"Despotic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supplied some material upon which it can work. Deny the principle of utility, in short, as he says in a vigorous passage,[364] and you are involved in a hopeless circle. Sooner or later you appeal to an arbitrary and despotic principle and find that you have substituted words ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... principles, ready to employ the most tortuous and unscrupulous means, sometimes indeed for ends in themselves patriotic, but often merely for aggrandizing himself. By nature he was more fitted to rule in a despotic than to lead in a constitutional State. Had he been born an emperor, his fertile genius might, unless betrayed by his restless ambition, have rendered his reign prosperous and his memory precious. As it is, in his career, with all its brilliance, posterity ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... The despotic rule of the Oriental countries is most favourable to the production of the political criminal: Russia and Germany are not without their representatives. Occasionally bands of political criminals are formed, and then, in the ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... a greater tyrant or more inhuman and cruel than James II. After the insurrection of Monmouth had been suppressed, all the sanguinary excesses of despotic revenge were revived. Gibbets were erected in villages to intimidate the people, and soldiers were intrusted with the execution of the laws. Scarce a Presbyterian family in Scotland, but was involved in proscription ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... believe the people in the Western quarter would separate themselves from the United States very soon. Such a measure, I have no doubt, would excite so much rage and dissatisfaction that the people would sooner put themselves under the despotic government of Spain than remain the indented servants of Congress." He added that if Congress did not afford due protection also to these western settlers they might turn ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... about him with a pretence of stoical composure, but under that guise was a mighty disquiet, for even in an organization of his own upbuilding the mountaineer frets against the despotic power that says "thou ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... For though the prime minister probably would not have lifted his hand against the queen; and though her connexion with his master, who married her from affection as great as we can imagine a sensual and despotic prince capable of cherishing, seemed to promise security; yet there could be no absolute dependence, and the favourite of to-day might be discarded to-morrow. He added to this other and weighty considerations—"If thou altogether boldest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... year, a Servant and Horse, so Feel as independent as a German Prince who coins his own Cash, or a Cherokee Chief who coins no Cash at all, but enjoys what is more precious, Liberty. I talk in raptures of that Goddess because my amiable Mama was so despotic. I am afraid the Specimens I have lately given her of my Spirit, and determination to submit to no more unreasonable demands, (or the insults which follow a refusal to obey her implicitly whether right or wrong,) have given high offence, as I had a most fiery Letter from the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Socially Useful Changes.—A fundamental principle in democracy is the right and duty of every human being to develop a strong, noble and distinctive individuality. For such development it is necessary that a person be self-supporting, free of despotic control by others, and able and willing to bear equal part with every other human being in the social order to ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... right, law, family, state, are but so many fetters forced upon me in the name of an abstraction, but so many despotic lords whom "I," the individual conscious of my own "concerns," combat by every means in my power. Your "morality," not merely the morality of the bourgeois philistines, but the most elevated, the most humanitarian morality is only religion which has changed its supreme beings. ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... "that nothing will attract a man more than the picture of a beautiful, passionate, cruel, and despotic woman who wantonly changes her favorites without scruple ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... of the Medes, scattered over separate villages, suffered all the evils of anarchy, till the reputation of Deioces made him the arbiter of their disputes. He then retired into private life; anarchy returned, a king was called for, and Deioces was elected. He organized a despotic power, which had its central seat in Ecbatana, which he made his capital, built upon a hill, on the summit of which was the royal palace, where the king reigned in seclusion, transacting all business through spies, informers, petitions, and decrees. Such is the account which ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... dwellings contains in germ the whole social revolution. On the manner of its accomplishment depends the character of all that follows. Either we shall start on a good road leading straight to anarchist communism, or we shall remain sticking in the mud of despotic individualism. ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... which in all probability hindered the head man from acceding at once to their demands was the dread of Oko Sam's displeasure in case that despotic monarch ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... any office connected with a Science church-sexton, grave-digger, advertising-agent, Annex-polisher, leader of the choir, President, Director, Treasurer, Clerk, etc. She did not mean that. She already possessed that authority. She meant to clothe herself with power, despotic and unchallengeable, to appoint all Science Readers to their offices, both at home and abroad. The phrase "or to appoint" is another miscarriage of intention; she did not mean "or," she ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... High Church of Edinburgh. The proud Earl consented, underwent this ignominious and degrading ceremonial, and his sentence of excommunication was then removed. Notwithstanding this public humiliation, after the death of the ill-fated and despotic Charles I., Seaforth, in 1649, went over to Holland, and joined Charles II., by whom he was made Principal Secretary of State for Scotland, the duties of which, however, he never had the opportunity ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... with more resolute determination than did the hired auxiliary at his side. These German troops played a notable part in the war. The despotic princes of the lesser German states were accustomed to sell the services of their troops. Despotic Russia, too, was a likely field for such enterprise. When, however, it was proposed to the Empress Catherine II that she should furnish twenty thousand men for service in America ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... that the very contrary is the case. Its method, the method of drums and democratic appeal, is that of the Franciscans or any other march of the Church Militant. It was precisely its aims that were dubious, with their dissenting morality and despotic finance. It is somewhat the same with things like the sky-signs in Broadway. The aesthete must not ask me to mingle my tears with his, because these things are merely useful and ugly. For I am not specially inclined to think ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... newspaper is now published in Rome, but I have heard it inquired for or mentioned but once since I came here, and then by a Scotchman studying Italian. It is ultra-despotic in its spirit, and would not be tolerated if it were not. It is a small, coarsely printed sheet, in good part devoted to Church news, giving great prominence to the progress of conversion from the English to the Romish communion. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the following extract from this work: "The impetuous conquests of Alexander, the more politic and premeditated extension of territory made by the Romans, the wild and cruel incursions of the Mexicans, and the despotic acquisitions of the incas, have in both hemispheres contributed to put an end to the separate existence of many tribes as independent nations, and tended at the same time to establish more extended international amalgamation. Men of great and strong minds, as well as whole nations, acted ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... chateau, much as their remote ancestors had taken refuge from the raids of the Northmen in the castles of their seigneur's ancestors. And over this feudal society was set, as in France, a highly centralised government wielding despotic power, and in its turn absolutely subject to the mandate of the Crown at home. This despotic government had the right to require the services of all its subjects in case of need; and it was only the centralised government of the colony, and the warlike and adventurous ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... are not uncommon in handsome slave-girls when newly bought; and it is a kind of pundonor to humour them. They may also refuse their favours and a master who took possession of their persons by brute force would be blamed by his friends, men and women. Even the most despotic of despots, Fath Ali Shah of Persia, put up with refusals from his slave-girls and did not, as would the mean-minded, marry them to the grooms or ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... hindered either of the parties from prevailing. And the disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor at that time also reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and settling it to be possible but a despotic power. ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... deemed best; and, donning the clothes, together with a collar set with margarites and rubies and all manner jewels, mounted and set forth in state, making his destrier prance and curvet among his troops and glorying in his pride and despotic power. And Iblis came to him and, laying his hand upon his nose, blew into his nostrils the breath of hauteur and conceit, so that he magnified and glorified himself and said in his heart, "Who among men is like unto me?" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the weakness but the strength of the ruling power in the state which is the great danger, and that the many-headed despot, acting by means of a subservient press and servile juries, speedily becomes as formidable to real freedom as ever Eastern sultaun with his despotic power and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... and most influential of all the Lavretskys was Fedor Ivanovich's paternal great-grandfather Andrei, a man who was harsh, insolent, shrewd, and crafty. Even up to the present day men have never ceased to talk about his despotic manners, his furious temper, his senseless prodigality, and his insatiable avarice. He was very tall and stout, his complexion was swarthy, and he wore no beard. He lisped, and he generally seemed half ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... planter, Hinkle, he had set her and children free in Indiana, not fostering the waning oppression. Her son, growing up, had the rashness to venture on the steamboat down to New Orleans. His position was as bad as that of an Americanized foreigner returning into a despotic land. He was arrested and held for sale, having crossed a Louisiana law framed for such intrusions: a free negro could be sold here as if never out of bond. There was little time to redeem him, and Lincoln—whose view of the institution had not been ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... imputed to a frivolous prince, who studied his art of poetry in the manner described by Tacitus, Annals, b. xiv. s. 16. And yet it may be a question, whether the satirist would have the hardiness to insert the very words of an imperial poet, armed with despotic power. A burlesque imitation would answer the purpose; and it may be inferred from another passage in the same poem, that Persius was content to ridicule the mode of versification then in ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... friends, several favourites, but no known mistress. The marks of the old bachelor fastened early on him, more especially after he began to be governed by his valet de chambre. The notable personage who ruled over the pliant Horace was a Swiss, named Colomb. This domestic tyrant was despotic; if Horace wanted a tree to be felled, Colomb opposed it, and the master yielded. Servants, in those days, were intrinsically the same as in ours, but they differed in manner. The old familiarity had not gone out, but existed as it still does among the French. Those ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... this great territory by brute force as did the Aztecs—although they knew how to use the sword if necessary—but by methods dictated by prudent and profound policy, productive of peaceful success. The mild government of the Incas was at once patriarchal, theocratic and despotic. Whatever it was, from the Incas' point of view ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the public rejoicings at Rome upon the retreat of the Volscian army;[3] but they were clouded soon after by the intrigues of Spu'rius Cas'sius, who, wanting to make himself despotic by means of the people, was found guilty of a number of crimes, all tending towards altering the constitution; and was thrown headlong from the Tarpei'an rock,[4] by those very people whose interests ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... when, as indeed often happened, she had nothing else to think about. Most of the provincial populations received her annual visits with enthusiasm. Among them she found herself more excitingly applauded before the curtain, her authority more despotic behind it, her expenses smaller, and her gains greater than in London, for which she accordingly cared as little as London cared for her. As she grew older she made more money and spent less. When she complained to Cashel of the cost of his education, she was rich. Since he had relieved her of ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the school, He bears despotic rule; His word, Though absurd, Must be law. Even Fate, Though so ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... should thank his stars that he did not commence his crusade in some quarters where Judge Lynch presides. Here the majesty of the law is too highly respected to tolerate the jurisdiction of this despotic dignitary." Darien Telegraph, Aug. 30, quoted in the Federal ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments, and any citizen may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... Lillie, by many of her descendants in adopting it. The descent of Patrick Jack is traceable to noble ancestors, one of whom was a ministerial sufferer in the reign of Charles II, in 1661. In that year, that despotic monarch, who, according to one of his own satirists, "Never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one," ejected from their benefices or livings, under Jeremy Taylor, thirteen ministers of the Presbytery ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... the general reader has acquired a taste that must be gratified; with the result that the elder romancers in prose and verse, including Scott and Byron, are falling out of fashion with the middle classes, though Scott holds his own in the sixpenny edition. The rule of Realism is becoming so despotic that the story of adventure is reverting more and more to that shape which lends itself most completely to life-like narrative, the shape of a Memoir. And it may be pointed out accordingly that in France the Editor of Memoirs has lately ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Anne, not one in the long list, covering nearly a century, exhibited gifts fitting him for the government of a spirited and intelligent people, or made the slightest impression for good either for the Crown or the Colony. Their disposition was to be despotic, and to prevent a repetition of such arbitrary conduct, Jay sought to restrict the governor's power in making appointments ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... political grievances. A republican spirit rose in the Protestant party, who read eagerly the various books and pamphlets declaring that a monarchy should not continue if it {109} proved incapable of maintaining order even by despotic powers. More and more a new idea gained ground that the sovereignty of France was not ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... not a chattering crowd. To avoid the possible chance of hereditary diseases or such things, we have abandoned hereditary monarchy. The King of England is chosen like a juryman upon an official rotation list. Beyond that the whole system is quietly despotic, and we have not found it ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... national councils. In another place was seen the short, thick-set form of the uncompromising Matthew Lyon, the Irish refugee, who was willing to be sold to pay his passage to America, for the sake of getting out of the despotic moral atmosphere of the old world, into one where his broad chest, as he was wont to say, could expand freely, and where his bold spirit could soar unclogged by the trammels of legitimacy. In his eagle eye, in every lineament ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... From a dimple-kneed, despotic, strenuous youngster, ruling the nursery with a small hand of iron, in half a year Drina had grown into a rather slim, long-legged, coolly active child; and though her hair had not been put up, her skirts had been lowered, and ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Gambetta during his proconsulate at Tours will remember with what a splendid energy he worked, how sincerely hopeful he was, and—this must not be forgotten—how uniformly generous and genial. Invested with despotic powers, he never once abused them to molest ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to that of the public prosperity. Under the despotic successors of Augustus, all the fields of intellect had been turned into arid wastes, still marked out by formal boundaries, still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The deluge of barbarism came. It ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the mind!— Cradled in truth, and 'mid distractions born To pure emprise on that despotic morn When freedom yearned along the westering wind, And tyranny, that hound among the blind, Bayed toward the deep where ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... hearts of all men." The British Constitution, he said, like the constitution of every free state, "is fixed," having its foundation not in positive law, which would indeed give Parliament an ultimate and therefore a despotic authority, but in "the law of God and nature." There were in the British Empire many legislatures, all deriving their authority from, and all finding their limitations in, the Constitution. Parliament had certainly a supreme or superintending legislative authority ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... banks of the Loire. Charles had, indeed, become a mere tool in the hands of this powerful minister. The historian Quicherat has summed up George de la Tremoille's character as an avaricious courtier, false and despotic, with sufficient talent to make a name and a fortune by being a traitor to every side. That such a man did not see Joan of Arc's arrival with a favourable eye is not a matter of surprise, and La Tremoille seems early to have done his utmost to undermine the Maid's influence ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... course, exercises the same authority over the Ainos as over its other subjects, but probably it does not care to interfere in domestic or tribal matters, and within this outside limit despotic authority is vested in the chiefs. The Ainos live in village communities, and each community has its own chief, who is its lord paramount. It appears to me that this chieftainship is but an expansion of the paternal relation, and that all the village families are ruled as a unit. Benri, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... human beings to enunciate it are the judges, or you may think that law is the voice of the Zeitgeist, or what you like. It is all one to my present purpose. Even if every decision required the sanction of an emperor with despotic power and a whimsical turn of mind, we should be interested none the less, still with a view to prediction, in discovering some order, some rational explanation, and some principle of growth for the ...
— The Path of the Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... painfully sow the seed that is to come up good in another. The historian, and still more the critical commentator on his own times, needs to be patient, calm, judicial, hopeful. Mr. Carlyle is impatient, fervid, willful, nay, despotic, and he is not hopeful, not hopeful enough. One healthily hopeful, and genuinely faithful, would not be ever betaking him to the past as a refuge from the present; would not tauntingly throw into the face of contemporaries an Abbot ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... disciple Neither honor, nor patriotism, nor generous superstition, could animate the lifeless bodies of slaves and strangers, who had succeeded to the honors of the legions: it was in the camp alone that the emperor should have exercised a despotic command; it was only in the camps that his authority was disobeyed and insulted: he appeased and inflamed with gold the licentiousness of the troops; but their vices were inherent, their victories were accidental, and their costly maintenance exhausted the substance of a state which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... my visit to the island was concluded, I found that a governorship of Heligoland was very far from being a tranquil retreat. The present Governor, it seems, had founded a new constitution, and was charged with having assumed despotic powers, and with having perpetrated various acts of inhumanity. Governor Wall himself appeared in the light of a philanthropist as compared with this military ogre, who, having acquired a taste for blood in the Crimean War, had been sent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... to be despotic and abusive. I withdrew and departed, ruminating on his advice. Singularly, I had not before thought of marrying. I resolved ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... delivered this message, the unfortunate grooms were filled with dismay—they feared their tyrannical little mistress almost as much as their despotic old master, who, in the next change of his capricious temper, might punch all their heads for crossing the will of his favorite, even though in doing so they had followed his directions. An immediate private consultation was the consequence, and the result ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... were gone. It had been robbed of its wealth. Its commerce remained, which in time would have restored its prosperity. But this too Ivan destroyed, not intentionally, but effectually. A burst of despotic anger completed the work of ruin. The tyrant, having been insulted by a Hanseatic city, ordered all the merchants of the Hansa then in Novgorod to be put in chains and their property confiscated. As a result, that confidence under which alone commerce can flourish vanished, the North ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of the extortions of governors and of the violence which is inseparable from despotic sway, the world had in many respects never been so well off. An administration coming from a remote center was so great an advantage, that even the rapacious praetors of the latter days of the republic had failed to render it unpopular. The ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... the union, the consistency, and the strength of the society, there should be a government not only monarchical, but so sovereign, so absolute, so despotic, that even the Provincials themselves should not have it in their power, by any act of theirs, to resist or retard the execution of the orders of the General. By this legislative, inviolable and despotic power; by the profound devotedness of the subjects ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... This is the deplorable alternative—the extirpation of the seceding member, or the never-ceasing struggle of two rival confederacies, ultimately bending the neck of both under the yoke of foreign domination, or the despotic sovereignty of a conqueror at home. May heaven avert the omen! The destinies, not only of our posterity, but of the human race, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... to the Heathens; and second, the strong conviction, I have that the conversion of a single province of Christendom to true practical Christianity would do more toward the conversion of Heathendom than an army of Missionaries. Romanism and despotic government in the larger part of Christendom, and the prevalence of Epicurean principles in the remainder;—these do indeed lie heavy on ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the irregular license of the soldiers; and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive some protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom, which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... bitterly of it. His consumption of eau-de-Cologne was doubled, he said, and he declared that it alone would prevent him from ever willingly taking up his abode in Russia, irrespective of his dislike to the despotic system of government under which it was placed. The travellers were ushered by a waiter into a room with a straight-backed, leather-covered sofa, chairs with wooden seats, and an old card-table; while the walls were ornamented with some coloured prints of battles between the Circassians ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... nature, that it is a general, if not a universal truth, that the aptitude of the people to mutinies, seditions, tumults, and insurrections, is in direct proportion to the despotism of the government. In governments completely despotic,—that is, where the will of one man is the only law, this disposition is most prevalent. In aristocracies next; in mixed monarchies, less than either of the former; in complete republics the least of all, and under the same form of governments as in a limited monarchy, for example, the virtue ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... right, the high prerogative of love, which he held as strongly as I did, seemed attacked in its liberty divine. For the moment, it was as if he too had in his middle-age gone over to the cold-blooded ranks of harsh parental prudence, despotic paternal rule; as if Ursula March's lover and Maud's father were two distinct beings. One finds it so, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... lieutenant-governor and he was able to act in a manner quite independent of the legislature. All the appointments to office were in his hands, and they were made in many cases even without the knowledge of his council. In England, even under the most despotic kings, parliament was always able to curb the power of the Crown by refusing to grant supplies; but this check did not exist in New Brunswick, or in the other colonies of British North America at that time, because the governor had sources of revenue quite independent of the ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... defeating them?—not with a view to taking Miss Bride's place, but for the pleasure of asserting herself against a plot, and reassuring her rightful position as arbitress of destinies. Lady Ogram was a kind old woman, but decidedly despotic, and she had gone too far. If indeed Lashmar were acting in helpless obedience to her, it would be the merest justice to make an attempt at rescuing him ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... suppose the passions already developed; of those laws which have reference to a language and a social order hereafter to be produced; of that God, whose attributes are abstractions of the knowledge of nature, and the idea of whose conduct is suggested by the experience of a despotic government; in fine, of that soul and those spiritual existences which are said not to be the object of the senses, but which, however, we must forever have remained unacquainted with, if our senses had not introduced them to us. Previously to arriving at these notions, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... in fact, is deep-rooted in the conditions of the past. Locke could not have written had not Hobbes and Filmer defended in set terms the ideal of despotic government. He announced the advent of the modern system of parliamentary government; and from his time the debate has been rather of the conditions under which it is to work, than of the foundations upon which it is based. Burke, for example, wrote what constitutes ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... first to protest against this illegal and violent system of government, as opposed to every principle made sacred by the Revolution, by judicial decisions, or by the oaths of sovereigns. He asserted that the movers and ministers of these despotic proceedings were liable, one and all, to the visitations of the most penal laws.[99] They had legislated without warrant, had detained free persons in bondage, levied illegal duties and imposed unconstitutional ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... divided into many small nations or tribes; and being a military people, whose sole property was their arms and their cattle, it was impossible, after they had acquired a relish for liberty, for their princes or chieftains to establish any despotic authority over them. Their governments, though monarchical [b], were free, as well as those of all the Celtic nations; and the common people seem even to have enjoyed more liberty among them [c] than among the nations of Gaul [d], from which they were descended. Each state was divided into factions ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... should be proud indeed were he built in your image, my brave young American. And when you go back to your splendid country tell them, will you not, wherever you go, that France sees her duty by the world, and will not flinch, no matter what the cost. When this war is over there will never be a despotic military power again. The victory on the Marne has settled all that, though it may take years for Germany to recognize ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... [v.03 p.0017] difficulties. The revolutionary movements had been suppressed, the attempt of Prussia to assume the leadership in Germany defeated, the old Federal Diet of 1815 had been restored. Vienna again became the centre of a despotic government the objects of which were to Germanize the Magyars and Slavs, to check all agitation for a constitution, and to suppress all attempts to secure a free press. For some ten years the Austrian dominion groaned under one of the worst possible ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State—i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course in the beginning this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production: by means of measures therefore which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which in the course of the movement outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... took the card gladly. That little act of thoughtfulness made her feel very happy, and believe that he had a kind heart in spite of his stern despotic manner. To continue in that belief, however, required faith on her part, which is the evidence of things not seen, for he did not go out of his way again to show her ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... obstacles to the removal of their causes lie in the false doctrines of Christian churches. When selfish men who were leaders in the churches desired to exercise their love of rule in spiritual and natural things and to exercise despotic power, when they desired to reduce other men to slavery and to hold them as slaves, or when they desired to gratify other perverted passions and sensual appetites, they all went to the Bible and strove ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... looked upon all other sects who opposed his particular dogmas as enemies to the true faith. A strict disciplinarian, he suffered nothing to interfere with his religious duties, and exercised a despotic sway in the church and in his family. He married, early in life, my father's only sister, and made her an excellent husband; and if a certain degree of fear mingled with her love, it originated in the deep reverence she ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... a king or noble and the weakness of a subject or tenant, and scarcely ever failed in his object. One of the most remarkable examples of this kind was his conduct toward the Count of Aquitaine. This nobleman, a man of immense strength of will no less than body, and violent and despotic beyond his fellows, having espoused the cause of one rival Pope against another, dismissed from their sees several excellent bishops in his territory who were adverse to his views, and supplied ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... the captain of the vessel and the centurion, at which Paul assisted, strikes us, with our modern notions of a captain's despotic power on his own deck, and single responsibility, as unnatural. But the centurion, as a military officer, was superior to the captain of an Alexandrian corn-ship, and Paul had already made his force of character so felt that it is not wonderful that he took part in the discussion. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... kitchens almost luxurious in the comfort and handiness of every arrangement, was the centre of Hepsy Ann's kingdom, where she reigned supreme, and waged sternest warfare against dirt and disorder. Hence her despotic sway extended over the pantry, an awful and fragrant sanctuary, whither she fled when household troubles, or a letter from Elkanah, demanded her entire seclusion from the outer world, and of whose interior the children got faint glimpses and sniffs only ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... had vainly endeavoured with obstinate Perseverance to force them into a Marriage with those whom they had ever abhorred; but with a Heroic Fortitude worthy to be related and admired, they had both, constantly refused to submit to such despotic Power. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the days of his life. It was, perhaps, the solitary strand of romance in his nature, the feudal feeling that the Mount Music tenants were his, as they had been his ancestors', to have and to hold, to rule, to arbitrate for, and to stand by, as a fond and despotic husband rules and stands by an obedient wife, loving her and bullying her (but both entirely for her good). He had, moreover, the desire to disparage and to disprove new ideas, that is a sign of a mind incapable ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... representative of the ancient Arian stock. Slight and supple in person, with quick, glancing eyes, delicate features, and a vivacious manner, he lacks the dignity and strength, the calm repose and simple grace of the race from which he is sprung, Fourteen centuries of subjection to despotic sway have left their stamp upon his countenance and his frame, which, though still retaining some traces of the original type, have been sadly weakened and lowered by so long a term of subservience. Probably ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... But, whatever might be the disposition of the Lords, the people had no wish to increase their power. The tendency of the Bill, as Steele observed in a letter to the Earl of Oxford, was to introduce an aristocracy: for a majority in the House of Lords, so limited, would have been despotic and irresistible. ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... carrying his gun, and a huge greyhound bounds along by his side. He holds despotic sway over twelve tribes; and should any neighboring people venture to make an incursion on his territory, Bou-Akas seldom condescends to march against them in person, but sends his negro into the principal village. This envoy just displays the gun of Bou-Akas, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... causing the arrest of every man found in the streets after 9 o'clock in the evening, and the law will then be equal in its operation. This legislating upon the behavior of one sex by the other exclusively, is one-sided and despotic. Give both sexes a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... parties to a deed, or stamina to a plant: and therefore I cannot call him a duplicate or triplicate collector. His best friends scold—his most respectable rivals censure—and a whole 'mob of gentlemen' who think to collect 'with ease,' threaten vengeance against—him, for this despotic spirit which he evinces; and which I fear nothing can stay or modify but an act of parliament that no gentleman shall purchase more than two copies of a work; one for his town, the other for ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... a view of favorably impressing those around him, he asks me first if I am an Englishman, and then if I am "a baron," doubtless thinking that an English baron is a person occupying a somewhat similar position in English society to that of a pasha in Turkish: viz., a really despotic sway over the people of his district; for, although there are law and lawyers in Turkey to-day, the pasha, especially in country districts, is still an all-powerful person, practically doing as ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... type of organisation, involving the growth of the warrior class and the treatment of labourers as existing solely to sustain the warriors; the complete subordination of individuals to the will of the despotic soldier-king, their property, liberty and life being at the service of the State; the regimentation of society not only for military but also for civil purposes; the suppression of all private associations, etc. This is the case in Dahomey and in Russia, and it was so at Sparta, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... Malay race, all the more striking. The change in their nature appears to be a natural consequence of the Spanish rule, for the same characteristics may be observed in the natives of Spanish America. The class distinctions and the despotic oppression prevalent under their former chiefs doubtless rendered the Filipinos of the past more like the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... little man to hold despotic sway over such a Paradise: a goblin in Fairyland. Somewhat below the middle height, he was lean of body and vulturine of face. He had a greedy mouth, a hooked nose, liquid green eyes and a sallow complexion. He was rarely seen without a half-smoked cigar ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... the Act entitled 'for placing the Lords,' Henry VIII. felt any doubt as to the possession, or scruple as to the exercise, of the prerogative of his progenitors, and still less that he had the remotest idea of divesting himself of an iota of his own. The despotic temper of the King, the subservient character of his Parliaments, and his habitual employment of them as the most obsequious instrument of his will, make it probable that he adopted this, merely as the easiest and most convenient ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... those stirring letters and papers incident to her defense, from which some extracts have been here presented. She was mistress of a faultless style. Her command over the resources of her language was despotic. She could give to French prose an Italian rhythmus. She had wit and imagination—a reasoning imagination. She was erudite. Probably no woman ever lived better entitled to a high position in literature. But ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered, and I believe further that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. I doubt, too, whether any other convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom you inevitably assemble ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... that she was under his care was most highly developed. His admiration of her was unqualified; he thought her more than remarkable in her blue bow and an old red stuff rose in her hat, and he submitted to a wilfulness which was quite as despotic as even Mrs. Holman's. When he had sat long enough and let her fill his hair with dust, she would order him to pull off her shoes and stockings. If he did it, he got a beating; if he did not do it, she screamed, and then he got ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... a complex maze, And Nature's laws are most despotic. Vice is not killed by kindly craze. Nor suffering quelled by zeal Quixotic. Big questions the Big Scheme beset. Bid Pity think, and do not ask it Too blindly all its eggs to get In one ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... under the cloak of studied politeness and false, hollow-hearted friendship, occasions enough have been given for them to break forth in sufficient intensity to establish beyond a question the fact of their existence. The apostles of despotic power have suffered no opportunity to escape of dealing a blow at our national existence: even the low and disreputable weapon of slander has been brought to bear against us, and we have been held up to mankind as a race of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the first bishop of the world, laden with gifts for the churches at Rome, but without the required consent of the emperor to give churches to the Arians. He perished in prison at Ravenna by the same despotic command. This was in May, 526, and in August the king himself died almost suddenly, fancying, it was said, that he saw on a fish which was brought to his table the head of a third victim, the illustrious Symmachus. What Catholics thought ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... the model Moslem Minister, the unfortunate Ja'afar. He is never described in the third person; but the simple dialogue always sets him off as a wise, conciliatory, benevolent, loveable and man-loving character, whose constant object is to temper the harshness and headstrong errors of a despotic master as the Caliph is represented to be by way of showing his kingliness. See vol. i., 102. [The MS. is certainly wrong here, but perhaps it can be righted a little. It has: "Kad yakun Z R H ahad fi Mal jazil wa harab al-Maz'un," etc., where Sir Richard reads ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... disciplinarian, they were left in possession of a comfortable independence, fully equal to their moderate wants. They had been governed with such an iron rule, and treated as such absolute automata from their childhood, that when the hand of death released them from the despotic sway, its effects still continued apparent in the constraint which habit had rendered second nature. They continued to reside in their native town, only removing to a smaller house, and pursued undeviatingly the routine they had always been accustomed to—a routine ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... he now the day lament When those who stemm'd despotic might O'erstrode the bounds of law and right, And through the land the torch of ruin sent? Or that great rival statesman as he stood Lion-faced and grim, Hath he sight of him, Strafford—the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... England and the Bulgar invasion of Bulgaria generally holds good. The Slavs were a people who tilled the soil, cherished free institutions, fought on foot, were gentle in character. The Bulgars were nomads and pastoralists, obeying despotic chiefs, fighting as cavalry. They came as conquerors, but in time were absorbed in the more stable ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... was now about to fall. Those glorious triumphs were now over when the people of Italy consoled themselves for defeat and submitted to the magical power of that liberty which preceded the Republican armies. Now, on the contrary, it was to free themselves from a despotic yoke that the nations of Europe had in their turn taken up arms and were preparing to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... That the enfranchised women of Wimbledon use their combined efforts for the liberation of their suffering sisterhood, who yet groan beneath the despotic cruelties of ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... condition of woman in that empire only as we bear in mind that its government is despotic, and that no constitutional safeguards shield the subjects of a thoroughly selfish and profligate nobility. The Nestorians, too, are marked out alike by religion and nationality as victims of oppression. However great their wrongs, they can hope for little redress, for a distant court shares ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... the vicissitudes of his great career, he had willingly been spared this last most miserable experience. On November 25, 1560, he gave up the ghost: he was a great seaman, but still more a passionate lover of his country;—despotic in his love, but not the less a ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... great in history and in story; great in the field and the forum; great in the old country and in the new. They had been a brave, fierce, cruel, and despotic race, equally feared and hated at home and abroad, equally loved and trusted as well; for never were such dangerous foes or such devoted friends as were these Berners; no one ever loved as these Berners loved, ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... uncontrolled authority, in which the jura summi imperii, or the rights of sovereignty, reside." "It is not true," Mr. Adams remarks, "that there must reside in all governments an absolute, uncontrolled, irresistible, and despotic power; nor is such a power absolutely essential to sovereignty. The direct converse of the proposition is true. Uncontrollable power exists in no government upon earth. The sternest despotisms, in every region and every age of the world, are and have ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... Edward to the manes of Theodosius and Justinian: we must not prefer the edict of the praetor, or the rescript of the Roman emperor, to our own immemorial customs, or the sanctions of an English parliament; unless we can also prefer the despotic monarchy of Rome and Byzantium, for whose meridians the former were calculated, to the free constitution of Britain, which the ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... uncle. Eldred, who was a groom, was attired with excessive horsiness. He refused to come further into the room than its threshold, where he stood at attention, austerely servile, and respectfully despotic. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... of common sense, And knowledge of the world, will soon evince That this a story is of time long pass'd; No husbands now such panic terrors cast; Nor weakly, with a vain despotic hand, Imperious, what's impossible, command: And be they discontented, or the fire Of wicked jealousy their hearts inspire, They softly sing; and of whatever hue Their beards may chance to be, or black, or blue, Grizeld, or russet, it is hard to say Which ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... French, after living under a monarchy for many centuries, set up a republic in 1792, the new government lasted only a few years. The nation was monarchical by habit and soon gladly accepted the rule of Napoleon, which was more despotic than that of any of its former kings. In reorganizing the state he borrowed much from the discarded monarchy, and the present French republic still retains ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... sergeants like Feeny—men who had served under St. George Cooke and Sumner and Harney on the wide frontier before the war, who had ridden with the starry guidons in many a wild, whirling charge under Sheridan and Merritt and Custer in the valley of Virginia—held almost despotic powers among the troopers who spent that enlistment in the isolation of Arizona. Rare were the cases when they abused their privilege. Stern was their rule, rude their speech, but by officers and men alike they were trusted ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... of government was despotic in its character, and feudal in its system. The country was governed by a powerful ruler with the title of mikado—"son of the sun"—who was supported in his despotism by tributary princes, or daimios. Of them the mikado demanded ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... when speech came to him, "is the most despotic tyrant on the face of the earth! He tells people what they are to do, and they simply go and do it. The next thing he will do is to tell you to adopt me as a son. Marry Edna! My sister! And I not know it! And she, just because ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... they hope for success against the arms of a whole nation supported by a despotic government. His friends talked sanguinely of aid from England, from Austria, and from Prussia; but he feared that that aid would come too late, after their houses were burnt, and their fields destroyed; after the best among them had fallen; after their ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... was simple: "Give me that which is best for me," for, said he, the gods know best what good things are—to pray for gold or silver or despotic power were no better than to make some particular throw at dice or stake in battle or any such thing the subject of prayer, of which the future ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... the estates. The duchess had obtained this mercy for her, and it was much; for Giacomo's scheme of revolt had been conceived with a subtlety of genius, and contrived on a scale sufficient to incense any despotic lord of such a glorious milch-cow as Lombardy. Unhappily the signora was more inspired by the remembrance of her husband than by consideration for her children. She received disaffected persons: she subscribed her money ostentatiously ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were committed for, those of Sulla against, his friends. Indeed, what Lysander did wrong was done chiefly on behalf of his friends, as, in order to establish them securely in their various despotic governments, he caused many of their political opponents to be put to death. Sulla, on the other hand, reduced the army of Pompeius and the fleet which he himself had given to Dolabella to command, merely to gratify his private spite. When ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... subservience was emphasized in every way. The law of lese-majeste (majestaetsbeleidigung), by which all criticism of the despotic head of the State or his actions is made a heinous criminal offence, to which severe penalties are attached, it is not too much to say is a law which brands the ruler who accepts it as a coward ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... Christians in name, but to exhibit also intelligence and good order, purity and loveliness, industry and enterprise; in a word, a deportment in all respects consistent with the religion of Jesus. But what is their state? The government is despotic, and the principles of its administration at variance with Scripture and reason. This takes away all motives to industry and thrift. Then again, the people are ignorant; have no mental discipline, no store of useful knowledge, but their minds are marked with ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... spread over an area as large as that of Europe, and with climates and interests as diverse as those of Spain and Scandinavia, England and Russia. You and your descendants have to ascertain whether this great mass will hold together under the forms of a republic, and the despotic reality of universal suffrage; whether state rights will hold out against centralisation, without separation; whether centralisation will get the better, without actual or disguised monarchy; whether shifting corruption is better than a permanent bureaucracy; and ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... ears so weary any day of my life as they were this day. I could not have endured the fatigue, if I had not been supported by the agreeable idea of my own power and consequence; a power seemingly next to despotic. This new stimulus sustained me for three days that I was kept a state-prisoner in my own castle, by the crowds who came to do me homage, and to claim my favour and protection. In vain every morning was my horse led about saddled and bridled: I never was permitted to mount. On the fourth ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... day, from hour to hour, is a mere wretched passion. In order to grow, love must not see its end; and she saw the end of ours, the setting of our sun of love. When I beheld you, I understood her words, which, until then, I had disputed with all my youth, with all the ardor of my desires, with the despotic sternness of twenty years. That grand and noble Camille mingled her tears with mine, and yet she firmly rejected the love she saw must end. Therefore I am free to love you here on earth and in the heaven above us, as we love God. If you loved me, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... their "extended affiliations as a great irresponsible authority, a monster power, which lays its hand upon every College Faculty in our country"; they were also fearful of the "debauchery, drunkenness, pugilism, and duelling, ... and the despotic power of disorder and ravagism, rife among their German prototypes." This report was signed by all the Faculty, though the opinion was not unanimous, nor had all the actions ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... States—mostly despotic States—have sometimes applied parts of this system of doctrine; but none have proclaimed it. The Roman conquerors of the world were not a scrupulous people, but even they stopped short of these principles; certainly they never set them up as an ideal; neither did those magnificent Teutonic ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... Mudge are no longer in charge of the Wrenville Poorhouse. After Aunt Lucy's departure, Mrs. Mudge became so morose and despotic, that her rule became intolerable. Loud complaints came to the ears of 'Squire Newcome, Chairman of the Overseers of the Poor. One fine morning he was compelled to ride over and give the interesting ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... he, "my strength would become sternness. Nature gave me a despotic disposition. I have had, and have still, many times the greatest difficulty to control it; but with God's help I shall succeed! My Elise, we will improve ever. On the children's account, in order to make them happy, we will endeavour ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... on the pillow, and two tears dropped helplessly down the furrows of her face. In that moment she felt the whole crushing misery of being weak, and sick, and old,—so old that you have outlived your claims to everything but the despotic care of charitable ladies, so old that you are a mere hurdy-gurdy, expected each time any one in search of edification chooses to turn your handle to quaver out tunes of immortality. It is a bad thing to be very old. Of all the bad things life forces upon us as ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... want of adaptation of his means to his ends Utter disproportions between the king's means and aims Uttering of my choler doth little ease my grief or help my case Valour on the one side and discretion on the other Waiting the pleasure of a capricious and despotic woman Walk up and down the earth and destroy his fellow-creatures War was the normal and natural condition of mankind War to compel the weakest to follow the religion of the strongest War was the normal condition of Christians Wasting time fruitlessly is sharpening ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... institutions for ages to come seems utterly vain. All the qualities which go to make a republican, in the true sense of the term, are wanting in the Irish nature; and, on the other hand, there is a superabundance of all the opposite qualities which go to make a loyal subject of a king,—not too despotic, but still a strong-handed, visible, audible, tangible ruler of men. Devotion to an idea, to a constitution, to a flag; respect for law as law; sturdy independence and self-reliance; regard for others' rights ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... can there be liberty where slavery exists—liberty, I mean, properly so called. He who holds slaves cannot, in the nature of things, be a republican; but, in the nature of things, he is on the other hand a despot. I am one. And a nation of such individuals is an association of despots for despotic purposes, and nothing else nor better. Liberty in their mouths is a profanation of the sacred name. It signifies nothing but their liberty to reign. I confess, it is to those who happen to be the kings a very agreeable state of things. I enjoy my power and state mightily. ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... his travels, returned to Athens to find it in turmoil. Pisistratus, a political adventurer and a favorite with the people, had gained despotic power by a cunning trick. He wounded himself, and declared that he had been attacked and wounded by his political enemies. He asked, therefore, for a body-guard for his protection. This was granted him by the popular assembly, which was strongly on his side. With its aid he seized the Acropolis ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... country, and, elated by success, confidently announced their leadership of a new movement, the Volunteers of America, which is still in existence. While the other element, that of the expansion of the idea, showed itself at this time in a revolt against the narrow, despotic methods of General William Booth, the main element in this division was that of personality. Taking up the second bond of union, that of the central, controlling idea and purpose, we find the whole movement at the present ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb
... the two races were most widely contrasted. The Gauls were a priest-ridden race. Their Druids were a dominant caste, presiding even over civil affairs, while in religious matters their authority was despotic. What were the principles of their wild Theology will never be thoroughly ascertained, but we know too much of its sanguinary rites. The imagination shudders to penetrate those shaggy forests, ringing with the death-shrieks of ten thousand human victims, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Nanolo who adopted you. And I never for a moment dreamt that the stupid servants whom Bodoeri sent to take possession of the villa, which he had bought of me, would turn you out of the house. You infatuated youth! Do you hesitate to take up arms against a despotic caste whose cruelty robbed you of a father? Ay! go down to the quadrangle of the Fontego, and the stains which you will there see on the stone pavements are the stains of your father's blood. The Seignory when making over to the German merchants the depot and exchange ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Heaven. He was a father to his subjects, whom Heaven entrusted to his care. In a sense not usually assigned to the term, Bushido accepted and corroborated paternal government—paternal also as opposed to the less interested avuncular government (Uncle Sam's, to wit!). The difference between a despotic and a paternal government lies in this, that in the one the people obey reluctantly, while in the other they do so with "that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of heart which kept alive, even in servitude ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... character of Free States, and makes them voluntary participators in the guilt of slaveholding. Because it is a law Which disgraces our country in the eyes of the whole civilized world, and gives plausible occasion to the votaries of despotic power to decry republican institutions. Because it is a law which forbids us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and which makes it a crime to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to visit and succor the ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... revolution in consequence of which the monarchy was rehabilitated and a governmental system which long had been notoriously disjointed and inefficient was replaced by a system which, if despotic, was at least much superior to that which theretofore had been in operation. The nobles, discredited by the calamities which their misrule had brought upon the nation, were compelled to give way, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... did not venture to make the attempt. At last, however, he cunningly, accidentally as it were, touched the countess' gloved hand with his own, but she drew her arm away with a movement which was so expressive of disgust that he remained thoughtful, in spite of his usual authoritative and despotic ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... justice and of the Church she was a queen, although she was never allowed to reign.... There was about her the brilliancy of courts and palaces, the enchantment of a love-story, the suffering of a victim of despotic power."—Eugene D['i]dier, Life and Letters ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the Greek states, and in those years Greece had reached the meridian of her glory. But Sparta was jealous of the dazzling splendor of her rival; and she hated this new democracy which was spreading through all the states. She believed in the good old idea of one despotic king, and a people cowed into submission by ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 25, April 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... ever been in diplomatic life,—an event highly probable,—he becomes the most intolerable nuisance that ever belied the noblest sentiments of civilized society or blocked the wheels of public debate. Flattered by the interested attention of despotic courts, his poor weak head has been completely turned. He has seen everything en couleur de rose. He assures their lordships that he has never known a single well-authenticated case of oppression of the lower classes, while it is within his personal knowledge that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of Port Royal was no hard-hearted, despotic woman, delighting to display her power and to 'make scenes.' She was an affectionate girl, easily touched and very grateful, and in her generosity had striven to forget her father's double dealing in the matter of her vows. That the coming interview would be a cause of much ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... force either is favored by position, or can incline decisively, to one side or the other, the scales in a doubtful balance. To such misapprehensions we owed, in the early part of this century, the impressment of hundreds of American seamen, and the despotic control of our commerce by foreign governments; to this, the blockading of our coasts, the harrying of the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the burning of Washington, and a host of less remembered attendant evils. All ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... but a part of that great race spirit which the Conqueror could not conquer; the lingering spirit of freedom which the iron heel of despotic usurpation could not stamp out, the memory of a lost freedom ranking in the hearts of men determined to restore in their island home those ancient rights which no man dared to question in the days of the Saxon, Edward ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... jealous of his power. They said that he himself grew imperious and domineering in spirit, as he grew older, and manifested a pride and haughtiness of demeanor which excited their ill-will. He assumed too much authority, they said, in the management of public affairs, as if he were an absolute and despotic sovereign. He wore a purple robe on public occasions, as a badge of royalty. He organized a body-guard of three hundred young troopers, who rode before him whenever he moved about the city; and in all respects assumed such pomp and parade in his demeanor, and exercised such a degree of arbitrary ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Susan? Come in. Will you do your fat friend a favor?" Ella, home again, had at once resumed her despotic control of the household. She was lying on a couch at this moment, lazily waving a scribbled half sheet ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... approbation by robust manly exertion of talents; too far advanced to win over the judgment by tenderness; or by a manifest disproportion between his age and his efforts, to excite that astonishment which, however shortlived, is, while it lasts, despotic over the understanding. Labouring, therefore, under most of the disadvantages without any of the advantages of puerility, candor and common sense pronounced at once that much less of the estimation in which he was ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... forces in society, which had been brought into permanent existence by the success of republicanism in France. In spite of this nominal espousal of the liberal cause, Maria was continually trying to avoid popular concessions and to retain unimpaired the despotic power of the monarchy, but she was soon forced to see that, in appearance at least, she must pretend to advance the popular cause and give her subjects more extended privileges. Accordingly, she issued a decree in 1834 establishing a new constitution and creating ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... contemplate the structure of the universe that God had made. But the fact is too well established to be denied. The event that served more than any other to break the first link in the long chain of despotic ignorance is that known by the name of the Reformation by Luther. From that time, though it does not appear to have made part of the intention of Luther, or of these who are called Reformers, the sciences began to revive, and liberality, their ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... discover Charlemagne enforcing Christianity among the Saxons by sword and fire, hoping that it would, among other things, "induce them to submit more tamely to the government of the Franks" (Ibid, p. 170). And we see missionaries among the savages usurping "a despotic dominion over their obsequious proselytes" (Ibid, p. 157); and "St. Boniface," the "apostle of Germany," often employing "violence and terror, and sometimes artifice and fraud, in order to multiply the number of Christians" (Ibid, p. 169). Thus do "villains" ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the royal robes, which event could hardly have raised him in the estimation of the gentlemen eunuchs of the bed-chamber. Those who unwound the mummy of Pharaoh tell us that he had the appearance of a self-willed, despotic, but intelligent, old gentleman; but the above rabbinical relation, from Baring-Gould's "Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets," seems to have had no convincing effect on Pharaoh; so we must not be surprised ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Protestantism to mould society and the state by the authority of a supernatural religion. The Puritan creed for which he stands is a mixture of Hebraic and Calvinistic elements; the Puritan temper is at its best heroic and austere, made despotic by its confidence of divine authority, and by its supernaturalism made indifferent to the new science and to the various elements of human nature on which statesmanship must build. Its political sway is brief, its effects on English ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... tyranny. Before him four centuries had been swallowed up in debate on the fruitless question of Nominalism, and others equally insignificant, but were visible to him by the light of a logic so shallow, futile, and despotic, that it was known only to be scorned. With an energy that astonished the feeble and degraded clergy of his time, a fearlessness that exacted the admiration while it aroused the indignation of his contemporaries, and a genius that compelled ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to the Eastern nations. Revolutions bring a change of masters, but leave character and customs unchanged. The sense of individuality has been less vivid, and freedom less understood or valued. Governments have taken the despotic form. Law has had its seat in the ruler's sovereign will. The ruler has been regarded as clothed with divine authority. Before him the subject prostrates ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of it as mature consideration as I am able. Two neighboring and free governments, with laws equally mild and just, would find no difficulty in forming a convention for the interchange of fugitive criminals. Nor would two neighboring despotic governments, with laws of equal severity. The latter wish that no door should be opened to their subjects flying from the oppression of their laws. The fact is, that most of the governments on the continent of Europe have such conventions; but England, the only free one till lately, has never ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... powerful states, some of whom afford her daily proofs of their envy of her greatness and their hatred of her power; and only want the ability, not the will, to annihilate both. Those states are, for the most part, ruled by absolute or despotic governments, who can call fleets and armies into action without losing a moment in debating the justice or injustice, policy or impolicy, of their movements. With such neighbours as these, would the Messenger of ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... brute force. He dreaded lest there should be one sound that should reach her in that tent where the triad of standards drooped in the dusky distance. He had been, moreover, too long beneath the yoke of that despotic and irresponsible authority to waste breath or to waste dignity in vain contest with the absolute and the immutable. He was content with what he had done—content to have met once, not as soldier to chief, but as man to man, the tyrant who held ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... of many hundreds of thousands of manuscripts was no trifling task, even for a despotic caliph. A few escaped their doom; how, we do not know. Perhaps some officer annexed for himself some manuscript that struck him as specially beautiful; or perhaps some stoker at some bath rejected one as slow of ignition. At all events a few—probably ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... counted a way of being strong, though it should rather be counted a way of being sly. By this time the Parliament does not parley any more than the Speaker speaks. Even the newspaper editors and proprietors are more despotic and dangerous by what they do not utter than by what they do. We have all heard the expression "golden silence." The expression "brazen silence" is the only adequate phrase for our editors. If we wake out of this throttled, gaping, and wordless nightmare, we must awake with a ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... such an immense variety of extremely interesting societies standing at all intermediate stages from the early village community to the despotic barbarian monarchies that I must abandon the idea of giving here even the chief results of a comparative study of their institutions.(38) Suffice it to say, that, even under the most horrid despotism of kings, the folkmotes of the village communities and their customary law remain ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... the theatres to ten in number. The subaltern houses were incessantly checked in their career by the privileges granted to the Comedie Francaise, which company alone enjoyed the right to play first-rate productions: it also possessed that of censorship, and sometimes exercised it in the most despotic manner. Authors, ever in dispute with the comedians, who dictated the law to them, solicited, but in vain, the opening of a second French theatre. The revolution took place, and the unlimited number of theatres was presently decreed. A great many new ones ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Sydney Smith, was a dinner at Mr. Rogers's, to which I had been asked to meet Lord and Lady Holland, by special desire, as I was afterwards informed, of the latter, who, during dinner, drank out of her neighbor's (Sydney Smith's) glass, and otherwise behaved herself with the fantastic, despotic impropriety in which she frequently indulged, and which might have been tolerated in a spoilt beauty of eighteen, but was hardly becoming in a woman of her age and "personal appearance." When first I came out on the stage, my father and mother, who occasionally went to Holland House, received ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble |
