  
1.
Pertaining or suited to a dictator; absolute. "Military powers quite dictatorial."
2.
Characteristic of a dictator; imperious; dogmatical; overbearing; as, a dictatorial tone or manner.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dictatorial" Quotes from Famous Books



... on the subject than any other man in the House, will say that "Rule Britannia," that noble old song, may become obsolete. Well, inasmuch as the supremacy of the seas means arrogance and the assumption of dictatorial power on the part of this country, the sooner that becomes obsolete the better. I do not believe that it is for the advantage of this country, or of any country in the world, that any one nation should pride ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... don't care what he says. You hear me, Alec? Not a drop. Take out those half-empty bowls and don't you serve another thimbleful of anything until I say so." Here he turned to the young doctor, who seemed rather surprised at St. George's dictatorial air—one rarely seen in him. "Yes—brutal, I know, Teackle, and perhaps a little ill-mannered, this interfering with another man's hospitality, but if you knew how Kate has suffered over this same ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... selecting some dish from every course, and recommending it to the company, with an air so decisive, that no one ventures to contradict him. By this practice he acquires at a feast a kind of dictatorial authority; his taste becomes the standard of pickles and seasoning, and he is venerated by the professors of epicurism, as the only man who ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... Instead of the man getting what he wants, he has a fresh quarrel on his hands, and nothing more. So his blustering is no sign that he is really strong. For the strong man is the man who can get what he wants done. Is he not? Surely we shall all agree to that. And the proud, hot, positive, dictatorial, self-willed man is just the man, in a free country like this, who does not get what he wants done. He will not stoop—therefore ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... twenty-five years ago by the German historian Wilhelm Mueller, who wrote in a review of the year 1884: "England was the opponent of all the maritime Powers of Europe. She had for decades assumed at sea the same dictatorial attitude as France had maintained upon land under Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. The years 1870-1871 broke the French spell; the year 1884 has shown England that the times of her maritime imperialism also are ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson

... liked the gentleman who had just sent in his card. Sir Alfred's manner always jarred upon him. It was so exactly the antithesis of his own. He was quiet and dignified, and addressed everybody alike, courteously. Sir Alfred was restless and fussy. His manner was always dictatorial and generally rude. When he had risen in the House to make his maiden speech, calling the attention of the Speaker to what he described as 'a thorough draught', he had addressed himself with such severity to that official, that a party of Siamese ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... her mother were of a placid, reflective type. They got on very well with Alice, but sometimes she had a queer weariness from always seeing herself and her own ideas in them instead of their own. And she was not in the least dictatorial. She would have preferred open, antagonistic originality, but she got a surfeit of clear, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... tallow-green; shrinking to a corner of the tribune: Danton cried, "Speak, Robespierre, there are many good citizens that listen;" but the tongue refused its office. And so Louvet, with a shrill tone, read and recited crime after crime: dictatorial temper, exclusive popularity, bullying at elections, mob-retinue, September Massacres;—till all the Convention shrieked again, and had almost indicted the Incorruptible there on the spot. Never did the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Uncle Dick ordered, tartly. His usual rather dictatorial manner in the household returned to him. "You-all run along. I want ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... loud, dictatorial, dangerous tones, all shiftiness gone. "That I was a gentleman, eh? Well, gentle is as gentle does, I suppose, and I've never scored anywhere, so here I am, here I am, Ringfield (bringing his hand down on the table) that's your name, I believe—and I've not worn so badly all these ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... nothing but smoke. This was sorry food for hungry eyes; but Barbicane would admit no one to that operation. Then ensued grumbling, discontent, murmurs; they blamed the president, taxed him with dictatorial conduct. His proceedings were declared "un-American." There was very nearly a riot round Stones Hill; but Barbicane remained inflexible. When, however, the Columbiad was entirely finished, this state of closed doors could no longer be maintained; ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... by the whole party, and I felt rather beaten; but a moment later came my chance for revenge. He turned again to me, and said, in a dictatorial manner: ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... I be dictatorial?" I shouted, while my ancestors held their sides with laughter, "and this being my house I'm going to talk as loud as I please. If the girl I love, as no man ever loved a girl before, tries to go out with a man I think is wholly unworthy of her, why shouldn't I object? I'll do ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... a member of Covent-Garden, Mr. FAWCETT held the reins of management, in consequence of the retirement of Mr. KEMBLE from that position. He had experience to guide him, but he unfortunately possessed a dictatorial manner, and a want of that refinement and education which had so distinguished his great predecessor. In speaking of his public position, however, let me pay homage to his private virtues. He was a tender husband, an affectionate father, and a warm friend. During my first season ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... remind one strongly of the Convention by their weakness. They were no longer forced to obey popular riots, as these were energetically prevented by the Directors, but they yielded without discussion to the dictatorial injunctions of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... reason; on the contrary, they advise that every new thought should be tested in the crucible of reason, and that it be rejected if not in accordance therewith; but the control of domineering spirits, claiming the name of celebrities, who present unreasonable theories, and in a dictatorial 'thus saith the spirit' manner, demanding unquestioning compliance with their commands, must be rejected by all mediums as debasing and inconsistent with self respect. Any associations or concessions ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... living so deep in the wrong bank that the first time he brought her to my studio, she declared she hadn't seen anything so like Bring-the-child-to-the- old-hag's-cellar-at-midnight since her childhood. She is a handsome woman, large, and of a fine, high colour; her manner is gaily dictatorial, and she and I got along ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... only ones, and the rest of the human race will have to be humbly reverent toward them or suffer for it. That can surely happen, and when it happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as the most meaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent, and impudent and dictatorial word in the language. And people will say, "Whose business is it, what gods I worship and what things hold sacred? Who has the right to dictate to my conscience, and where did he ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain

... dreaded that of my mother; he devoted a great portion of his time to her, and I was still left to look after his very extensive business. I shall never forget the authority I now began to assume. I was as dictatorial over the servants, and gave my commands as peremptorily, as if I had been an old farmer. Some of the old servants, who knew that my directions were improper, disputed my commands, and expostulated against my proceedings. However, like a true Jack in office, feeling that I was clothed ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... and to caprice. The reader, I believe, is seldom pleased to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we receive. Judgment, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by submission to dictatorial decisions, as the memory grows torpid by the use of a table-book. Some initiation is however necessary; of all skill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore shewn so much as ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... no less a man than Mr. Dennis Kearney. Kearney is a man too well known in California, but a word of explanation is required for English readers. Originally an Irish drayman, he rose, by his command of bad language, to almost dictatorial authority in the State; throned it there for six months or so, his mouth full of oaths, gallowses, and conflagrations; was first snuffed out last winter by Mr. Coleman, backed by his San Francisco Vigilantes and three Gatling ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... regulative principle. Spinoza is, in the traditional usage of the term, anything but a rationalist in his ethics. Only if rationalism consists in being unflaggingly reasonable is Spinoza an avowed and thorough-going rationalist. Reason has, for Spinoza, no transcendental status or power, and it plays no dictatorial role. Reason, for him, is essentially an organizing not a legislative power in man's life. To take a phrase from Professor Dewey, reason, for Spinoza, is reconstructive not constitutive. The power of the intellect is not some underived, original, independent power which can impose or, ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... a moment, and then continued, "How very dictatorial and disagreeable Lawless has grown of late, and what absurd nonsense he does talk when he is in the society of ladies! I wonder your sister can tolerate it." "She not only tolerates it," returned I, slightly piqued at the contemptuous tone in which ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... at this, for his manner was peremptory and almost dictatorial. Some thought he would get a licking on the strength of it, and most hoped so. But the Doctor dismissed them to the playground, keeping Paul back to ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... religion—the Lashcairn religion had been a jumble of superstition, ancestor-worship and paganism on which a Puritan woman marrying a Lashcairn in the middle seventeenth century had grafted her dour faith. It had flourished—something hard and dictatorial about it found good ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... among themselves as to the position they shall occupy in heaven when his kingdom is established. He rebukes them strenuously for this, and repeats his teaching that greatness means service and not domination; but he himself, always instinctively somewhat haughty, now becomes arrogant, dictatorial, and even abusive, never replying to his critics without an insulting epithet, and even cursing a fig-tree which disappoints him when he goes to it for fruit. He assumes all the traditions of the folk-lore gods, and announces that, like John Barleycorn, ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... threatening in the mountaineer 's attitude, nor dictatorial; and Clayton felt his right to say what he had, in spite of a natural impulse to resent such interference. Besides, there sprang up in his heart a sudden great admiration for this rough, uncouth fellow who was capable of such unselfishness; who, true to the trust of her father and his ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.

... surprising that the wide influence which Greeley acquired made him egotistic. He apparently came to believe that he had a mortgage on the republican party, and through that upon the country. His editorial became dictatorial. He looked upon Lincoln as a protege of his own who required direction. This he was willing to give,—mildly but firmly. All this was true of many other good men and good republicans. But it was emphatically ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... she went out in the kitchen to mix up some bread, and she wept a little, standing in a corner, with her face hidden in the folds of an old shawl which hung there on a peg. Dictatorial towards circumstances as she was when her beloved daughter came in question, and proud as she was at the prospect of an advantageous marriage for her, she remembered her sister in the asylum, she remembered how Andrew was out of work, and she could not understand ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... irritable; and the pride of science, as well as of a fierce independent spirit, inflamed him, on some occasions, above all bounds of moderation. Though not in the shade of academic bowers, he led a scholastic life; and the habit of pronouncing decisions to his friends and visitors, gave him a dictatorial manner, which was much enforced by a voice naturally loud, and often overstretched. Metaphysical discussion, moral theory, systems of religion, and anecdotes of literature, were his favourite topics. General ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... if the matron, not fully satisfied with her friend's reasoning, continued to offer some objections; but they were borne down by her more dictatorial friend. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... he knows it—which is very salutary for him when he gets uppish and dictatorial, as ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... continued her life, cheerfully beating time. She, too, knew that her marriage was a failure, and in her spare moments regretted it. She wished that her husband was handsomer, more successful, more dictatorial. But she would think, "No, no; one mustn't grumble. It can't be helped." Ansell was wrong in sup-posing she might ever leave Rickie. Spiritual apathy prevented her. Nor would she ever be tempted by a jollier ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... to be humbly reverent toward them or suffer for it. That can surely happen, and when it happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as the most meaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent, and impudent, and dictatorial word in the language. And people will say, "Whose business is it what gods I worship and what things hold sacred? Who has the right to dictate to my conscience, and where did ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... proclamation many arrests were made and many victims were sent to prison. So violent was the opposition that on March 3, 1863, Congress passed an act which attempted to bring the military and civil courts into cooperation, though it did not take away from the President all the dictatorial power which he had assumed. The act seems; however, to have had little general effect, and it was disregarded in the most celebrated of the cases of military arrest, that of ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... Emmanuel entered Sessa, at the head of his army, Garibaldi was easily induced to place his dictatorial power in the hands of the king, to whom he left the completion of the work of the union of Italy. After greeting Victor Emmanuel with the title of King of Italy, and giving the required resignation of his power, with the words, "Sire, I obey," he entered Naples, riding beside the king; ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... House,) is to speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents; and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject. Never exceed a decent warmth, and submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial stile, though it may carry conviction, is always accompanied with disgust." To a friend writing of this same speech he said, "with great pleasure I received the information respecting the commencement of my nephew's political ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... Russia, who had refused two days before to cease from her military preparations, would not accept the German ultimatum, worded as it was in so dictatorial a form and rendered still more insulting by the briefness of the interval granted. As, however, no answer had come from St. Petersburg by the afternoon of August 1st, Herren von Jagow and Zimmermann (so the latter informed me) rushed to ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... foundation, the progress and the consequent success of any library. Where a liberal intelligence and a hearty cooeperation are found in those constituting the library board, the affairs of the institution will be managed with the best results. Where a narrow-minded and dictatorial spirit is manifested, even by a portion of those supervising a public library, it will require a large endowment both of patience and of tact in the librarian, to accomplish those aims which involve the ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... revolt, and it was necessary to turn the army over to vigorous hands. Augustus, old and irresolute, still hesitated, fearing the dislike which was brewing both in the senate and among the people against the too dictatorial Tiberius. At last, however, he ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... my mother over. My father easily consents to everything, but he places little weight on what he himself resolves. He has received from Heaven a certain gentleness which makes him readily submit to the will of his wife. It is she who governs, and who in a dictatorial tone lays down the law whenever she has made up her mind to anything. I wish I could see in you a more pliant spirit towards her and towards my aunt. If you would but fall in with their views, you would secure their ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)

... His dictatorial tone stung Myles to fury. "We tarried no longer than need be," answered he, savagely. "Have we wings to fly withal at ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... that it now offered a safe subject for attack. M. Ribot, who had replaced M. Briand as Premier and Minister for Foreign Affairs, adopted this "radical solution." He proposed to dispatch to Athens a plenipotentiary charged with the mission of deposing King Constantine, raising M. Venizelos to dictatorial power, and thus establishing the influence of France ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... to march upon Washington, and he issued an address to his soldiers which was intended, in fact, for the general public. He did not want, at this time, to assume unusual powers, and if he had spoken to the Nation he might be criticised as assuming a dictatorial attitude. ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... sir," he answered in his dictatorial tone, "if they are not arrested it is because no one is aware that they ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... the Hurons. Murder, cannibalism, and several other offences, were also forbidden. Yet, while laboring at the work of conversion with an energy never surpassed, and battling against the powers of darkness with the mettle of paladins, the Jesuits never had the folly to assume towards the Indians a dictatorial or overbearing tone. Gentleness, kindness, and patience were the rule of their intercourse. [ 1 ] They studied the nature of the savage, and conformed themselves to it with an admirable tact. Far from treating the Indian as an alien and barbarian, they would ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... with very little to go on, has built up a tradition that the marriage was unhappy. If one were to believe the half of what has been put in print, one would have to conclude that the whole business was a wretched mistake; that Lincoln found married life intolerable because of the fussily dictatorial self-importance of his wife. But the authority for all these tales is meager. Not one is traceable to the parties themselves. Probably it will never be known till the end of time what is false in them, what true. About all that can be disengaged from this cloud of illusive witnesses ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... ask your brother if he will be so kind as to come to the Squire's after supper to-night," she returned, in her smart, prettily dictatorial way, and took leave at once, though Elmira urged her politely to come in and rest and wait for her ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... and more dictatorial than ever; his blue eyes clear and piercing as before. He seemed quite pleased; said Stephen Vandeleur was a good fellow; was most impertinently sarcastic about Duncan's aristocratic guests; and altogether appeared in good ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various

... wait till we get the review going, and see if I don't tempt you away from that dictatorial old ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... feet and, addressing her Majesty, made a lengthy speech, in which he set forth, in considerable detail, all the reasons which had led up to the present action of the council, reminded her of her rejection of the first list presented, and in veiled dictatorial tones, ventured to express the hope that her Majesty would experience no difficulty in selecting a name from the list now about to be laid before her. Then he unrolled the parchment and, with a bow which seemed to say: "This is your last chance, so make the best ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... the Canal Companies was of no use. They were overcrowded with business at their own prices, and disposed to be very dictatorial. When the Duke first constructed his canal, he had to encounter the fierce opposition of the Irwell and Mersey Navigation, whose monopoly his new line of water conveyance threatened to interfere ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... from her pillow. "Well, spoiling each other in this way. Will you never be overbearing and dictatorial? Shall I never be furious ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... moderately was in good esteem. And yet he, at this time, gave the most abundant proofs alike of his contempt of riches and of his humanity and good nature. And at Rome, when he was created consul in name, but indeed received sovereign and dictatorial authority against Catiline and his conspirators, he attested the truth of Plato's prediction, that then the miseries of states would be at an end, when by a happy fortune supreme power, wisdom and justice should be united in ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... were playing, doubtless, more or less prominent parts on the public stage, but all things of moment gravitated towards Bismarck, whose days were spent, now persuading or convincing the Emperor, now warring with a Parliament growing impatient of his dictatorial attitude, now countermining the intrigues and opposition of his adversaries at Court and in the Ministries. He hardly ever went into society, but though he spent his days growling in his den at the Foreign Office when ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... the astute Loughborough, law lords as absolute as himself, who soon made him conscious that, though a main agent of the Union, he was only a stranger in the united legislature. The Duke of Bedford reminded him that "the Union had not transferred his dictatorial powers to the Imperial Parliament;" other noble Lords were hardly less severe. Pitt was cold, and Grenville ceremonious; and in the arrangements of the Addington ministry he was not even consulted. He returned to Ireland ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... family in Ashurst, where is laid the scene of John Ward, Preacher: By Margaret Deland. The wife is prim and dictatorial, a pattern housewife, with decided views upon all subjects, including religion and matrimony. The husband wears a cashmere dressing-gown, and spreads a red handkerchief over his white hair to protect his white head from draughts; reads "A Sentimental Journey;" looks at ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... strong excitement and indignation of the moment a decree was passed by the legislative bodies, sending one hundred and sixty of these bloodstained culprits into exile. The wish was earnestly expressed that Napoleon would promptly punish them by his own dictatorial power. Napoleon had, in fact, acquired such unbounded popularity, and the nation was so thoroughly impressed with a sense of his justice, and his wisdom, the whatever he said was done. He, however, insisted that the business ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... I believe she asked you to come," Mr. Tredegar assented, laying his hands together vertically, and surveying Amherst above the acute angle formed by his parched finger-tips. As he leaned back, small, dry, dictatorial, in the careless finish of his evening dress and pearl-studded shirt-front, his appearance put the finishing touch to Amherst's irritation. He felt the incongruousness of his rough clothes in this atmosphere of after-dinner ease, the mud on his walking-boots, the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... said, drawing herself proudly erect and speaking with offended dignity, "but I cannot understand what right you, an utter stranger to me, have to intrude upon me thus. Who are you, madam, and why have you forced yourself here to question me in such a dictatorial manner?" ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... composed of the usual materials to be found at the cuddy-table of an outward bound Indiaman. First, there was a puisne judge, intrenched in all the dignity of a dispenser of law to his majesty's loving subjects beyond the Cape, with a Don't tell me kind of face, a magisterial air, and dictatorial manner, ever more ready to lay down the law, than to lay down the lawyer. Then, there was a general officer appointed to the staff in India, in consideration of his services on Wimbledon Common and at the Horse Guards, proceeding to teach the art military to the Indian army—a man of gentlemanly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various

... replied. "Ben had always been dictatorial before; but after that, I had only to smile to remind him of his fallibility, and I have been mistress here ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... any rate is certain, Arabella," said the countess, as soon as she found herself again sufficiently composed to offer counsel in a properly dictatorial manner. "One thing at any rate is certain; if Mr Gresham be involved so deeply as you say, Frank has but one duty before him. He must marry money. The heir of fourteen thousand a year may indulge himself in looking for blood, as Mr Gresham did, my dear"—it must be understood that there ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... allowance, and at the close of my college career called me into his office and ordered me to enter the employ of the railway company. I objected to this. I did not like the business and had other plans for my future. But he was stubborn and dictatorial, and when I continued unsubmissive he threatened to cast me off entirely and leave his fortune to charity, since he had no other near relatives. He must have thought better of this decision afterward, for he gave me a year to decide whether or ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... rather dictatorial toward the last," admitted Ned. "Come to think about it, he didn't look like an ordinary villager at that. Wonder ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... selfish than Gypsy would have been ruined by this sort of companionship. Her frank, impulsive generosity saved her from becoming tyrannical or dictatorial. The worst of it was, that she was forced to form such a habit ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... since you're high and haughty, not to say dictatorial about it, I, as proud and haughty as thyself, defy thee. George, you tell him all about it." Dalton grinned. A grave and serious youth himself, he liked Langdon's perpetual fund of chaff and ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... involved in a well-organized, though secret plot to overthrow the so-called "government." He had been completely deceived by the wily Manuel Crust and several of his equally wily friends. They professed to be organizing an opposition party to oust the dictatorial Percival and his clique from office at the ensuing election,—a feat, they admitted, that could be accomplished only by the most adroit and covert "educational" campaign, "under the rose" perforce, but justifiable ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... poured out warning invectives against all who in any way favored the new policy of opening this Territory to the chance of coming into the Union as slave States. Mr. Sumner's remarks were personal in the extreme, only justified by the general dictatorial and bullying attitude of some Southern Senators. A mere extract here would do him and the occasion injustice. Senators Cass and Douglas, on the floor of the Senate, resented this speech ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... speaker. There were one or two marvellous examples of Mr. Chamberlain's extraordinary readiness in taking a point. I think Mr. Chamberlain an extremely shallow man. I believe his knowledge to be slatternly, his judgment to be rash, his temper to be dictatorial and uncertain, but as a debater he stands, in readiness, alertness, and quickness in taking and utilising a point, supreme over anybody in the House of Commons, with the one exception of Mr. Gladstone. Thus when one or two Liberals made somewhat foolish interruptions on July 27th he turned upon ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... Peters talked of his failure to get away for some shooting; Krylenko jeered at me for having refused to believe in the Lockhart conspiracy. Neither showed any traces of the bitter struggle waged within the party for and against the almost dictatorial powers of the Extraordinary ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... restoration of Moravianism he had as little idea of departing from the fold of the Confession of Augsburg as Wesley had of leaving the Church of England. John Wesley did not, as we have said, accomplish much among the colonists and the Indians. Perhaps his ways were too dogmatic and dictatorial for the colonists. He departed altogether from the Church discipline in some of his religious exercises, while he clung to it pertinaciously in others. He offended local magnates by preaching at them from the pulpit, giving ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... when Mrs. Arnot controlled her strong-willed husband in a manner that seemed scarcely to be reconciled with his dictatorial habits. This fact might be explained in part by her wealth, of which he had the use, but which she still controlled, but more truly by her innate superiority, which ever gives supremacy to the nobler ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... hostess. [Footnote: The Americans justly ridicule that species of bad breeding which leads people at parties to draw back from others, from a fear that their condescension should fall upon ground unconsecrated by the dictatorial fiat of "society." An amusing instance of the effect of this pride, which occurred in England, was related. Some years ago the illustrious Baron Humboldt was invited to play the part of lion at the house of a nobleman. A select circle of fashionables ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... appeal to touch him. But soon he recovered his sang froid. "Thank you," said he, "I'm much obliged to you; now I'm in the right and you are in the wrong." And he put himself under protection of the police; and fee'd them so royally that they were zealous on his behalf and rough and dictatorial even with those who thronged the place only to moan and lament and hold up their ruined children. "You must move on, you Misery," said the police. And they were right: Misery gains nothing by stopping the way; nothing by ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... predominance in Rome which enabled him to secure temporarily dictatorial powers which were employed to counteract the electoral machinery of the republican party; but he had not the qualifications or the inclination to play the demagogue, and could not unite his aspirations as a restorer of law and order with effective party leadership. Crassus ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... pretended not to hear. Perhaps Rimrock was right and these first minor clashes were but skirmishes before a great battle. Perhaps, after all, Jepson was there to oppose him and it was best to ride over him roughshod. But it seemed on the surface extremely dictatorial, and against public policy as well. Mr. Jepson was certainly right, in her opinion, in his attitude toward Hicks' saloon; yet she knew it was hopeless to try to move Rimrock, so she smiled and ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... with contempt, which I believe most false and unjust. He has an overweening opinion of his own all-sufficiency, and that is his besetting sin, and the one which, if anything does, will overturn his Government, for if he would be less dictatorial and opinionated, and would call to his assistance such talents and information as the crisis demands, he would be universally voted the best man alive to be at the head of the Government; but he has such a set of men under ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... delicate position he was in. "He wants to ram his notions down my throat," he thought; and it seemed to him that the parson's face had grown more like a mule's, his accent more superior, his eyes more dictatorial: To be right in this argument seemed now of great importance, whereas, in truth, it was of no importance whatsoever. That which, however, was important was the fact that in nothing could they ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... own invitation. He had got into a habit of letting them know when it would suit him to devote an evening to their instruction; and it was difficult indeed to say which of the two ladies submitted the more readily and meekly to the dictatorial enunciation of his opinions. Mrs. Kavanagh, it is true, sometimes dissented in so far as a smile indicated dissent, but her daughter scarcely reserved to herself so much liberty. Mr. Ingram had taken her in hand, and expected of her the obedience ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... greatest joy and his unceasing anxiety. From the very first he had constituted himself her guide, philosopher . . . and slave. Yet the dictatorial little lady found out very early in the day, that in certain things she had to conform to her indulgent brother's standards, the family standards; and though she might be all Ffolliot in certain matters, the Grantly ethics were too strong for her. That Ger should love her, that ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker

... the farm well understood the business-like capacity of their respected mistress. But it must not be supposed that Mrs. Montgomery was the ruling spirit of "Gladswood." She displayed no strong-minded nor dictatorial manner; no arrogant gestures or inclinations to combativeness; but seemed as one endowed with the happy faculty of presenting herself at the right time and right place, and by her motherly counsel to superintend the working of her household in ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... buy for two reasons. The first is that antisocial, predatory, exploitive and parasitic elements are unfortunately and unnecessarily prominent in the lives of all civilized peoples, including the present West. The second reason is the arrogant, self-righteous, peremptory, bragging, bullying, dictatorial approaches adopted by civilized people in their dealings with those who live on the fringes or outside the pale of civilization. The first reason is an inescapable consequence of the political, economic, ideological and sociological assumptions of the civilizing process. ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... the same federative body to all the colonies, by which the subscribers bound themselves to refuse and to prevent the importation of goods, wares and merchandise, from the mother country; established committees of safety throughout the province, and, in short, in possession of almost dictatorial powers, did not hesitate to use them for the public welfare. It was at particular pains to infuse a martial spirit among the people; and, influenced by this spirit, and under the immediate suggestion, and by direct participation, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... spoke in an unpleasant dictatorial way he made a thrust at Singh with the pointed stump he held; but quick as thought and before it was driven home, this third-part of a wicket was wrenched from his hand by Severn and sent flying through ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... the circumstances, as a display of the most brazen-faced assurance and the most unmitigated impudence I ever met with in my life! I have known for years that you were capable of great presumption, but in this insolent and dictatorial address you surpass yourself—you positively out-Herod Herod! In the whole history of the country, and of parties, I venture the assertion, that a parallel piece of impudence, and downright bold-faced assurance, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... to his chief. Lincoln soon showed, however, that he was not a follower, but a leader of men, beneath whose good nature and kindly spirit was a power of initiative that has rarely been equalled among the statesmen of the world. Even the dictatorial Secretary of War found it necessary to yield to the President on all points that the latter regarded as being fundamental. Few other presidents have been so bitterly attacked and so cruelly misrepresented ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln

... Guizot, Madame la comtesse de Rumford]. Rousseau never took his place in this circle; in this society he marched in front like a pioneer of new times, attacking tentatively all that he encountered on his way. "Nobody was ever at one and the same time more factious and more dictatorial," is the clever dictum of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... learn by experience, and it was better to leave her to fight her own battles, and hoping that time and prudence would conquer many difficulties. Patty, of course, did not know all this, but she realized that Miss Rowe was inclined to be impatient and dictatorial, and in consequence began to think that she should not like her. Morning school at The Priory was from nine till one, and the hours from two to four were devoted to outdoor exercise. To-day, however, owing to her examination, Patty was obliged to return after dinner to the classroom, and ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... broke off abruptly. His tone was resentful, as well as dictatorial. He was never what one might call an easy man. He was always headstrong, and never failed to resent interference on the smallest provocation. Perhaps these things were in the nature of his calling. He was one of the head Customs officials on the Canadian side of the Alaskan boundary. His companion ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... he came her first perception was, "How wonderful is his likeness to the King!" while the thought's commentary ran, unacknowledged, "Yes, as an eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to the observant eye, was a more zealous person, already passion-wasted, and a far more dictatorial and stiff-necked person than the lazy and amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face and nose were somewhat too long and high: the priest was, in a word, the less comely of the pair by a very little, and to an immeasurable extent ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... itself. Thus it may truly be said of him not only that under his guidance the republic was saved from disruption and the country was purified of the blot of slavery, but that, during the stormiest and most perilous crisis in our history, he so conducted the government and so wielded his almost dictatorial power as to leave essentially intact our free institutions in all things that concern the rights and liberties of the citizens. He understood well the nature of the problem. In his first message to Congress he defined ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... stadtholders in the United Provinces; and thus, in mixed governments, the royal prerogative is occasionally enlarged, by the temporary suspension of laws, [Footnote: In Britain, by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus.] and the barriers of liberty appear to be removed, in order to vest a dictatorial power in the hands ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... Danglars took his place on the sofa, closed the open book, and placing himself in a dreadfully dictatorial attitude, he began playing with the dog; but the animal, not liking him as well as Debray, and attempting to bite him, Danglars seized him by the skin of his neck and threw him upon a couch on the other side of the room. The animal uttered a cry during the transit, but, arrived at ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... not be too dictatorial as to how we enjoy life. We must not be too positive as to the manner in which we must find Happiness. We must not determine that it must come in just the way we wish, or else we will be miserable ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver

... weakness and mutability of his counsels, and offers him excellent instructions in the art of reigning; but clouded by her usual uncouth and obscure phraseology and rendered offensive by their harsh and dictatorial style. When she regards herself as personally injured by any part of his conduct, her complaints are seasoned with an equal portion of menace and contempt; as in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... demagogue named Pragam began to persuade the people that commerce was piracy—that true prosperity consisted in consumption of domestic products and abstention from foreign. This extraordinary heresy soon gathered such head that Pragam was appointed Regent and invested with almost dictatorial powers. He at once distributed nearly the whole army among the seaport cities, and whenever a Stronagu trading proa attempted to land, the soldiery, assisted by the populace, rushed down to the beach, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... Still, to be left with Mr. Halloway was by no means an unenviable fate, and Bell, like the wise girl she was, proceeded to make the most of it without delay, and paraded her prey wherever she chose, finding him much more tractable than her last companion, and not in the least dictatorial as to the direction ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... he got near, he looked so big and burly and dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom, to come and be examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the dog too. And really it was time; for the poor turnips, in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast to be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... roused himself enough to understand, the captain was in the full swing of his dictatorial oration. "I don't want to intrude with my opinion. But no man should live for himself," he said. "Now, if my scissors had turned out as I expected, I should have been worth a million to-day. I'd have spent a good share of it—let me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... Steve from off his natural tree and grafting him upon an alien bough occasioned some changes. From being cheerful, slow, and gentle he suddenly became anxious, hasty, and at times dictatorial. ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... angel could not reach its heart; and here one of his eccentricities broke out. He drew a line, in his dictatorial way, between dinner and feeding parties. "A dinner party is two rubbers. Four gentlemen and four ladies sit round a circular table; then each can hear what anyone says, and need not twist the neck at every word. Foraging parties are from fourteen ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... becoming dogmatic and dictatorial from the habit of dealing with less mature intelligences, from the absence of contradiction and friction among equals, and the want of that most perfect discipline of the mind—intercourse with intellectual superiors. Of course it is ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... conducted with an absent-mindedness that puzzled his host, the eminent iron-master, Jacob Cruit, who had exchanged an income of a million a year and dictatorial powers for a governmental wage of one dollar per annum, no authority, no gratitude, and ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... be supported by the most licentious principles; by dictatorial arrogance,[183] by gross invective, and by airy sarcasm;[184] the bitter contempt which, with its many little artifices, lowers an adversary in the public opinion, was more peculiarly the talent of one of the aptest ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... a dictatorial manner, to catechise others as to their views on any subject, especially if they are older than yourself, is unseemly. You will meet with some persons who seem to take it for granted that they have a right to call you to account for your opinions, and to determine ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb

... Moggs, the housekeeper; and what a feeble creature she felt herself in the presence of Jane Dyson, her own maid, who had come to her fresh from the sainted presence of an archbishop's wife, and who was inclined to be slightly dictatorial in consequence, always quoting and referring to that paragon of women, her late mistress, whose only error in life had been the leaving it before Jane Dyson had saved enough to justify her retirement from service. Those highly-educated ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... "I have arranged to dine elsewhere. I do not wish to seem dictatorial or unreasonable, but I have just come from Medchester, where the distress is, if anything, worse than ever. It makes one's heart sick to walk the streets, and when I look into the people's faces I seem to always hear that great shout of hope and enthusiasm ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... life, and the distance between their residences, had prevented very close confidence. They had hardly lived together since Eleanor was a child. Eleanor had moreover, especially in latter years, resented in a quiet sort of way, the dictatorial authority which the archdeacon seemed to exercise over her father, and on this account had been unwilling to allow the archdeacon's wife ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... Neither had anything occurred, to his knowledge, that should have induced his commanding officer, without any other warning than the hints we noticed at the end of the fourteenth chapter, so suddenly to assume a harsh and, as Edward deemed it, so insolent a tone of dictatorial authority. Connecting it with the letters he had just received from his family, he could not but suppose that it was designed to make him feel, in his present situation, the same pressure of authority ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... dictatorial message—written of course in a disguised hand—with mingled disgust and amusement. Then, suddenly, she made up her mind to show it to ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... senate. "The senate," said Lord Cochrane, "was an anomaly in state government. It consisted of five members, whose functions were to remain only during the first struggles of the country for independence; but this body had now assumed a permanent right to dictatorial control, whilst there was no appeal from their arbitrary conduct, except to themselves. They arrogated the title of 'Most Excellent,' whilst the Supreme Director was simply 'His Excellency;' his position, though ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... begins very early, even in the nursery. Without the mountebank pretence, that miracles can be performed by the turning of a straw, or the dictatorial anathematizing tone, which calls down vengeance upon those who do not follow to an iota the injunctions of a theorist, we may simply observe, that parents would save themselves a great deal of trouble, and their children some pain, if they would pay some attention to ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... reared as Muhammadans and trained under strict military discipline, became that efficient body of troops called the Janizaries. For a long time they were the bulwark of the empire, but at length they became so dictatorial and powerful that the sultan began to fear them more than he feared his foreign enemies. In 1825, when the army was reorganized on the European plan, the Janizaries broke out in open revolt. Then the reigning sultan unfurled the flag of the Prophet ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson

... decisive victory over the Spanish was not achieved until 1818. In the War of the Pacific (1879-84), Chile defeated Peru and Bolivia and won its present northern lands. A three-year-old Marxist government of Salvador ALLENDE was overthrown in 1973 by a dictatorial military regime led by Augusto PINOCHET, who ruled until a freely elected president was installed in 1990. Sound economic policies, maintained consistently since the 1980s, have contributed to steady growth and have helped ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... again escaped. After seven years of dictatorial power, he is once more reduced to the level upon which we saw him standing in 1818, a vagabond at Buenos Ayres, although from that level he may raise ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various



Words linked to "Dictatorial" :   despotic, tyrannic, dictator, tyrannical, domineering, authoritarian



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