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Oppressed   /əprˈɛst/   Listen
Oppressed

adjective
1.
Burdened psychologically or mentally.  Synonym: laden.  "Oppressed by a sense of failure"



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"Oppressed" Quotes from Famous Books



... blood, but his sympathies were ever with the people. The lowly, the weak, the oppressed, the persecuted—these were ever the objects of his solicitude—these were first in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... is oppressed with grief,[46] and on this account the poor thing is anxious, because some time ago the marriage was arranged for this day. Then, too, she fears this, that ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... millions in number in the Castilian kingdoms alone, had united in a society which made a formal offer to the king to pay him two thousand dollars a head if the name and privileges of hidalgo could be conferred upon them. Thus an inconsiderable number of this vilest and most abject of the population—oppressed by taxation which was levied exclusively upon the low, and from which not only the great nobles but mechanics and other hidalgos were, exempt—had been able to earn and to lay by enough to offer the monarch fifty millions of dollars to purchase ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of an oppressed and a noble nation, which has partaken of the proscription and bondage of the Jews and of the Greeks, without the sullenness of the former or the servility of the latter. This people has attained ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... with uncovered, handsome faces. Here and there is seen a Maltese or Portuguese sailor, hiding on account of some crime by which he has outraged the laws on the opposite continent. The Jews, though numerous, are hated and oppressed, being the descendants of those exiled from Europe in the Middle Ages. The variety of races which one meets in these contracted passage-ways is curious, represented by faces yellow, bronze, white, and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... world of cities, who had regarded him as they might have viewed some rare and little-known creature in a menagerie, and the brazen presence of those unclean parasites and harpies that prey always upon such occasions had oppressed and disgusted him until he was glad to escape again to the clean freedom, the pure vitality and the unspoiled spirit of his everyday life and environment. In an overflow of sheer physical and spiritual energy he lifted his horse into a run and with a shrill cowboy yell challenged ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... corner of the little room the straight outline of the long deal box could only faintly be perceived in the gloom. Richard Lambert, silent and oppressed, stood close beside it, his face in shadow, his eyes fixed with a sense of inexplicable premonition on the face of ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... book-learning—the confusion of instruction and education. We strain the memory instead of cultivating the mind. The children are wearied by the mechanical act of writing and the interminable intricacies of spelling; they are oppressed by columns of dates, by lists of kings and places, which convey no definite idea to their minds, and have no near relation to their daily wants and occupations. We ought to follow exactly the opposite course, and endeavour to cultivate their taste rather than fill their ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... seriousness of demeanour is noticeable on the generally unfurrowed brows of student friends. Midyears are on and one sees them walking, freighted with precious and perishable erudition, toward the halls of trial. They seem a little oppressed with care, too preoccupied to relish the entrancing pallor of this crystallized Eden. One carries, gravely, a cushion and an alarm clock. Not such a bad theory of life, perhaps—to carry in the crises of existence a cushion of philosophy and ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... frail enchantress of the packet. She, on her part, saw and recognized us by an affable nod; no stain upon her cheek, indicating that she suspected to what extent she was indebted to our discretion; for it is a proof of the unaffected sorrow and the solemn awe which oppressed us both, that we had not mentioned even to Lord Altamont, nor ever did mention, the scene which chance had revealed to us. Next came a stir within the house, and an uproar resounding from without, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... none too much time for preparation. The work of shortening sail proceeded rapidly but methodically and in an orderly manner—Captain Staunton had never before in all his experience witnessed anything quite like what was now passing around him, and was oppressed by an undefined foreboding of some terrible catastrophe; but he was too brave a man and too thorough a seaman to allow aught of this to appear in either countenance, voice, or manner; nor would he ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... he always had a welcome. Oppressed by their daughter's depression of spirits, they hailed the coming of any visitor as a change for her as well as for themselves. The former intimacy with the Corneys was in abeyance for all parties, owing to Bessy Corney's out-spoken grief for the loss of her cousin, as if she had ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell

... his mind—quieting the tumult, clearing the confusion within him—the house at Thorpe Ambrose, with Allan on the steps, waiting, looking for him, opened on his eyes through the trees. A sense of illimitable relief lifted his eager spirit high above the cares, and doubts, and fears that had oppressed it so long, and showed him once more the better and brighter future of his early dreams. His eyes filled with tears, and he pressed the rector's letter, in his wild, passionate way, to his lips, as he looked at Allan through the vista of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... acutely conscious of the nearness of the crippled clock than when it had volubly told out the minutes. The next morning she woke from a troubled dream of having carried it to Mr. Ramy's, and found that he and his shop had vanished; and all through the day's occupations the memory of this dream oppressed her. ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton

... this parting was more felt than that with all the other eleven, and while Fulbert subsided into his corner, the elder brother felt much oppressed by the sense that it was his duty to give some good advice, together with great perplexity what it should be, how it should be expressed, and whether it would be endured. He would have been thankful ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Lincoln passed back through the Senate Chamber, and, again escorted by Mr. Buchanan, was conducted to the White House, where the cares and anxieties of his position immediately descended upon him. "Strange indeed," says General Logan, "must have been the thoughts that crowded through the brain and oppressed the heart of Abraham Lincoln that night—his first at the White House. The City of Washington swarmed with rebels and rebel sympathizers, and all the departments of Government were honeycombed with treason and shadowed with treachery and espionage. Every step proposed or contemplated ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... end of the eighteenth century, was bitterly oppressed, not so much by the Turkish Government, as by the Jannisaries, the insolent and all powerful military organization which had broken loose from restraint and was now a danger to the Turkish Empire. The Jannisaries actually elected their own chiefs and were semi-independent. And ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... more terrible. He didn't know, as the days advanced, how he would be able to bear that place without Cards. There would be no life, no interest, and all the disorganisation, the immorality, the cruelty would oppress him as they had never oppressed him before. Besides next year he would be a person of some importance—he would probably be Captain of the Football and a Monitor...everything would be terribly hard. Of course there was old Bobby ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... of the unmerciful servant[6] Jesus taught the duty of forgiveness. He rightly rebuked the servant who oppressed his subordinates after being well treated by his lord. But the punishment suggested by Jesus for the abominable conduct was extremely harsh: "And his lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors, till he ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... I was oppressed by a heavy sadness. Life was a futile thing at best. A short two years and this magnificent creature, at the summit of her magnificent success, was one of the leper squad awaiting deportation to Molokai. Henley's lines ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London

... upon them, beside want of charity towards the poor, and certain other points which the prophet shutteth up in silence. Certes the commonwealth cannot be said to nourish where these abuses reign, but is rather oppressed by unreasonable exactions made upon rich farmers, and of poor tenants, wherewith to maintain the same. Neither was it ever merrier with England than when an Englishman was known abroad by his own cloth, and contented himself at ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... arrived, I heaved a sigh of relief. I cannot say that I was bored, my ill-temper sprang from a deeper source than this. The mysterious disappearance of the inmates of Cray's Folly, and a sort of brooding stillness which lay over the great house, had utterly oppressed me. ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... practically been confided for many years, he could thoroughly trust. But Ibrahim, who would probably have succeeded to the Caliphate, was known to hate the Grand Vizier, and would not only put him to death, but might also, not improbably, have taken measures to rid himself of Zobeideh and her son. Oppressed by these gloomy thoughts the Caliph sat for ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... this Bismarck thought he had succeeded by means of interviews which he held with Napoleon III. at Biarritz (Nov. 1865). What there occurred is not clearly known. That Bismarck played on the Emperor's foible for oppressed nationalities, in the case of Italy, is fairly certain; that he fed him with hopes of gaining Belgium, or a slice of German land, is highly probable, and none the less so because he later on indignantly denied ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... of the chosen race Shall carry and bring them to their place: In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame, When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er The oppressor triumph ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... all the labours of Hercules not all the Hebrews' three centuries of Egyptian bondage, were such an insuperable business, such an infernal task! Poverty, thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of hell! where shall I find force or execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits? Oppressed by thee, the venerable ancient, grown hoary in the practice of every virtue, laden with years and wretchedness, implores a little, little aid to support his existence, from a stony-hearted son of Mammon, whose sun of prosperity never knew a cloud; and is by him denied and insulted. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... night we girls sat on the wood just in front of the furnace—rather Miriam and Anna did, while I sat in their laps—and with some twenty of all ages crowded around, we sang away to their great amusement. Poor oppressed devils! Why did you not chunk us with the burning logs instead of looking happy, and laughing like fools? Really, some good old Abolitionist is needed here, to tell them how miserable they are. Can't Mass' Abe spare a few to ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... reduced the principle, "Put not thy trust in any child of man," to its very lowest and worst. He regards himself as simply born to be robbed and oppressed. Yet is he so mild and uncomplaining and unassuming about it all that no one, even the most persistent robber and oppressor, could ever find it in his heart to do him down. But even so his pessimism and readiness to be done are such that he must make it very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various

... old cry was raised, the hideous mediaeval charge revived, and the standard of persecution unfurled against the Jews. Province after province took it up. In Bulgaria, Servia, and, above all, Roumania, where, we were told, the sword of the Czar had been drawn to protect the oppressed, Christian atrocities took the place of Moslem atrocities, and history turned a page backward into the dark annals of violence and crime. And not alone in despotic Russia, but in Germany, the seat ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... to shake off the feeling of uneasiness that oppressed him; and it was with a heavy heart at the absence of his friend that he found himself bidding the chauffeur good-by, when Captain Derevaux roused him from his reverie and announced that it was time for them to be ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes

... the fellow bowing in the doorway. A flexibility that seemed entirely without bones. His eyes were jet slits, his lips shaven and mobile; a wig was repulsively saturated with scented grease. Yet it was not in actual details that he oppressed Howat; but by the vague suggestion of debasing commendations, of surreptitious understanding, insinuations. He seemed, absurdly, unreal, a symbol the intent of which Howat missed; he suppressed an insane movement ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... the fair title of erection. And, for his true use of translating men, It still hath been a work of as much palm, In clearest judgments, as to invent or make, His sharpness,—-that is most excusable; As being forced out of a suffering virtue, Oppressed with the license of the time:—- And howsoever fools or jerking pedants, Players, or suchlike buffoon barking wits, May with their beggarly and barren trash Tickle base vulgar ears, in their despite; This, like Jove's thunder, shall their pride control, "The honest ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... that the lieutenant went to New Constantinople and received the heartiest welcome from every one there. And yet among these citizens were two that had lately become partners and sharers of the same cabin, and who were oppressed ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... whole effects sold for 96,000 pesos; so that the crown was paid, and the treasurer had a very pretty fortune with which to begin the world a-new. Such were the arts and intrigues of those men by whom the admiral Columbus was oppressed, and such the dirty contrivances by which they supported each other. Yet these things were done under the administration of King Ferdinand, who was esteemed one of the wisest monarchs of his time; and matters were even worse conducted under the emperor Charles V. though certainly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... "Cotton" went; oppressed, My "Taylor" too must fail; To save my "Goldsmith" from arrest, In ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... undertones, and carried the day. "The case is clear. The young man's taught himself tongues, and has poetry. He's been taught other things, too, and has got some of them wrongly. One thing he ought to learn is that to relieve your feelings is not the way to help the oppressed. He's set himself up for a champion, and tongues have got to work. I should give him three months." Mr. Bazalguet looked at the Clerk, who said it was a bad case. Mr. Ingram was a magistrate and—the maximum was two years. The third magistrate ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... description come here, because it is at the top of the Scala Santa up which they go upon their knees, and there is plenty of room for pilgrims, as the chapel extends the whole width of the staircase. Those who are oppressed with travail, or fevers, or lawsuits, or unjust persecutions of any description, are comforted on being commended to this Christ." "Vi sono qui," says Torrotti, "pascoli deliziosi per i curiosi e ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... this was the second time she had broken a serious engagement with him. In anger he vowed it should be the last, and at eleven o'clock, when he had lingered and watched the stone of the bridge till he knew every lichen upon their face and heard the chink of the ripples underneath till they oppressed him, he jumped from his seat, went to the inn for his gig, and in a bitter mood of indifference concerning the past, and recklessness about the future, drove on to ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... to their entering the army. They knew, of course, that he had not contemplated their doing so for some little time; but as so excellent an opportunity had offered, and above all, as they were going out to fight against the Spaniards for the oppressed people of the Low Countries, they hoped their parents would approve of the steps they had taken, not having had time ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty

... used to oppression—that is, he either oppresses or is oppressed—and he is dully callous to death. So the villages were not much surprised at Kettle's descents upon them, and usually surrendered to him passively on the mere prestige of his name. They were pleasantly disappointed that he omitted the usual massacre, and in gratitude were eager to accept ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... oppressed by the feeling of being out of it all. He was a social being, and he liked fun, even if it were of a more wholesome and dignified brand than that to which his brother was addicted. He could not understand why in the past the young people had voted his house a bore ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... Geoffrey's consent. Even then she would have done her best to miss the opportunity; but Fred heard the first sounds, and she was obliged to fetch Mr. Franklin. The conference was not long, and she found no reason to regret that it had taken place; for Fred did not seem so much oppressed and weighted down when she again returned ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... things of to-day? Why teach us to revere the saints of old, and not our own family-worshippers? Why to admire the lance-armed knight, and not the patience-armed hero of misfortune? Why to draw a sword we do not wear to aid and oppressed damsel, and not a purse which we do wear to rescue an erring one? Why to worship a martyred St. Agatha, and not a sick woman attending the sick? Why teach us to honor an Aristides or a Regulus, and not one who pays an equitable, though to him ruinous, tax without a railing accusation? And why ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... and his Quaker ancestry were most helpful factors in his career. Only a working-man who had tasted hardship could sympathize with the overtaxed and oppressed. And Quakerdom made him a rebel by prenatal tendency. Paine's schooling was slight, but his parents, though poor, were thinking people, for nothing sharpens the wits of men, preventing fatty degeneration of the cerebrum, like persecution. In this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... not always worked out just so. There have been the tragic mischances. But in the main, an oppressed people learn how to outsmile or outsnarl the oppressor. The Eighteenth Amendment may yet live to wish it was dead. Mr. Volstead seems to have believed that the nonsenseorship game was new and exciting, and could be trusted ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... out of spirits, and came to the library for some relief from those vaguely painful thoughts that had oppressed her lately. The room was so little affected by my lady's butterfly guests that she made sure of having it all to herself this afternoon, when the voices and laughter of the croquet-players, floating in at the open windows, told her that the sport ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... eyes. To this may be attributed the clear heads of the ancient philosophers, who, unlike most students of the present day, exercised their bodies and limbs as well as their minds. Their works are not the production of congested brains, for these were not oppressed with blood belonging to other parts of the body. They studied and thought, and exercised both body and mind in the open air, and thus observed the laws of health. But among the multitudes of close students of the present day, who complain ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... when thousands of thy son are (daily) oppressed, why dost thou grieve for one under infliction?" Suravi replied. "Although I have a thousand offspring, yet my affections flow equally towards all! But, O Sakra, I feel greater compassion for one ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... window,—the breath of the cinnamon rose, of growing, grass and good brown earth. Mrs. Pettis pondered, looking vacantly before her, and Old Lady Lamson knit hastily on. Her needles clicked together, and she turned her work with a jerk in beginning a row. But neither was oppressed by lack of speech. They understood each other, and no more thought of "making talk" than of pulling up a seed to learn whether it had germinated. It was Mrs. Pettis who, after, a natural interval; ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... mind all civil prisoners, for these, almost without exception, are innocent victims of the war; both those who since the beginning of the war have been interned, and those others in the occupied territories who have been isolated, oppressed or imprisoned, many of them in poor health, women, children, old men, who are not allowed to join their families in a neutral land. Our deep compassion and brotherly sympathy are especially moved on behalf of non-combatants who have ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton

... firm, unshaken rock On which we rest; And, rising from thy hardy stock, Thy sons the tyrant's power shall mock, And slavery's galling chains unlock, And free the oppressed; All who the wreath of freedom twine Beneath the shadow ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill

... time quite yellow in the face, and felt more inclined to go to bed than to sing; but he braced himself up, resolved to struggle manfully against the demon that oppressed him. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... Nay, be not anxious; we are quite prepared. Sheathed though our claws may be, they're always sharp. Pray drink again, nor fear the potent touch That snatches back the life when the spent heart, Oppressed by cruel tasks, as yours, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... was finished in March 1875. He seems to have been more than usually oppressed by the writing of this book, thus he wrote to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... Tristan went back to the post of duty oppressed with a great responsibility. The servant was stationed at the door to prevent any ringing of the bell, and as the guests came in one by one, they were warned in whispers not to rouse the sleeping lion. Very soon Mrs. Gottom's drawing-room presented a striking ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... castle against our united assault, pelting us with fir-cones and sods of earth. This and many a bygone scene thronged on me as I stood there, and the room filled again with the memories of childish mirth. And following close came those of childish terrors. Horrors which had oppressed me then, wholly imagined or dimly apprehended from half- heard traditions, and never thought of since, flitted around me in the gathering dusk. And with them it seemed to me as if there came other memories too,—memories which had never been my ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... had nine hundred iron chariots, cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. Then the prophetess Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, delivered Israel. She used to sit under the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the highlands of Ephraim; and the Israelites went to ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman

... circumstances and position, he hardly permitted her to feel either, doing everything for her ease and pleasure and quietly managing at the same time to keep back his mother's more forward and less happily adapted tokens of kind feeling. Though she knew he was constantly occupied with her Fleda could not feel oppressed; his kindness was as pervading and as unobtrusive as the summer air itself; she felt as if she was in somebody's hands that knew her wants before she did, and quietly supplied or prevented them, in a way she could not tell how. It was very rarely that she even got a chance ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... had been sent to do at that table;—all that and everything beside seemed to make its passage through Faith's mind in tumultuous procession. She sat down on the couch and leaned her head on the back of it; but only a few nervous tears came, and oppressed sobbing breaths took the place of them. For a little while then Faith fell on her knees, and if she could not speak connectedly, nor think connectedly, she yet poured out her heart in the only safe channel; and grew quiet and self-possessed. After an hour she left the couch and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... Ghetto, but by order of Napoleon, his soldiers were never severe upon the Jews. The Jews had little or nothing to do with politics, and Napoleon, with his usual nonchalance, said, "They have suffered enough!" Napoleon called himself "The Protector of the Oppressed," and tried occasionally to live ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... a town in Cappadocia, was born that great soldier and champion of the oppressed whom we call St. George. His parents were Christians, and by them, and especially by his mother, he was most ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... be presumed that, in common with all Irishmen of the lower order, he conceived that he was to a certain degree injured and oppressed by the operation of the existing laws, nevertheless had always thought it the wiser course to be with the laws, bad as they might be, than against them. When, therefore, he learnt that the brothers of the men whom Ussher had put into prison were to be of the party, and ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... illustration of the reputation of Metlakahtla, as a refuge for the suffering and oppressed, occurs in a letter of Mr. Duncan's, dated ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock

... toothache, neither of them very deadly ailments, create pain out of all proportion to their gravity. And if we take the case of excessive cold we have here an instance where instead of pain acting as a warning, the danger just acts as an anaesthetic. The victim is oppressed by drowsiness, sinks into insensibility, finally death. Here it is not the approach of death that is painful, but the return to life, the pain of restoring ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... "but I am sure the counsel that has been given you is right, and that it is far better for you to be in the company of French gentlemen. I have come over here solely to do what little I can to aid my mother's relations, and those oppressed for their faith; and though I am flattered by your wish that I should be near you, I would rather be taking an active share in the work that has to ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... blood, and he only touched his cap without further salutation, and cried out to the workmen not to waste the sword on the murderous son of Kalev, who could slay his best friends in his rage. The Kalevide tried to cry out that it was false, but the son of the old Tuehja[63] oppressed him with a nightmare, and he could not utter a word; he felt as if a mountain lay upon his breast, and the ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... circumstance I have just related. "And my brother," said the King, "did he know of this?"— "No, Sire, not one of us was stupid enough to tell him; he has no secrecy, he would have betrayed us." On hearing this answer the King uttered a great "ah!" like a man oppressed, who suddenly breathes again. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... instant that rebellion stirred in me. Her coming had turned me cold, for all that my body was overheated from the exercise and I was sweating furiously. Now, at the sound of her voice, something of the injustice that oppressed me, something of the unreasoning bigotry that chained and fettered me, stood clear before my mental vision for the first time. It warmed me again with the warmth of sullen indignation. I returned her no answer beyond a curtly respectful invitation that she should speak ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Again, the description in the seventh verse, "he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth," quadrates with no part of the Jewish history with which we are acquainted. The mention of the "grave" and the "tomb," ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke. ... To deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house; when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... standing, side by side, and bending over the bed on which little Ella lay. Wilkinson had drawn his arm around his wife, and she had laid her head upon his shoulder. Each heard the beating of the other's heart, as thus they stood, silent, yet with troubled thoughts and oppressed feelings. ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur

... which were to form the series entitled "L'Histoire des Parents Pauvres." The first, "La Cousine Bette," appeared in the Constitutionnel from October to December, 1846, and is intended to represent "a poor relation oppressed by humiliations and injuries, living in the midst of three or four families of her relations, and meditating vengeance for the bruising of her amour-propre, and for her wounded vanity!"[*] The second received several names in turn. It was first called "Le Vieux Musicien," next "Le Bonhomme Pons," ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... her to love was for her to give herself away without thought, without reserve, almost without the possibility of revocation. Because he was so oppressed with dread in regard to the young man who walked and boated with Katy, courted and caressed her, but about the seriousness of whose intentions the mother seemed to have some doubt—because of the very awfulness of his apprehensions, he dared not ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... were not avaricious men, or usurers. It is not in our blood. Your Chairman, Lord Chaldon, who honours me so highly by calling me his friend—he will assure you that we have a good name in the East. Our banks have befriended the people, and never oppressed or injured them. For that reason—I will say perhaps for that reason—we have never become a very rich house. It is possible to name bankers who have made large fortunes out of Egypt. It was different ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... design of dots and wriggles. When I asked him he said he was doing it for a Christmas present for his mother in Pernambuco. He added that she was a Maltese and he had learned Italian from her. I was so oppressed by this amazing knowledge of languages that I couldn't say a word in any language. It seemed silly for us to spend years scraping together a few French words at school when a foreigner like this could gather a dozen tongues in less ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... with difficulty that he managed to breathe, and he guessed that he had consumed all the oxygen in his prison. His lungs were oppressed, and the heavy air was not ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... the world, to him who had escaped so many chances of death! Our young hearts swelled in first rebellion against that which Walter Pater calls "the inexplicable shortcoming or misadventure on the part of life itself"; we were overwhelmingly oppressed by that grief of things as they are, so much more mysterious and intolerable than those griefs which we think dimly to ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... dear bairn's time had come; an' had we bided at hame it would ha' been a' the same; for we dinna leeve an' dee by chance, and the bounds o' our lives are set by Him who kens a' things." These consoling words from his sympathising wife tended to lighten, in some measure, the burden of sorrow which oppressed his heart. The weather during the latter part of their voyage was stormy and uncomfortable, and they were truly glad when they at length reached the Canadian port. At the city of Montreal they parted with all those who had been their ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... and in some of them twice and thrice in various positions. His naked figure is magnificent, his attitudes splendid, his thrown-back head superb, whether he be slowly and painfully emerging from the earth, staggered and gasping with his newly-infused life, or sinking oppressed on the ground, broken and crushed by the sound of the trumpet of judgment; or whether he be moving forward with ineffable longing towards the angel about to award him the crown of the blessed; in all these positions he ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... he was called Knud. He humbled himself both before bishops and monks; but as he unjustly oppressed the people, and laid heavy taxes on them, they armed themselves with all sorts of weapons, and chased him away as if he had been a wild beast. He sought shelter in the church, and had the doors and windows closed. The furious multitude surrounded the sacred edifice, as I heard ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... great precision, a comprehensive scheme for exterminating that religious belief which was already accepted by a very large portion of his Netherland Subjects. From afar there rose upon the provinces the prophetic vision of a coming evil still more terrible than any which had yet oppressed them. As across the bright plains of Sicily, when the sun is rising, the vast pyramidal shadow of Mount Etna is definitely and visibly projected—the phantom of that ever-present enemy, which holds fire and devastation in its bosom—so, in the morning ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... so gaily on, there was dead silence among all those present. The Prince had his shrewd eyes steadily fixed upon him, obviously wondering what this seemingly irresponsible adventurer held at the back of his mind. There is no doubt that everyone felt oppressed, and that a strange murmur of anticipatory excitement went round the little room, when, a few seconds later, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes returned, with two sheathed ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... below, forms a splendid prospect of perfectly white foam two hundred yards in length, and eighty in perpendicular elevation. This spray is dissipated into a thousand shapes, sometimes flying up in columns of fifteen or twenty feet, which are then oppressed by larger masses of the white foam, on all which the sun impresses the brightest colours of the rainbow. As it rises from the fall it beats with fury against a ledge of rocks which extend across the river ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... Clifton. I never saw a heart more painfully wrung, by the sense of an injury committed and of a good so unexampled received, as his has been. It was he who told of his own behaviour. His total want of power to make retribution is the theme by which he is pained and oppressed. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... Ireland is depressing, but it is very beautiful; at least if your taste includes an appreciation of what is wild, magnificent, and sombre. Oppressed you must be, even if you are an artist, by its bleakness and its dreariness, its lonely lakes reflecting a dull, grey sky, its desolate boglands, its solitary chapels, its wretched cabins perched on hillsides that are very wildernesses of rocks. ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... felt again that he was in the presence of power, and he was oppressed by a sense ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... was yet oppressed with a sensation that something was near him. Was it a spiritual instinct? for the phantom stood by his side. It stood silently, with one hand raised above his head, from which a pale flame seemed to flow downward to his brain; its other hand pointed ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor

... Egyptian method of embalming is not known to the present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath outlived the science of deciphering it. Some other method, therefore, must be thought of to immortalize the new knight of the windmill and post. Sir William, thanks to his stars, is not oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no ambition of being wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and cassia. Less expensive odors will suffice; and it fortunately happens that the simple genius of America has discovered the art of preserving bodies, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... liberty which abound in the Latin poets and orators; and he, like those poets and orators, meant by liberty something very different from the only liberty which is of importance to the happiness of mankind. Like them, he could see no danger to liberty except from kings. A commonwealth, oppressed and pillaged by such men as Opimius and Verres, was free, because it had no king. A member of the Grand Council of Venice, who passed his whole life under tutelage and in fear, who could not travel where he chose, or visit whom he chose, or invest his property as he chose, whose path ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... with this oppressed family that my greatest wish is to make them happy, and perhaps I may be able to do so.... I will be answerable with my life for her singing, and her doing credit to my recommendation.... I will gladly write an opera for Verona for thirty zeccini, solely that Madlle. Weber ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... intellectual, moral and material effort you must rescue Pyrot from his torment, and in performing this generous act you are not turning aside from the liberating and revolutionary task you have undertaken, for Pyrot his become the symbol of the oppressed and of all the social iniquities that now exist; by destroying one you make ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... the library, faster and faster, under the intolerable irritation, the maddening uncertainty, of her own suspense. Ere long, even the spacious room seemed to be too small for her. The sober monotony of the long book-lined shelves oppressed and offended her. She threw open the door which led into the dining-room, and dashed in, eager for a change of objects, athirst for more ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... to consider what woes and wrongs that Union has averted. Has England no discreditable passages in her own Parliamentary history? Have her attempts at governing large masses of men, Christian and heathen, Roman Catholic and Protestant, and of all sects, privileged and oppressed, never led her into any truckling or tyrannical legislation, any concessions or compromises of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... him narrowly) seen him in such a mood as now. It was, perhaps, one of those strange mental foresights, peculiar to certain temperaments, whereby the individual is sometimes warned of impending danger, and feels oppressed by a weight of despondency ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... precaution as they were too much occupied with one another. With her head lying on the monk's shoulder, Catherine laughed. A moonray trembled on her moist lips and in her eyes, like the water sparkles in a fountain; and I went my way, with my soul irritated and my heart oppressed, thinking on the provoking waist of that fine girl pressed by the arm of ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... on the ensuing Sabbath, in many a church and meeting-house in London, for one grievously tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith in prayers—I had none; I was fast losing faith in all things. So we sat—he trying to interest me in the old talk of other days, I oppressed by one thought—when our old servant, Anthony, opened the door, and, without speaking, showed in a very gentlemanly and prepossessing man, who had something remarkable about his dress, betraying his profession to be that of the Roman ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell

... and turband, was chagrined for their loss with passing cark and care and ascended a mound, to look for some passer-by, of whom he might enquire concerning them, but found none. Now the Caliph Harun al-Rashid had gone a-hunting and chasing that day; and, returning at the time of the noon heat, was oppressed thereby and thirsted; so he looked for water from afar and seeing a naked man standing on the mound said to Ja'afar, "Seest thou what I see?" Replied the Wazir, "Yes, O Commander of the Faithful; I see a man standing ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... which I have read with respect and emotion, prohibiting the bad treatment of the Indians. In short, this America, if it were considered in a state of slavery under the Spanish dominion, was at least on a level with the peninsula itself. Read over the frightful list of taxes which oppressed the Spaniards, and compare it with those that were imposed upon us, and you will find that theirs is infinitely greater than ours. These truths being granted, remark the progress which the colonies had made in sciences and arts, and this truth which escaped from the light pen of the censor Beristain, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... one arm broken and a knee shattered by a musket shot. Valour was at length oppressed by superiority of numbers: the enemy entered the camp, and put the Christians to the spear. The Portuguese general escaped the slaughter with ten men, and retreated to a wood, where they were discovered by a detachment of the enemy. [16] Mohammed, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... overturned with a din of shattering. But straight over the ditch, in forward flight, leaped the swift horses. And the heart of Patroklos urged him against Hector, for he was eager to smite him, but his swift steeds bore Hector forth and away. And even as beneath a tempest the whole black earth is oppressed, on an autumn day, when Zeus pours forth rain most vehemently, and all the rivers run full, and many a scaur the torrents tear away, and down to the dark sea they rush headlong from the hills, roaring mightily, and minished are the works of men, even so mighty ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... Clara has cost me, much music has been caused and created; the Concerto, Sonatas, Davidsbuendler Dances, Kreisleriana and Novellettes are the result." Beyond the compositions just mentioned, he relieved his oppressed heart by a composition rich in meaning—nothing less than the great Fantaisie, Op. 17. He meant to contribute the profits from its sale to the fund for the erection of a monument to Beethoven. The titles to the three movements were ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... the coast of the West Indies, I was with the rest of our company in consultation to go to the coast of the Myne, hoping there to have obtained some gold for our wares, and thereby to have defrayed our charge. But even in that present instant there came to us a negro sent from a king oppressed by other kings, his neighbours, desiring our aid, with promise that as many negroes as by these wars might be obtained, as well of his part as of ours, should be at our pleasure. Whereupon we concluded to give aid, and sent one hundred and ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... shadowy romance has long embodied in his person the virtues of the typical avenger of the wrongs of the poor and the oppressed against the tyranny of the rich and the powerful; his name has been honored and his manly deeds have been lauded in prose and verse by thousands in many lands for many centuries, exciting doubtless many a noble deed of self-denial, and spurring to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... sir, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country; and I am still, and shall be, to my ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... embarrassed with the coarse guilt of intrusion. I was suddenly oppressed with self-conscious awkwardness, wishing myself anywhere else, and not knowing what to do or say. In all probability I looked haughty and disagreeable, though I felt humble as a worm. How the Boy felt I have no means of knowing; ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... The slightest contact or scrape caused severe anguish, and in their weak condition and crowded situation they were continually hurting one another in this manner. Not a man could move about without being followed by volleys of abuse, curses, and groans. So great was their misery that the strong oppressed the weak, shoving them aside from the dry planks to shift for themselves in the cold and wet. The boy, O'Brien, was specially maltreated. Though there were three other boys, it was O'Brien who came in ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... made its appearance, it was a lone David among a swarm of Goliaths, any one of which was willing and anxious to serve the cause of the devil by crushing the little angel in the service of the Lord. So it is to-day. The great newspapers, which should plead the cause of the oppressed and the down-trodden, which should be the palladiums of the people's rights, are all on the side of the oppressor, or by silence preserve a dignified but ignominious neutrality. Day after day they weave a ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... the American military forces will be to overthrow the armed authority of Spain, and to give the people of your beautiful island the largest measure of liberty consistent with this occupation. We have not come to make war upon the people of a country that for centuries has been oppressed, but, on the contrary, to bring you protection, not only to yourselves, but to your property; to promote your prosperity, and bestow upon you the immunities and blessings of the liberal institutions of our government. It is not our purpose to interfere with any existing laws ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman

... into the garden. The day was sultry and oppressive. Coolness or comfort was nowhere. I sought the shadow of the live yew-walls; there was shelter in the shadow, but it oppressed the lungs while it comforted the eyes. Not a breath of wind breathed; the atmosphere seemed to have lost its life-giving. I went out into the wilderness. There the air was filled and heaped with the odours of the heavenly plants that crowded its ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... Katherine, feeling puzzled and oppressed. "I will go back, then, as fast as I can, and get my work done by six o'clock; then I may spend the evening here ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... adversaries. Oh let Thine enemies know that Thou hast received England, which they most of all for Thy Gospel's sake do malign, into Thine own protection. Set a wall about it, O Lord, and evermore mightily defend it. Let it be a comfort to the afflicted, a help to the oppressed, and a defence to Thy Church and people, persecuted abroad. And forasmuch as this cause is new in hand, direct and go before our armies both by sea and land. Bless them, and prosper them, and grant unto them Thine honourable success and victory. Thou art our help and shield. Oh give good and prosperous ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... bringing our sons to manhood, was also carrying their parents onward to old age; and anxious, gloomy thoughts relating to their future, should they be left indeed alone, sometimes oppressed my heart. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... laboratory. It is my rule to take no one there; it is a workshop, not a playroom,—the place is private; but, recently, my rules had become dead letters. Directly he was inside, Lindon began puffing and stewing, wiping his forehead, throwing out his chest, as if he were oppressed by a sense of his own importance. Then he started off talking at the top of his voice,—and it is not a low ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... that slepe, and it is an old sayenge: He that slepeth, byteth no body. By this tale ye may note also that they, the whiche fortune swetelye enbraceth, take theyr reste and slepe soundely; And contrarye wyse, they that bene oppressed with aduersite, watche sorowefullye whan they shulde slepe. This man, which for a very folisshe thing preysed his wyfe, afterwarde whan a lyttell care beganne to crepe aboute his stomacke, he perceiued that ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown

... from their outrages and disorders. They retained by force the royal castles, which they had seized during the past convulsions, or which had been committed to their custody by the protector;[**] they usurped the king's demesnes;[***] they oppressed their vassals; they infested their weaker neighbors; they invited all disorderly people to enter in their retinue, and to live upon their lands; and they gave them protection in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... the pay or position, but because, if he obtained the command of one of the regiments that were rapidly being formed to meet the dangers that threatened France, he would have opportunities of doing good service and of earning the esteem of such men as Turenne. His civil dignity, however, oppressed rather than gratified him. He would have heavy responsibilities. When not on active service he would be expected to show himself at court, and would have a difficulty in holding himself aloof from its intrigues and conspiracies. His thoughts ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... friend has causeless been confined By wicked foes of timid kind; I fly, I fly to free him soon, Like the eclipse-oppressed moon. [Exit.] 27 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... place. Our master and mistress were respected and beloved by all who knew them; they were good and kind to everybody and everything; not only men and women, but horses and donkeys, dogs and cats, cattle and birds; there was no oppressed or ill-used creature that had not a friend in them, and their servants took the same tone. If any of the village children were known to treat any creature cruelly they soon heard ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... Johnnie," she gulped, "and God knows, as I do, he's such an honest, good man ... helping poor people all over the country ... really fighting the fight of the down-trodden and the oppressed." ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... with emotion and sympathy into the numerous sacrifices you must have made, to an undertaking which so eminently exhibits our country as an asylum for the persecuted and oppressed, and into those regretful sensibilities your heart experienced when the shores of your native land ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... making war in order to punish the Servian regicides, nor to free the Poles, nor the others oppressed by Russia, stopping there in admiration of our disinterested magnanimity. We wish to wage it because we are the first people of the earth and should extend our activity over the entire planet. Germany's hour has sounded. We are going to take our place as the powerful ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... withdrawn the people from all reverence and fear of the laws and loyalty towards his Majesty, and brought their business already to this pass, that such as are conformed and go to church are everywhere derided, scorned, and oppressed by the multitude, to their great discouragement, and to the scandal of all ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey

... out by the intensity of the emulation; speakers rose to heights which they had never reached before, which they were destined never to reach again. In listening to and admiring their champions, the tribes forgot the smoking mountains and the feeling of apprehension that had oppressed them. At length Snoqualmie made a speech breathing his own daring spirit in every word. It went immeasurably beyond the others; it was the climax of all the darkly ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch

... to ignore everything and talk in her usual superficial manner, she became more and more silent and oppressed, and, at ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... negro as a man and a brother was the exact opposite of the treatment which was his terrible lot in the country. Never in all history was there a race more shamefully oppressed by a dominant race than were the blacks by the whites of America. Held as slaves in the South, they were stamped as social outcasts at the North. There was no one, however mean or vicious, who if he possessed a white skin, was not treated ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke



Words linked to "Oppressed" :   burdened, Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, laden



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