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Repressive   Listen
adjective
Repressive  adj.  Having power, or tending, to repress; as, repressive acts or measures.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Repressive" Quotes from Famous Books



... our story:—That this most intense and vital sentiment should find expression whenever the repressive power of the conquering people was removed was most natural; that it would be fanned into a white heat by the freedman's enfranchisement was beyond cavil; and that Red Wing should escape such manifestations of the general ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... agreements by colonial merchants were imminent, which bade fair to make goods hard to get, customers would be wise to make their purchases before the supply became exhausted. Boyd's prediction was sound. The Boston Tea Party of the previous December had evoked from Parliament a handful of repressive measures, the Intolerable Acts, and at the time of Boyd's advertisement, the first Continental Congress in session was soon to declare that all imports from ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen

... Doctor, can it be that you want to commit this nation to the business of practicing medicine, and to its practice according to the allopathic, or 'regular' school? The American Medical Association, with its reactionary policies and repressive tendencies, is making strenuous endeavors to influence Congress to enact certain measures which would result in the creation of such a Department of Health, the effect of which would be to monopolize the art ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... away from him without answering—not in fear, but because her code of ethics, the repressive conventions of her whole existence urged her to do so in the face of a sudden yearning to draw his bloody face up close to her and kiss it. The very thought, the swift surge of the impulse frightened her, shocked her. She could not understand it, and so she took refuge behind ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... sewers in place of cesspools. She killed rats by the hundreds of thousands, rat-proofed her buildings, and thus, at one stroke, eliminated all fear of bubonic plague. She began to take interest in the public schools, and soon trebled their advantages. She concerned herself with the revision of repressive tax laws. She secured one of the best street railway systems in the country. But, perhaps most striking of all, she set to work to build scientifically toward the realization of a gigantic dream. This dream embodies ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... entirely confined to its rugged shores. After that the trade fell into the hands of selfish and unprincipled monopolists, who wilfully misrepresented the nature of this island, and prevailed on the British Government to enact repressive laws, which effectually prevented colonisation. Then prejudice, privileges, and error perpetuated the evil state of things, so that the true character of the land was not known until the present century; its grand interior was not systematically explored till only a few years ago, ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks have come to light about his nose, as if the finger of the very devil himself had, within the last few moments, touched it here and there. But he has repressive power, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... is in the grip of a bloody revolution! Thousands of workers are slaughtered by machine guns in New York City! Washington is on fire! Industry is at a standstill and thousands of workers are starving! The government is using the most brutal and repressive measures to put down the revolution! Disorganization, crime, chaos, rape, murder and arson are the order of the day—the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... of tenants'; Mr. Wharncliffe, a young private secretary with a waxed moustache, six feet of height, and a general air of superlativeness which demanded and secured attention; a famous journalist, whose smiling self-repressive look assured you that he carried with him the secrets of several empires; and one Sir John Headlam, a little black-haired Jewish-looking man with a limp—an ex-Colonial Governor, who had made himself accepted in London as an amusing fellow, but who was at least as much ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... assumed attention as you attempt to talk over some plan for the future; then the yawn, and by degrees, the covert sneer, the little sarcasm, and finally, the frank, open stare of boredom. Ah, Duke, when you all carry out your repressive legislation against women of evil lives, don't fail to include in your schedule the Unsympathetic Wives. They are the women whose victims show the sorriest scars; they are the really "bad women" of the world: all the others are ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero

... work, though "Simple Susan," "Lazy Lawrence," and others have their admirers. In judging her work the student should keep in mind (1) that she wrote at a time when, unlike the present, the best authors thought it beneath their dignity to write for children, (2) that the too repressive and dogmatic attitude towards children which one now and then feels in her stories was due to a conscious effort to offset the undisciplined enthusiasms and sentimentalisms of her day, and (3) that she has been a living influence ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... assisted Julius March in promoting their spiritual welfare, even while deploring that the latter put his faith in forms and ceremonies rather than in saving grace. Upon the trainer himself she exercised a gently repressive influence. ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... being that is defined as not human, a being that is above the driving force of impulse, that does not experience vacillating moods or conflicting desires, that is never harassed by doubts or misled by ignorance.... Theism is in essence repressive, prohibitory, ascetic. The outcome of its influence is that expertness in practical living and expertness in evaluating life, instead of uniting to take advantage of a common opportunity, are set against each other. This is the profound ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... the order of the day, and the process of the survival of the fittest operating along this plane, that man who best exemplifies the repressive faculty will survive in the political warfare and thus will be brought to the front the element out of touch with the broadening influences of the age, whose vision is yet bounded by the narrow horizon ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... economic literature shows that we are but rarely curious to know whether industrialism is suited to man's inherited nature, or what man in turn will do to our rules of economic conduct in case these rules are repressive. The motives to economic activity which have done the major service in orthodox economic texts and teachings have been either the vague middle-class virtues of thrift, justice, and solvency, or the equally vague moral sentiments of 'striving ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... legislature is not viewed as his friend and brother-helper, but his tyrant. Therefore the most natural bent of his workman-statesmanship—a rough, bungling affair—will be to tame you—you who ought to be his Counsellor and Friend. When he finds that your legislative action exerts upon him a repressive and restraining force he will curse you as its author, because he sees not the springs you are working. Should he even be a little more advanced in knowledge than our friend Ginx, and learn that he helps to elect the Parliament to make ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins

... is this," he said. "Repressive measures will be passed in Germany, as soon as the act can be got through. That will mean that Germany will be brought up into line with the rest of Europe, America, Australia, and half Asia, throughout her whole empire. That will mean again that our own repressive measures will really ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... captain—a man whose fiery hair, arching eyebrows, Roman nose, and explosive language indicated the daredevil, but whose intelligent though humorous eye and corrugated forehead gave certain signs of repressive study and thought; and Bigpig Monahan, already described. These three men went into session under the break of the poop, and came to the conclusion that the consul who had jailed them for nothing would hang them for this; then, calling the rest to the conference as a committee of the whole, they ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson

... war had diffused a deep excitement among all classes. Every day new rumors arose, and throughout the Neapolitan dominions the population were filled with strange vague desires. The government itself was demoralized—one day exerting its utmost power in the most repressive measures, and on the next recalling its own acts, and retreating in fear from the position which it had taken up. The troops were as agitated as the people. It was felt that in case of an attempt at revolution they could not ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... is so now, and apparently cannot be left behind. An admirable instrument for the discipline of populations at a low stage of culture, and well fitted to teach them a certain measure of self-restraint and piety, Islam cannot carry them on to the higher development of human life and thought. It is repressive of freedom, and the reason is that its doctrine is after all no more than negative. Allah is but a negation of other gods; there is no store of positive riches in his character, he does not sympathise with the ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... grievance, and voiced it in muttered profanity that held many a threat of death. I fancy that it was my presence in the forecastle that inspired all this ill treatment; no doubt I was regarded as a bad example, whose influence over the men must be offset by stern, repressive measures, but whom they would not remove because of their dislike of the law. For the law could reach a skipper or ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... hearkened unto. The neglect of Ireland and of her industrial concerns, of which Lord Northcliffe so justly made complaint, continued, and instead of the counsels of peace prevailing all the follies of wrong methods and repressive courses were committed which will leave enduring memories of bitterness and broken faith long after a settlement is reached. Meanwhile The Times devoted itself earnestly and assiduously to the cause of peace and justice. It opened its columns to the expression of reasoned opinion on the ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... of Strafford, was borne in London in 1593, and was executed there in 1641. He was privy councilor to Charles I, and was Lord Deputy of Ireland. On account of his repressive measures to uphold the absolute power of the king he was impeached by the Long Parliament and was executed for treason. The essence of his defence is in the sentence quoted by De Morgan, to which Pym replied ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... a Liberal reaction set in, aided by divisions in the Conservative party arising mainly over church questions. Montt's successors, Jose Joaquin Perez (1861-1871), Federico Errazuriz (1871-1876) and Anibal Pinto (1876-1881), abandoned the repressive policy of their predecessors, invited the co-operation of the Liberals, and allowed discontent to vent itself freely in popular agitation. Some democratic changes were made in the constitution, notably a law forbidding the re-election of a president, and the gradual and peaceful transition to a Liberal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... policy of speedily settling contested land titles, is making satisfactory progress in its work, and when the work is completed a great impetus will be given to the development of those regions where unsettled claims under Mexican grants have so long exercised their repressive influence. When to these results are added the enormous cessions of Indian lands which have been opened to settlement, aggregating during this Administration nearly 26,000,000 acres, and the agreements negotiated and now pending in Congress for ratification by which about 10,000,000 ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... we had better drop the subject, as Mr. Blake will be here directly,' retorted Audrey, in her most repressive tones. 'Father, do you know you have forgotten to wind up the drawing-room clock? I think it ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... let us go, won't you, air, because we want to build the Empire?" burst out Billykins, thrusting himself in between his elders and looking so flushed and excited that Mr. Runciman, who had no son of his own, could not be so repressive as he felt he ought to ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... but it may have caught at a fact. From another foreign sojourner I heard that the Catholicism of Spain, in spite of all newspaper appearances to the contrary and many bold novels, is still intense and unyieldingly repressive. But how far the severity of the church characterizes manners it would be hard to say. Perhaps these are often the effect of temperament. One heard more than one saw of the indifference of shop-keepers to shoppers in Madrid; in Andalusia, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... addressed to me appear to me to prove sufficiently that you do not think well of what is actually taking place),—if, I say, it is not with your sanction that your government continues to extend more and more those repressive measures against the Christian religion which so grievously injure that religion, must you not come to the conclusion that such measures can have no other effect than to undermine your throne?" He may possibly have thought so, when, a little later, his life was attempted by parties ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... peace already described), with its heavy burden of expense and its ever-recurring disasters, relieved only by occasional success. The combined calamity of the Fire and the Plague increased the general depression, paralyzed trade, and made the burden of taxation more severe. Repressive measures, if they had checked rebellion, had left a troubled background of smouldering discontent, and were sowing the seeds of future opposition to the Crown and to the Church. The temper of the House of Commons, however ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... to whom she is engaged is the woman's. When the thing is settled there is always present to the man something of a feeling of clipped wings; whereas the woman is conscious of a new power of expanding her pinions. The certainty of the thing is to him repressive. He has done his work, and gained his victory,—and by conquering has become a slave. To her the certainty of the thing is the removal of a restraint which has hitherto always been on her. She can tell ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... may be added that an interesting form of this contraction of the lips, and one that is not purely repressive, is that which indicates the state of muscular tension associated with the impulse to guard and protect. In this form the contracted mouth is the index of tenderness, and is characteristic of the mother who is watching ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... His innocent delight at her return had the air of being a pretence. She could not suppose his eager caresses to be other than penitence for suspicion or an assertion of his claims upon her in perpetuity. The distress made her unresponsive, even repressive. Her foot tapped upon the floor even while she could not wholly quell his convulsive nervous embrace. And Toby did ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... another reign of terror, and another raid and massacre; and we should have lost twenty good men from our poor little side for ever. We must not waste the salt of the earth in that reckless fashion. Besides, I don't like this dynamite. It's a bad argument, it smacks too much of the old royal and repressive method. You know the motto Louis Quatorze used to cast on his bronze cannon—"Ultima ratio regum." Well, we Socialists ought to be able to find better logic for our opponents ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... by a powerful orthodox priesthood. But a despotic administration which undertakes to control and circumscribe all forms and manifestations of superstition in a vast polytheistic multitude of its subjects, is inevitably driven to repressive measures of the utmost severity. Neither Christianity nor Islam attempted to regulate polytheism, their mission was to exterminate it, and they succeeded mainly because in those countries the State was acting with the support and under the uncompromising pressure of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... thanks," I answered. "But how are you?" And the next moment, it seemed to me, I heard her asking if I was hungry;—whereupon, absurd as it must sound, I was aware of an immense emotion that interfered with my breathing. It broke up through some repressive layer that had apparently concealed it, and made me feel—well, had I been thirty-five years younger, I could have cried—for pleasure. Mother, I think, forgot those years perhaps. To her I was still in overalls and wanted food. ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... large proportions by 1860. It was also seen in a disposition to attack the government for stigmatizing the trade as criminal,[8] then in a disinclination to take any measures which would have rendered our repressive laws effective; and finally in such articulate declarations by prominent men as this: "Experience having settled the point, that this Trade cannot be abolished by the use of force, and that blockading squadrons ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... was some one hurt,' said Esclairmonde in her repressive manner. 'Drink some more wine, eat this bread, and you will be able to ride to the Hotel de ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... shame have stood as grim guardians against the gate of knowledge and constructive idealism. The sex life of women has been clouded in darkness, restrictive, repressive and morbid. Women have not had the opportunity to know themselves, nor have they been permitted to give play to their inner natures, that they might create a morality practical, idealistic and high for their ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger

... Rogerines who were going quietly on their way through Norwich to attend services in Lebanon. The outburst of religious fervor spent itself in two or three years. Governor Talcott did not believe in strong repressive measures, and it was soon conceded that the ignoring of their eccentricities, if kept within reasonable bounds, was the most efficient way to discourage the Rogerines. Summarizing the influence of this sect, we find that they contributed nothing ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... long, however, remain the companion of peons. Eighteen hundred and ten has come, bringing with it liberty, and bloodshed, and universal discord. The sun of May beams down upon a desolated land. For the mild, although repressive viceregal sway is substituted that of a swarm of military chieftains, who, fighting as patriots against Liniers and his ill-fated troops, as rivals with each other, or as montanero-freebooters against all combined, swept the plains with their harrying lancers from the seacoast ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... although they must refuse to do any act forbidden to them by the movement even at the cost of great suffering.[81] The movement ended in a compromise agreement with the British, but the terms of the agreement were never completely carried out. Repressive measures and the imprisonment of Gandhi checked the non-cooperation movement during the present ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin

... come to stand for repression founded on an almost angry distrust of human nature, is in fact "the most encouraging, the most joyous, the least repressive, and the least forbidding of all the religions of the world." It does not fear the world, it masters it. It does not seek to escape from life, it develops a truer and more abundant life. It places itself at the head ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... San Tome mine could be kept in constant touch with the great financier, whose tacit approval made the strength of the Ribierist movement. This movement had its adversaries even there. Sotillo governed Esmeralda with repressive severity till the adverse course of events upon the distant theatre of civil war forced upon him the reflection that, after all, the great silver mine was fated to become the spoil of the victors. But caution was necessary. He began by assuming ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... of the police—and the severity of the magistrates. The general leniency of the judicial procedure here, and the utter absence of all repressive measures, are a scandal to Europe. What is wished for just now is the accentuation of the unrest—of ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... not been brought up in the rigid, repressive school that had surrounded Mrs. MacCall's childhood. As for Linda, the Finnish girl, if she had her way she would be "stuffing" (to quote Mrs. MacCall) the children all ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... for the same object. I propose to go inland, north of the territory which the Portuguese in Europe claim, and endeavour to commence that system on the East which has been so eminently successful on the West Coast; a system combining the repressive efforts of H.M. cruisers with lawful trade and Christian Missions—the moral and material results of which have been so gratifying. I hope to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river North of Cape Delgado, and, in addition to my other work, shall strive, by passing along the Northern end of Lake Nyassa ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... red, and the bricks were accentuated by a white line; they were garnished, on the first floor, with balconies covered with small tin roofs, striped in different colours, and with an elaborate iron lattice-work, which gave them a repressive, cage-like appearance, and caused them slightly to resemble the little boxes for peeping unseen into the street, which are a feature of oriental towns. Such posts of observation commanded a view of the grocery on the corner, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... deepening every hour. Men believed the world to be ending, and the judgement day to be near. A few months after the Peace came a fresh swoop of the Black Death, carrying off the Duke of Lancaster. The repressive measures of Parliament and the landowners only widened the social chasm which parted employer from employed. We can see the growth of a fierce spirit of resistance both to the reactionary efforts which were being made ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green

... and in Brittany, France had outposts which, if well defended, might long keep the English power away from her vitals. Unluckily for his side, Philip was harsh and raw, and threw these advantages away. In Flanders the repressive commercial policy of the Count, dictated from Paris, gave Edward the opportunity, in the end of 1337, of sending the Earl of Derby, with a strong fleet, to raise the blockade of Cadsand, and to open the Flemish markets by a brilliant ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... her Thady into the house, as she saw him on the brink of beginning loudly to relate his encounter with a strange man, and desired him to whisht and stay where he was in a manner so sternly repressive that he actually remained there as if he had been a pebble dropped into a pool, and not, as usual, a cork to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... that "Knowledge is Power;" but we never hear that Ignorance is Power. And yet Ignorance has always had more power in the world than Knowledge. Ignorance dominates. It is because of the evil propensities of men that the costly repressive ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... rousing public opinion as to bring about its early repeal. When the measure is understood by the public half the battle will be won; it is accepted at the moment from faith in the Government; it will be rejected when its true character is grasped. The murders which have given birth to this repressive measure came with a shock upon the country, which was the more terrible from the sudden change from gladness and hope to darkness and despair. The new policy was welcomed so joyfully; the messenger of the new policy was slain ere yet the pen was dry which had signed ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... necessity peaceful. Old feuds were restrained by the strong arm of the law, if indeed the spirit of the clans had not been completely broken by the severe repressive measures which followed the rebellion of Forty-five. But the people had hot yet learnt to bend their backs, like the Sassenach, to the stubborn soil, and they sat gloomily by their turf-fires at ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... his eyes, doubting if he really saw before him Athos and Aramis; and forced at last to yield to evidence, he was on the point of breaking forth in exclamations when he encountered a glance from the eyes of Porthos, the repressive force of which he was not ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... worst possible results for Germany. Minister Hardenberg, when he heard of the murder of Kotzebue, declared that a Prussian Constitution had now been rendered impossible. Metternich, who was then in Rome, instantly drew up a scheme for further repressive measures and summoned the ministers of the various German States for a meeting at Carlsbad. "By the help of God," wrote Metternich, "I hope to defeat the German revolution, just as I vanquished the conqueror ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... January (N. S.), Sir William Stanley entertained the magistrates of Deventer at a splendid banquet. There was free conversation at table concerning the idle suspicions which had been rife in the Provinces as to his good intentions and the censures which had been cast upon him for the repressive measures which he had thought necessary to adopt for the security of the city. He took that occasion to assure his guests that the Queen of England had not a more loyal subject than himself, nor the Netherlands a more ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... been taught to believe Jesus. This has resulted in a separation of Christianity from life. The predominating motive has been the saving of the soul. It has resulted too often in a selfish, negative, repressive, ineffective religion. As Jesus said: "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine

... destruction of Lisbon in a 1755 earthquake, occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, and the independence in 1822 of Brazil as a colony. A 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy; for most of the next six decades repressive governments ran the country. In 1974, a left-wing military coup installed broad democratic reforms. The following year Portugal granted independence to all of its African colonies. Portugal entered the EC (now ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... "as far as I resent anything now, I resent the conversion of so much religion from an inspiring force into a repressive force. One learnt as a child to think of it, not as a great moving flood of energy and joy, but as an awful power apart from life, rejoicing in petty restrictions, and mainly concerned with creating an unreal atmosphere of narrow piety, hostile to natural talk and laughter and freedom. God's ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the repressive features of the earlier treatment have been abandoned, and there has come about a realization of the complexity of causes that bring about family breakdowns. In particular, the relation of sex maladjustments to failure in marriage have received the serious ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord

... Ogareff, the two men who brought out the Kolokol in London in the Russian language, and by their agents spread it broadcast over Russia. The stifling of the insurrection in Poland strengthened the reactionary party. More repressive edicts were issued, with the usual result, that secret societies multiplied everywhere. Then came the revolution and commune in Paris, which greatly strengthened the spread of revolutionary ideas here. Another circumstance gave a fresh impetus to this. Some time before, there had been a movement ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty

... expedition put a stop to it altogether, the slave trade that was carried on down the river was quite insignificant compared to the overland traffic." "For years there has been a public prohibition against bringing slaves down the White Nile into Khartoum, and ever and again stronger repressive measures have been introduced, which, however, have only had the effect of raising the land traffic to a premium; but as a general rule, the Egyptian officials connive at the use of this comparatively unimportant ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... instinctively felt were my due. The conviction that my father—the one to whom my childish heart naturally turned for sympathy in all my little joys and sorrows—regarded me coldly—for his demonstrations of affection were indeed few and far between—exercised a subduing and repressive influence upon me from which, even now, I have not wholly recovered, and which will probably continue to affect me to the latest hour of my life. What made my position decidedly worse was that my father had, so far, not deemed it necessary to send ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... social welfare work is merely education of the germs of traits; it does not provide such germs. In the absence of the germs the traits can not develop. On the other hand, it is possible with difficulty, if possible at all, by means of the strongest repressive measures merely, to prevent the development of undesirable hereditary traits. Society can treat the delinquent individual more reasonably, more effectively, and more humanely, if it knows the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... small thinness, and the beautiful hair so richly piled about her delicate head—Lucy Purcell was undeniably a pretty girl, and since her arrival in Manchester she had been much more blissfully certain of the fact than she had ever succeeded in being while she was still under the repressive roof of Miss Pym's boarding-school for young ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... is taken from Justice Repressive (Etat Independant du Congo) and is based on a Decree of 1896. Since then other Territorial Courts have been or ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... was, well established in Japan, it apparently has had no marked influence on the religious thought of the people. Phallic forms abound[719] in the land, in spite of repressive measures on the part of the government, but the cult partakes of the general looseness of the Shinto organization of supernatural Powers. It is said to have been adopted in some cases by Buddhists. It appears to have been combined with Shinto at a very early (half-civilized) time, for which, however, ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy

... this doctrine we take no stock. On the contrary, there are plain reasons for holding that free speech is more dangerous to a democracy than to any other form of government, and no doubt these reasons, if only unconsciously, were at the bottom of the extraordinary body of repressive legislation put upon the books during the late war. The essential thing about a democracy is that the men at the head of the state are wholly dependent, for a continuance of their power, upon the good ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan

... celebrate, must have been as disagreeable to live in as any that history records; not only were the physical conditions of life hard, but its inquisitorial intolerance overmatched that which it escaped in England. It was a theocratic despotism, untempered by recreation or amusement, and repressive not only of freedom of expression but of freedom of thought. But it had an unconquerable will, a mighty sense of duty, a faith in God, which not only established its grip upon the continent but carried ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... The individual differences among children are as great in their experiencing and manifesting this emotion as they are in any other phase of life, so not infrequently we find children under eight years of age who are shy, repressive and self-conscious in regard to their love actions. The same children are shy and repressive in other things. It is more of a general disposition than a specific attitude toward this ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell

... by his fellow-beings. Some have studied him as a monster and believed him to have the heart of a beast; others have studied him as a man and had faith in his possibilities. The former have noticed the failure of repressive methods, such as flogging and other penal severities, and have in despair been led to advocate that the only possible remedy is that of extermination. The latter have discovered that the failure of these repressive methods but imposes upon society the obligation of adopting a system of ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... show different temperaments in this regard. The Southern races are commonly accounted the more impulsive and precipitate: the English race, especially our New England branch of it, is supposed to be all sicklied over with repressive forms of self-consciousness, and condemned to express itself through a jungle of scruples ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... causes, then, an immediate and direct elevation of temperature, without disturbance of the circulation. What can this mean? Evidently, only one thing—namely, that by the division of the medulla there has been separated from the general tissues of the body a repressive force—a something which normally controls their chemical activity and the production in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... this. Yet, for that very reason the blind and thoughtless propagation of degenerate, tainted, and enfeebled individuals is another atrocious danger to society. But then the sexual appetite cannot be legislated out of existence or killed by repressive measures. ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... an extended period, especially when progress is not being made. The longer the United States remains in Iraq without progress, the more resentment will grow among Iraqis who believe they are subjects of a repressive American occupation. As one U.S. official said to us, "Our leaving would make it worse. . . . The current approach without modification ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace

... died (1542), she was only a few days old. Her mother, Mary of Guise, became regent. The Reformation had then begun to gain adherents in Scotland. On the accession of Elizabeth, at a time when the religious wars in France were about to begin, the Scottish regent undertook repressive measures of increased rigor. The principal agent in turning Scotland to the Protestant side was John Knox, an intrepid preacher, honest, and rough in his ways, deeply imbued with the spirit of Calvinism, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... uneasy perception of something secret, ominously secret, in the nature of the governess which defied detection. If Inquisitive Science, vowed to medical research, could dissect firmness of will, working at its steadiest repressive action—then, the mystery of Miss Minerva's inner nature might possibly have been revealed. As it was, nothing more remarkable exposed itself to view than an irritable temper; serving perhaps as safety-valve to an underlying explosive force, which (with strong enough ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... provided it was mixed up with foreign war, and that sedition was covered by treason. Such maxims ruin a whole people's nationality, in order to protect abuse of liberty by certain citizens. The Constituent Assembly was so wrong as to sanction such. Had it proclaimed from the beginning the laws repressive of emigration in troubled times, during revolutions, or on the eve of war, it would have proclaimed a national truth, and prevented one of the great dangers and principal causes of the excesses of the Revolution. The question now was no longer ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... insufficient by the Danish Liberals, and during the last years of Frederick VI. and the whole reign of his successor, Christian VIII. (1839-1848), the agitation for a free constitution, both in Denmark and the duchies, continued to grow in strength, in spite of press prosecutions and other repressive measures. The rising national feeling in Germany also stimulated the separatist tendencies of the duchies; and "Schleswig-Holsteinism," as it now began to be called, evoked in Denmark the counter-movement known as Eiderdansk-politik, i.e. the policy of extending Denmark ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... and abetted the uprising. During the gathering of the populace, which she had witnessed, mingling unrecognized among the crowd, a female orator haranguing the mob from the lower windows of a cafe was pointed out to her, and she was assured that it was George Sand. During the repressive measures the administration was led to take she felt uncertain whether the arrest of Barbes might not be followed by her own. Some of her friends advised her to seek safety in Italy, where at that time the partisans of ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas

... inflamed the passions of ignorant mobs. Moreover, the whigs and moderate reformers, who privately condemned the excesses of their violent followers, made light of these in their public utterances, and reserved all their censures for the repressive policy of the government. Bread riots had begun before the harvest, which proved a total failure. The price of wheat, which was as low as 52s. 6d. a quarter in January, 1816, rose to 103s. 1d. in January, 1817, and ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... taking a rough average, for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. These were the men whom Katherine most dreaded to encounter. They looked bold admiration, and roared out compliments at the top of husky voices, but they ventured nothing further; her manner was too repressive, and the big dogs which always accompanied her were much too fierce to be trifled with. Mrs. Burton had left off lamenting the chances of damage to her sister's complexion from exposure, for she realized that Katherine must be breadwinner now, and the stern necessities ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... and changes, recurring periodically, and heralded forth by the voice of the press and the thunder of the hustings. Politics in Ireland was nothing else than the expression given to the despotism of an insignificant minority over almost the entire body of the people. For, despite all their repressive measures, the enemies of the Catholic faith could never pretend even to a semblance in point of numbers, much less to a majority, over the children of the creed taught by Patrick. Ireland remained Catholic throughout; and its oppressors could not fail to feel the bitter humiliation of their ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... day-dreams to relinquish. When I have built Spanish castles—in a large family, one has not time for many—a lover for myself has been less the theme of my aspirations than a benefactor for the family. One, who will exercise a wholesomely repressive influence over father, has been more than any thing the theme of my longings; on the unlikely hypothesis of my marrying at all. For, O friends, it has seemed to me most unlikely; I dare say that I ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... thousand pounds for the same object. I propose to go inland, north of the territory which the Portuguese in Europe claim, and endeavor to commence that system on the East which has been so eminently successful on the West Coast: a system combining the repressive efforts of Her Majesty's cruisers with lawful trade and Christian missions—the moral and material results of which have been so gratifying. I hope to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river north of Cape Delgado, and, in ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... state as to its policy with respect to other religious bodies.... This is not political expediency as opposed to religious principle. Nothing did so much damage to religion as the obstinate adherence to a negative, repressive, and coercive course. For a century and more from the Revolution it brought us nothing but outwardly animosities and inwardly lethargy. The revival of a livelier sense of duty and of God is now beginning to tell in the altered policy of the church.... As her sense ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... scorn of his own craven spirit. For it must be remembered that I am writing not of the American farmer and laborer of this democratic age, but of men who were separated but by a generation or two from the peasant serfs of England, and who under the stern and repressive rule of the untitled aristocracy of the colonies, had enjoyed little opportunity for outgrowing inherited instincts ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... there such august personages! Here came in opportunely a long imprecation, a harangue, a diatribe against the perversion of good customs, hence the necessity of a permanent military tribunal, "a declaration of martial law within the limits already so declared, special legislation, energetic and repressive, because it is in every way needful, it is of imperative importance to impress upon the malefactors and criminals that if the heart is generous and paternal for those who are submissive and obedient ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... had been thrown by the capture of its king increased rather than diminished. Among all classes men strove in the absence of a repressive power to gain advantages and privileges. Serious riots occurred in many parts, and the demagogues of Paris, headed by Stephen Marcel, and Robert le Coq, bishop of Leon, set at defiance the Dauphin and the ministers and lieutenant of the king. ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... is more exhausting and burdensome than the load appointed. The destination sought and the course to be followed in the lesson preparation are very many times not clearly indicated, lest the discipline, negative and repressive though it be, should be extracted from the struggle. The fact is that discouragement and failure are too often the best of testimony that teachers are not much concerned about how the pupil employs his time or books in studying a lesson. The point is illustrated admirably by the report ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien

... outside the bounds of propriety.... Rebellious messages sent up from the Unconscious, which wishes to live, love and act in archaic modes ... conflict with the progress of human society ... inhibitory and repressive power of the censor...." (How wonderful, thought Mrs. Hilary, to be able to talk so like a book for so long together!) ... "give the censor all the help we can ... keep the Unconscious in order by turning its energies into some other channel ... give ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... they see what the change should be, that they comprehend what they are doing, and know where they intend to arrive. They do not perceive that the visible disorders are no more than symptoms which no measures, repressive or revolutionary, can do more than palliate. The wave advances and the wave recedes. Neither party in the struggle can lift itself far enough above the passions of the moment to study the drift of the general ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... confers an exuberance of tone which conflicts with the reposeful ideal of manners required in the beau monde which I destined you to grace when I took you from the maternal soapsuds. You will find an English Parsonage exerts a repressive influence. But for Heaven's sake don't fall in love with Ewing's eldest sister, who, I am sure, is addicted to piety and good works. She will try to make a good work of you and thus all my labour will have been ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... life!" he had said. The phrase was hateful to her. It stirred within her all the antagonism of her generation to the creed of her people, to the Puritan ideal, cold, narrow, repressive. And yet Renault was far from being a Puritan. But he, too, believed in the "discipline of life." And again when she had confessed her ambitions for "a broad life," "for experience," he had said: "Egotism is the pestilence of our day,—the sort of base intellectual egotism that seeks to taste ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... breaking, climbing upon, or otherwise damaging," she indignantly resented this incessant intrusion on the innocent enjoyment of free foresters. How much nicer it would have been if there had been a hand on one of these repressive boards, with the inscription: "This way to the North Star Church;" or, if a caution was really necessary for some of the people who entered the Forest, to say: "The public are requested not to disturb the Elves, Birch-ladies, and Oak-men;" but of course the most delightful thing would ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... with this repressive policy, and as its counterpart, a scheme ripened to place Rome, with its libraries, its archives, its incomparable opportunities of gathering contributory aid from every quarter of the Church, at the head of ecclesiastical literature. The Calendar was reformed. The text of the Canon Law ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... real benefits, and there is no occasion for questioning them, of the sexual order thus established, it becomes clear that in certain important respects it had an unnatural and repressive influence on the erotic aspect of woman's sexual life. It fostered the reproductive side of woman's sexual life, but it rendered difficult for her the satisfaction of the instinct for that courtship which is the natural preliminary of reproductive activity, an instinct even more ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... as well as for the bad. The law was promulgated in the Garden, while man retained his innocence and remained in the integrity of his nature. It exists in heaven as well as on earth, and in heaven in its perfection. Its office is not purely repressive, to restrain violence, to redress wrongs, and to punish the transgressor. It has something more to do than to restrict our natural liberty, curb our passions, and maintain justice between man and man. Its office is positive as well as negative. It is needed to render effective ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... with him cerebral excitement, when it reached a certain pitch, overflowed too rapidly into action. Whereas the gentry, after their centuries of repressive training, could always control themselves. They could fight, but they could wait for the appropriate moment. If you stung them with an insult, they resolved to avenge themselves—but not necessarily then and there; and their resolve deepened in every ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... increased all at once; from secret presses proceeded writings of an aggressive, and exceedingly malignant, character; in many places Elizabeth was again designated as illegitimate, a usurper, no longer as Queen. On this the repressive system, which had been already set in motion in consequence of Pope Pius V's bull, was made more stringent; this is what has brought on the Queen's government the charge of cruelty. The Catholics too ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... the frontier provinces repay these constant depredations with repressive measures on a big scale and are not concerned about the individuals who are made to suffer. When they saunter forth with a few regiments of regular cavalry and a field gun they are sure to scatter even the biggest ashiret or encampment. The Arab does ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... are rare among the Mormons. They have seen too much hard, repressive toil to admit of the development of lily beauty either in form or color. In general they are thickset, with large feet and hands, and with sun-browned faces, often curiously freckled like the petals of Fritillaria atropurpurea. They are fruit rather ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir



Words linked to "Repressive" :   repress, restrictive



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