"Arrogate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... familiar intercourse between the sexes is suspended. At the marriageable age it is renewed, never with worse consequences than those which attend upon marriage. All arts and vocations allotted to the one sex are open to the other, and the Gy-ei arrogate to themselves a superiority in all those abstruse and mystical branches of reasoning, for which they say the Ana are unfitted by a duller sobriety of understanding, or the routine of their matter-of-fact occupations, just as young ladies ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... significance, not only to me, but, as you say, to the state, is so tremendous that, at the first glance, it seems to be an unanswerable argument. But—don't you see?—no sophistry, no contemplation of the results achieved, can ever make it justifiable for a man to arrogate to himself the power of taking human life, which is the prerogative of God and the law alone. The peculiar circumstances of Cavendish's crime plead eloquently, almost irresistibly, for his pardon. He has saved the state—yes! But ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... of our American society do also largely join in this clamor for free liquor. "The upper ten thousand," those that arrogate to themselves that they are par excellence, the elite of the nation—albeit that their assumed gentility is sometimes but a shoddy or shabby gentility—make the road from the top of society to the bottom, and from thence to hell, as short as possible, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Shakespeare downwards, in abuse of British fog and mist and rain. But because Nice and Naples are entitled to give themselves airs, under what patent do Chicago and Pittsburgh claim the same right? Why should Englishmen submit uncomplainingly when Milwaukee and Duluth arrogate to themselves the privilege of sneering at them which was conceded originally and willingly enough to Cannes? Riverside in California, Columbia in South Carolina, Colorado Springs or Old Point Comfort—these, and such as they, may boast, and no one has ground for protest; ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... now," madame Wang rejoined with due respect, "kindred with outside family names, such as Mrs. Hseh, ne Wang, Pao-ch'ai, and Tai-y waiting for your commands; but as they are distant relatives, and without official status, they do not venture to arrogate to themselves the right of entering into your presence." But the Chia consort issued directions that they should be invited to come that they should see each other; and in a short while, Mrs. Hseh and the other relatives walked in, but as they were on the point ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... but in respect to the statements I am about to make, my former associates,—deeming their publication might serve to correct some of the erroneous opinions that are put into circulation by individuals who arrogate to themselves a knowledge, of which they have not the slightest iota,—not only sanction, but command me to present to the candid inquirer the following brief ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... me not to publish that little which I know, I look on your counsel as your command, which I shall observe inviolably till you shall please to revoke it and leave me at liberty to make my thoughts public. In the meantime, that I may arrogate nothing to myself, I must acknowledge that Virgil in Latin and Spenser in English have been my masters. Spenser has also given me the boldness to make use sometimes of his Alexandrine line, which we call, though improperly, the Pindaric, because Mr. Cowley has often employed it in his odes. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... what am I to it? What is my world? If it is anything, it consists of a score of men and women who chance to be spending their allotted time on earth in that corner of the globe in which I was born, who saw me grow to manhood, and who most inconsequently arrogate to themselves the privilege of criticising my actions, as they criticise each other's; who say loudly that this is right and that is wrong, and who will be gathered in due time to their insignificant fathers with their own insignificance thick upon them, as is meet and just. If ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... called Columbia, as in all justice it should have been, but with this Vespucius had nothing to do. He was for a long time charged, though most unjustly, with impudence, falsehood, and deceit, it being alleged that he wished to veil the glory of Columbus and to arrogate to himself the honour of a discovery which did not belong to him. This was an utterly unfounded accusation, for Vespucius was both loved and esteemed by Columbus and his contemporaries, and there is nothing ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... arrogate to themselves wisdom because of their years, just as some equally absurd people think they are wise because they never went to a high school or an academy—men, Heaven save the mark! who pride themselves on having never slaked their thirst at the fount of knowledge. It ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... that the startling feat accomplished by that man of deep revenge, who is not alone in his bitter hatred and contempt for the base among those who, like spaniels, crawl and kiss the dust at the instigation of their superiors, and yet arrogate to themselves a claim to be considered gentlemen and men of honor and independence—it has, I repeat, been assumed that the feat attributed to him in connection with the flag-staff of the fort was impossible. No one who has ever seen these erections on the small forts of that day would ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... a Referendum would simply mean the formal acknowledgment of the doctrine which lies at the basis of English democracy—that a law depends at bottom for its enactment on the assent of the nation as represented by the electors. At a time when the true danger is that sections or classes should arrogate to themselves authority which belongs to the State, it is an advantage to bring into prominence the sovereignty of the nation. The present is exactly a crisis at which we may override the practices to save the principles of the constitution. The most forcible objection ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... is a great word. It moves the world, it comprises the millions, it combines many men in many lands in the sympathy of a common burden. Who has the right to speak for Labour? A good many people arrogate to themselves the right to speak for Labour. How many political Flibbertigibbets are there not running up and down the land calling themselves the people of Great Britain, and the social democracy, and the masses of the nation! But I am inclined to think, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... do not mean, fellow-citizens, to arrogate to myself the merit of the measures. That is due, in the first place, to the reflecting character of our citizens at large, who, by the weight of public opinion, influence and strengthen the public measures. It is due to the sound discretion with ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... interrupting. "You arrogate too much to yourself. I don't expect you to give anything to me. We are working together, and it is both of us who must give this poor old world something to satisfy it for a while, until we can disclose to it that grand discovery, grander than anything ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... reign of Charles II, did not arrogate to itself the right to retire behind trees from the long line of the single village street; but being taller than the other houses it brought the street to a dignified conclusion, and it was not unworthy of the noble church which stood apart from the village, a landmark for miles, ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... would have been better for Herbert to stop disputing, and to have taken no notice of Oscar's words. But Herbert was not perfect. He had plenty of spirit, and he was provoked by the airs Oscar chose to assume, and by no means inclined to allow him to arrogate a superiority over himself, merely on account of his wealth. Though manly and generous, he was quick to resent an insult, and accordingly, when Oscar dared to repeat what he had said, he instantly accepted the challenge ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... that Law ever had. With history before us, it is no treason to question the infallibility of a court; for courts are never wiser or more venerable than the men composing them, and a decision that reverses precedent cannot arrogate to itself any immunity from reversal. Truth is ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... ineffably benign superiority. "Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... prevent any Assembly from being held, as long as he thought proper. But the Presbyterian Church, though overborne, was not destroyed, nor was its free spirit wholly subdued. When, in 1617, the King attempted to arrogate to himself and his prelatic council the power of enacting ecclesiastical laws, he was immediately met by a protestation against a measure so despotic. By an arbitrary stretch of power, he banished the historian Calderwood, the person ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... out of it. They bear just as little of the burden of the Empire as the tax-gatherer will permit them. There is not one of them who would not object with vigour to take a single shilling less per week for the sake of progress, or any cause that might arrogate that title. Besides, it is surely a piece of undiluted Cockney egoism to suppose that the only persons who do their duty by the Empire are Londoners. We are still an agricultural country, and there are some millions of ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... after all this injustice, and impiety on your parts, you have prosecuted that with the extreamest madness, which you esteemed criminal in your enemies, viz. To arrogate the supream power in a single person;{3} condemn men without Law; execute, and proscribe them with as little: Imprest for your Service, violate your Parliaments, dispense with your solemn Oaths; in summe, to mingle Earth and Heaven by your arbitrary proceedings: ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn
... position of his main army, and of defending its flanks and rear. The paying public thus found itself curiously intermixed and imprisoned by these hosts of claqueurs, and victory usually crowned the efforts of M. Auguste, who was careful to arrogate to himself the results of the evening's proceedings. "What a splendid success I have achieved!" he would say; completely ignoring the efforts of the composer, the artists of the theatre, and the manager, who were perhaps entitled to some share of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... forum and in the senate-house, and in warding off dangers from my friends; it is by this course that I have arrived at the highest honours, at moderate wealth, and at any dignity which we may be thought to have: I therefore, a nursling of peace, as I may call myself, I who, whatever I am, (for I arrogate nothing to myself,) should undoubtedly not have been such without internal peace: I am speaking in peril: I shudder to think how you will receive it, O conscript fathers: but still, out of regard for my unceasing desire to support and increase ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... God's kingdom on earth. In the broad definition of the Master it means "all those who are not against us." The way in which men associate for worship, or in which they consider it most remunerative to invest their efforts to forward the kingdom, gives them no right to arrogate to themselves the title of God's Church. Any body of men saying, "We are the Church," ...
— What the Church Means to Me - A Frank Confession and a Friendly Estimate by an Insider • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... has wrongly come to have a suggestion of contempt attached to it,—was with him a principle, and employed by him as the one in which he could best express truth. Art may justly claim great latitude in this endeavor, and schools and systems arrogate too much when they seek to define its limitations. Absolute truth to nature is impossible in art, which is constrained to lie to the eye in order to satisfy the mind, and continually transposes the harmonies of earth and sky into the minor key. Fuller offended the senses ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... acceptance of a member." (R. 1827, 22; B., 21.) The form in which this article was finally adopted (1828) reads: "But this Synod shall have no power to receive appeals from the decisions of, nor to make rules nor regulations for, congregations." (B. 1828, 19; R. 1853, 25.) Neither did the Tennessee Synod arrogate to itself the right to appoint pastors to the congregations or to remove them. The Report of 1824 records concerning Adam Miller: "This young man displays strong inclination for preaching; but since he has produced no regular call from a congregation, he could not ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... authority of the family? Hypocrisy! you will say. Well, listen to me. It is true that if I want to give him any advice which I think may be of use to him, I wait for the quiet and seclusion of our bedroom to explain what I think and wish; but, I assure you, sweetheart, that even there I never arrogate to myself the place of mentor. If I did not remain in private the same submissive wife that I appear to others, he would lose confidence in himself. Dear, the good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... nakedness, the mere liability to nakedness, the mere freedom to be naked, at once introduces a new motive into life. It becomes a moralising force of the most strenuous urgency. Clothes can no more be put before us as a substitute for the person. The dressmaker can no longer arrogate the functions of a Creator. The way is opened for the appearance in civilisation of ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... for its distinctive features upon the accidents rather than the essentials of life, failed to justify its pretentions as a serious and independent form of art. The trivial toy of a courtly coterie, it attempted to arrogate to itself the position of a philosophy, and in so doing exposed itself to the ridicule of succeeding ages. Men with a stern purpose in life turned wearily from the sickly amours of romantic poets who dreamed that human happiness ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... period of the successful experiments of the Wrights and Professor Langley, it would be unjust for America to arrogate to herself entire priority in airplane invention. Any story of that achievement which leaves out Lilienthal, the German, and Pilcher, the Englishman, is a record in which the truth is subordinated to ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... other, Madame de Maintenon, whose sole solicitude was to insure repose to Louis XIV., by plucking out one after another all the thorns from his crown, reminded her that she was born a Frenchwoman, and that she owed too much to the Great King to arrogate to herself the right of contradicting him. A subject of Louis XIV., did she dare combat at Madrid the plans decided upon at Versailles? The governess of the heir to the crown of Spain, could she concur by her advice in despoiling ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... impertinence, assuming an importance that belongs to no one, and as if we were not worms creeping together towards the edge of that precipice from which we must fall into eternity. Whence springs my conduct but from pride, self-will, selfishness? I would arrogate a superiority over this poor negro. Poor negro! There spoke the pride of your heart, James Armstrong! But well is he called Felix in comparison with you. Happy in being born of a despised and persecuted race; happy in being condemned to the life of a servant, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author should never arrogate to himself any share of success till his works have been read at least ten years ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he had gained the ear and approval of the gallery, Lenoir seemed, as it were, to spread himself out, to arrogate to himself the leadership of this band of malcontents, who, disappointed in their lust of Deroulede's downfall, were ready to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... modesty, and felt not a whit too shamefaced to arrogate to his own learning and character the most unhesitating manifestation of their deference and respect, and they soon scrupled not to ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... not by any means arrogate such universal authority as did Muromachi. The Court nobles in the middle of the fourteenth century had no functions except those of a ceremonial nature and were frankly despised by the haughty bushi. It is on record that Doki Yorito, meeting the cortege of the retired ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... happy state of things now commemorated. Ryland's fervour increased—his eyes lighted up—his voice assumed the tone of passion. There was one man, he continued, who wished to alter all this, and bring us back to our days of impotence and contention:—one man, who would dare arrogate the honour which was due to all who claimed England as their birthplace, and set his name and style above the name and style of his country. I saw at this juncture that Raymond changed colour; his eyes were withdrawn from the orator, and cast ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... to appoint trustees. I want you, gentlemen, many of whom I have the honour of calling my friends, and whom I see before me, my Protestant friends of Quebec, how would you like it if the Roman Catholic School Committee in this province were to arrogate to itself the right to appoint the teachers in your dissentient schools, and to define their duties? How would you like it? Would you think that was keeping faith with the British North America Act? Would you think that was keeping faith with the Confederation partnership? How would you ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt
... flared at him, then went on with my floundering. "If a man is blind, how can he gain the sight that you arrogate to yourself?" ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to astonish intrepidity itself, and to make the history of the liberating expedition of Peru eternal." "This glory," he added, "was reserved for the Liberating Army, whose efforts have snatched the victims of tyranny from its hands." Thus impudently did he arrogate to himself a share, at any rate, in the initiation of a project which Lord Cochrane, knowing that he would oppose it, had purposely kept secret from him, and assign the whole merit of its completion to the army which his vacillation ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... conviction. One may assert himself, or assert his right to what he is willing to contend for; or he may assert in discussion what he is ready to maintain by argument or evidence. To assert without proof is always to lay oneself open to the suspicion of having no proof to offer, and seems to arrogate too much to one's personal authority, and hence in such cases both the verb assert and its noun assertion have an unfavorable sense; we say a mere assertion, a bare assertion, his unsupported assertion; he asserted his innocence has less force than he affirmed or maintained his ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... the joy of the company showed itself with too little politeness—I hope not; I would not exult to a single man, and a minister of peace; it should be in the face of Europe, if I assumed that dominion which the French used to arrogate; nor do I believe it happened; all the company are not so charmed with the event. They are not quite convinced that it will facilitate the pacification, nor am I clear it will. The City of London will not lower their hopes, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... Captain-General of the army. The office of governor, conferred on Vaca de Castro, might seem to include that of commander-in-chief of the forces. But De Castro was a scholar, bred to the law; and, whatever authority he might arrogate to himself in civil matters, the two captains imagined that the military department he would resign into the hands of others. They little knew ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... earth, it is a blessed thing that those who arrogate to themselves the holy name of society, and to whom so large a portion of the foolish world willingly yields it, are in reality so few and so ephemeral. Mere human froth are they, worked up by the churning of the world-sea—rainbow-tinted ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... sacrifices flame through all lands. The earth groans because of them, and refuses to cover the blood of her slain. And America is the new world of boundless wonder and beauty, wealth and fertility, to which these two evil powers arrogate an exclusive and divine right; and God has delivered it into their hands; and they have done evil therein with all their might, till the story of their greed and cruelty rings through all earth and heaven. Is this the will of God? Will he not avenge ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... the University to conceal those reasons and even permit misapprehensions of those reasons to be given a wide publicity, would have been better than its observance. And a University Gazette that refuses to publish the letter of a world-famous professor of that University, must arrogate to itself a title to which it can justly make ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... following sublime idea of our illustrious countryman, the founder of modern philosophy. "It may not be amiss," says BACON, "to point out three different kinds, and, as it were, degrees of ambition. The first, that of those who desire to enhance, in their own country, the power they arrogate to themselves: this kind of ambition is both vulgar and degenerate. The second, that of those who endeavour to extend the power and domination of their country, over the whole of the human race: in this kind ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Stranglers, of whatever commoonity, ain't strong enough, an' wouldn't be jestified in stackin' in ag'in the gov'ment. Captain Moon's only show is a feud. He oughter caper over an', as private as possible, arrogate to himse'f the skelp of this yere agent who abandons his relatif ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... man's brow drew dark; tumultuous thoughts filled his brain; Caillette's words, Brusquet's rhymes, confirming his own conviction, rankled in his mind. This king dared arrogate a law absolute unto himself; its statutes, his own caprices; its canons, his own pretensions? The duke remembered the young girl's outburst against the monarch and a feeling of hatred arose in his breast; his hand involuntarily sought his sword, the blade ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... and righteousness has deceived men, then infinite evils follow; the Gospel concerning the righteousness of faith in Christ is obscured, and vain confidence in such works succeeds. Then the commandments of God are obscured; these works arrogate to themselves the title of a perfect and spiritual life, and are far preferred to the works of God's commandments [the true, holy, good works], as, the works of one's own calling, the administration of the state, the management of a family, married life, the bringing ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... never consent that another country should arrogate the power of annulling, at her pleasure, the political system of Europe, established by solemn treaties and guaranteed by the ...
— 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
... age has worm-eaten into marriage; we have sought to drown pain and the exhaustion of our souls, to fill emptiness with pleasure, to place the personal good in marriage above the racial duty, to forget responsibility, to arrogate for the unimportant Self, and, in so doing, inevitably we have turned away from essential things. Can't you see that we are so terribly tired of this search for something that we never find? Our ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... cruelty been committed; the belief of religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans have scarcely visited any coast, but to gratify avarice, and extend corruption; to arrogate dominion without right, and practise cruelty without incentive. Happy had it, then, been for the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had slept in his bosom, and surely more happy for the oppressors. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... whether he were to stand or fall in the hour of temptation, he had better have lived his time and done his work. We, with our small philosophy, can make allowance for the greater dangers of the higher sphere; and shall we arrogate to ourselves a larger judgment and ampler sympathies than we allow to God? Yet Gustavus was happy. Among soldiers and statesmen, if there is a greater, there is hardly a purer name. He had won not only honour but love, and the friend and comrade was as much bewailed as the deliverer and ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... not find them? Howbeit, they that be secular and laymen, are not by and by children of the world; nor they children of light, that are called spiritual, and of the clergy. No, no; as ye may find among the laity many children of light, so among the clergy, (how much soever we arrogate these holy titles unto us, and think them only attributed to us, Vos estis lux mundi, peculium Christi, &c. "Ye are the light of the world, the chosen people of Christ, a kingly priesthood, an holy nation, and such other,") ye shall find many children ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... really to believe in the sacredness of the taboo by virtue of which you try to exclude your fellow-tribesmen from their fair share of enjoyment of the soil of England—don't you think you might at any rate exercise your imaginary powers over the land you arrogate to yourself with a little more gentleness and common politeness? How petty and narrow it looks to use even an undoubted right, far more a tribal taboo, in a tyrannical and needlessly aggressive manner! How mean ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... it the human body is merely a frail earthly vessel filled with a divine and immortal spirit. On the other hand, a man-god of the magical sort is nothing but a man who possesses in an unusually high degree powers which most of his fellows arrogate to themselves on a smaller scale; for in rude society there is hardly a person who does not dabble in magic. Thus, whereas a man-god of the former or inspired type derives his divinity from a deity who has stooped to hide his ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... muttered querulously. To forgive sins was indeed an attribute which no one, save the Eternal, could arrogate to himself. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... you to Paris. Your will was not taken into consideration. I know not how the Queen would have me act, seeing your reluctance; it may be that she would elect to leave you here, as you desire. But it is not for me to arrogate to determine the Queen's mind. I can but be guided by her orders, and those orders leave me no course but one—to ask you, mademoiselle, to make ready immediately to go ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... condition of civilization. It was decreed, when the command was given, "be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it," and when it was added, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." And what human being shall arrogate to himself the authority to pronounce that our form of it is worse in itself, or more displeasing to God, than that which exists elsewhere? Shall it be said that the servitude of other countries grows out ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... of our time who, after ten or twenty years of technical training, having their attention directed to a something to be seen, and armed with compound microscopes which permit them to see with the physical eye the "mother of petre", arrogate to themselves the discovery of a great truth. Much more modest would it be and much more in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due to admit that, after long doubting the existence of such ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... she every where shews of herself, and her attributing all her excellencies to pious education, and her lady's virtuous instructions and bounty; let persons, even of genius and piety, learn not to arrogate to themselves those gifts and graces, which they owe least of all to themselves: Since the beauties of person are frail; and it is not in our power to give them to ourselves, or to be either prudent, wise, or good, without the assistance ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... do not believe, son," replied she, looking at him tenderly, and without fear, "that you are so abandoned by God as not to know your mother, who brought you into the world, and to mistake yourself. You are indeed my son Abou Hassan, and are much in the wrong to arrogate to yourself the title which belongs only to our sovereign lord the caliph Haroon al Rusheed, especially after the noble and generous present the monarch made us yesterday. I forgot to tell you, that the grand vizier Jaaffier ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... with Sir W. Batten, by coach to St. James's, where by the way he did tell me how Sir J. Minnes would many times arrogate to himself the doing of that that all the Board have equal share in, and more that to himself which he hath had nothing to do in, and particularly the late paper given in by him to the Duke, the translation of a Dutch ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... attachment of the Loyalists to your Majesty's person and government we conceive to be unnecessary; they have preserved it under persecution, and gratitude cannot render it less permanent. They do not presume to arrogate to themselves a more fervent loyalty than their fellow-subjects possess; but distinguished as they have been by their sufferings, they deem themselves entitled to the foremost rank among the most zealous ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... her beauty, yet already Dora had been preferred before her, though it was only by the head of "Robinson's." Was it possible that now it might be Rose, unsuspecting, unconsulted? Could her own mother and sisters be so unfair as to arrogate to themselves the settlement of her affairs without her consent or knowledge, without so much as admitting her into ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... what I cannot bear. When you forbid me to assent to what I do not know, and say such a proceeding is most discreditable, and full of rashness,—when you, at the same time, arrogate so much to yourself, as to take upon yourself to explain the whole system of wisdom, to unfold the nature of all things, to form men's manners, to fix the limits of good and evil, to describe men's duties, and also ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... can agree to differ. What are we that we should arrogate to ourselves any assumption of certainty on a matter unrevealed, that takes us into the eternities, and fixes the doom of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... is a poet who shall begin by confessing that he is as other men are, and sing about things which concern all men, in language which all men can understand. This is the only road to that gift of prophecy which most young poets are nowadays in such a hurry to arrogate to themselves. We can only tell what man will be by fair induction, by knowing what he is, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... be a God,—that there may be evidence of His existence,—that it may yet be discovered in the progress of natural reason,—and that to deny any one of these possibilities would be to assume "infallibility," or to arrogate "infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof." Now, we humbly conceive that there is enough in these admissions, if not to disarm the Secular polemic, yet to shut up every seriously reflecting man, not, perhaps, to the instant recognition of a Divine Being, but certainly to the duty of earnest, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... no miracles and expect none; nor do I arrogate to myself any so-called super-natural secrets or powers; I simply maintain that, aided by the erudition of the great scientists of the past and present, this system has finally been brought to a point ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... that you, gentlemen, ever voted or intended to invest Dr. Royce with that right. He himself now publicly puts forth a worse than "extravagant pretension" when he arrogates to himself this right of literary outrage. He was not appointed professor by you for any such unseemly purpose. To arrogate to himself a senseless "professional" superiority over all non-"professional" authors, to the insufferable extent of publicly posting and placarding them for a mere difference of opinion, is, from a moral point ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... dog-barking navigator's wonderful knowledge of Pacific Coast canines, and after some small talk Matt said good-bye and hung up. When he left the telephone booth, however, he was a happier young man than when he had entered it, for he had now satisfied himself that while Cappy Ricks might arrogate to himself the right of proposing, his daughter could be depended upon to attend to the disposing. He went to his boarding house, paid his landlady, packed his clothes and sent them down to the Gualala, rubbing her ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... for he wrote to Hawthorne: "I am glad that sulky Athenaeum was so civil; for they are equally powerful and unprincipled." The writer in the Athenaeum evidently belonged to that class of domineering critics who have no literary standing, but who, like bankers' clerks, arrogate to themselves all the importance of the establishment with which they are connected. Fortunately, there are few such in America. No keen-witted reader would ever confound the active, rosy, domestic Phoebe Pyncheon with the dreamy, sensitive, and strongly subjective ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... could have written.' Scotland did certainly stand high in the age of Hume and Mackenzie, of Robertson and of Adam Smith, for not only the vigour of its thinking, but also for the purity and excellence of its style. We fear, however, it can no longer arrogate to itself praise on this special score. There have been books produced among us during the last twenty years, which have failed in making their way into England, mainly in consequence of the slipshod style in which they were written. A busy age, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... that I arrogate to myself a miraculous clairvoyance. No. It I is something which I see in your face, which I hear in your voice; poor, common, man ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... arrogate too much of the credit to yourself. Lord Lowborough was quite as remarkable for his abstemiousness for some time before you married him, as he is now, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the sake of health, as he thinks, or social arrangements, cannot recognize it as his duty to forswear drink altogether. When a man claims his liberty to be the arbiter of his habits in his home, or in society, for me to arrogate the right to censure him may be impertinence; and, so far as I am concerned, to read him out of Christian consistency may be to make myself, as St. James puts it, a judge of evil thoughts. When a man has reached fifty years of age, and has worked hard and lived sparingly, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... banks of the Niger. The Moors have likewise introduced many common useful trades into Central Africa. But above all, the Mohammedans have introduced the knowledge of the one true God! and destroyed the fetisch idols. Let us then take care how we arrogate to ourselves the right and fact of civilizing the world. Nay, there cannot be a question, if we would abandon Africa to the Mohammedans, and leave off our man-stealing trade and practices on the Western Coast, the dusky children ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... "I hope I don't arrogate too much in saying this, and in saying we have contributed not a little to the glory of the nation and the American arms. I find by a Parliamentary Register, that there were 18,000 troops and upwards, in the Southern department last year, besides ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... he speaks from his own mind, and in native language. His style is swollen, but never strained, as if he were conscious of playing a part above his real claims. Even when he was foolish and impious enough to arrogate miraculous powers and a mission from God, his language showed that he thought there was something in his character and exploits to give a color to his—blasphemous pretensions. The empire of the world seemed ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... is equally innate, with this difference, that the Belgian places the law above kings. Of all the Spaniards the Castilians require to be, governed with the most caution; but the liberties which they arrogate for themselves they do not willingly accord to others. Hence the difficult task to their common ruler, so to distribute his attention, and care between the two nations that neither the preference shown to the Castilian should offend the Belgian, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... that swells his pride Beyond those lymitts his late modestie Ever observd. This makes him count the Soldier As his owne creature, and to arrogate All prosperous proceedings to himself; Detracts from you and all men, you scarce holding ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... incomplete without such specimens as the three charming oil-pictures which commemorate Holme Lacey. There are gardens and gardens, and these represent the sort that are always spoken of in the plural and most arrogate the title. They form, in England, a magnificent collection, and if they abound in a quiet assumption of the grand style it must be owned that they frequently achieve it. There are people to be found who enjoy them, ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... a treaty with Russia, I think it would be well for Mr Dana, (if he should not have been misinformed) to declare to the Court of St Petersburg, that the Ministers of the United States are restrained from receiving presents, that to make them in such circumstance, would be either to arrogate a superiority to which they were not entitled, or to acknowledge that they were so far the inferior of those with whom they treated, as to be compelled to purchase a connexion, which should be founded in equality and mutual advantage. That he therefore found himself compelled ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... even within the enfranchised circle of their own established churches, while the great body of the disfranchised Nonconformists could only regard them as had the Nonconformists in England regarded Bancroft and Laud. They could assume high prerogatives, arrogate to themselves divine favour and protection, threaten divine judgments on their adversaries, boast of courage and power; but they knew that in a trial of strength on the battlefield their strength would prove weakness, and that they would be swept from power, and perhaps proscribed and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... mouth, since it stands forth a thing not to be gainsaid, that St. Peter speaks to all that are Christians; whence it is clear that they lie, and that St. Peter says nothing of their priesthood, which they have fancied and arrogate to themselves alone; wherefore our bishops are nothing but Nicholas-bishops, and as is their priesthood so are also their laws, sacrifices and works. It might be an excellent play to act out in the deep night, except that under the mask ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... had been stopped up somewhere near the place where the engineer was at work; he mentioned in private his suspicions to the general, who gave orders in consequence; the old mine was discovered, cleared out, and by these means the town was taken the day before the time appointed. Basile did not arrogate to himself any of the glory of this success—he kept his general's secret and his confidence. Upon their return to Paris, after a fortunate campaign, the general was more grateful than some others have been, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... those who sucked her blood for gain. We have carried on wars, that we might fill the pockets of stock-jobbers. We have revised our Constitution, and by a great and united national effort, have secured our Protestant succession, only that we may become the tools of a faction, who arrogate to themselves the whole merit of what was a national act. We are governed by upstarts, who are unsettling the landmarks of our social system, and are displacing the influence of our landed gentry by that of a class of men who ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... absolute truth may still be reverenced as an ideal, to save us from the scepticism to which a complete relativity of truth would lead. But would it save us? If it is admitted that no one can arrogate to himself its possession, what use is it to believe that it is an ideal? For if no one can assume that he has it, all human truth is, in fact, such as the relativist asserted, and scepticism is just as inevitable ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... Hamburg, went to Bremman. to watch the strict execution of the illusive blockade against England. The Marshal acting no doubt, in conformity with the instructions of Clarke, then Minister of War and Governor of Berlin, wished to arrogate the right of deciding on the captures made by ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... believe," he begged, "that I arrogate to myself any such position. Only, unfortunately, as regards your late husband's character there could be no mistake, and concerning such men as he I have ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be taken over by Japan. Tsingtao and the port of Kiaochow should belong to Japan, as well as the Tainan railway. Japan would co-operate with the Allies in maintaining order in Siberia, but no Power should arrogate to itself a preponderant voice in the matter of obtaining concessions or other interests there. Lastly, the principle of the open door was to be upheld in China, Japan being admittedly the Power which is the most interested in the establishment and maintenance ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... horrors of such a system, the principle is still the same. This is the principle that invariably guides the native in his relations with other native tribes around him, and it is generally the same that he acts upon in his intercourse with us. Shall we then arrogate to ourselves the sole power of acting unjustly, or of judging of what is expedient? And are we to make no allowance for the standard of right by which the native is guided in the system of policy he ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... their enemies, or to a vigorous exertion of their own force. We do not, however, mean to underrate those aids, which, to us, were doubtless valuable, on whatever principles granted: but we would show that they cannot give a title to that authority which the British Parliament would arrogate over us; and that they may amply be repaid, by our giving to the inhabitants of Great Britain such exclusive privileges in trade as may be advantageous to them, and, at the same time, not too restrictive to ourselves. That settlement having been thus effected in the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... conclude with the following Proposition to any one, who may arrogate to himself Praise ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... further on, attainable by a pretty road, winding at the foot of a mountain bordered by acacia trees, and overhanging the river Serchio, is situated the Villa—another range of tenements, the inhabitants of which arrogate to themselves greater staidness of demeanour than their brethren at the Ponte, thinking, perhaps, that the vicinity of the English chapel—a handsome structure, in the style of an ancient Venetian palace—may vindicate this assumption of decorum. There is but one hotel at the Villa—calm, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... those old days very much longer than they do now. The smartness of children like my grandsons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, for instance, who at the age of two hundred and fifty arrogate to themselves all the knowledge of the universe, was comparatively unknown when I was a child. To begin with we were of a different breed from the boys of to-day, and life itself was more simple. We were surrounded with none of those luxuries which are characteristic ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... detailed application of general conclusions is henceforth to be the main business, there will be no forsaking of the broadly human standpoint. For it has been shown, more especially in the chapter on poetry, that the nature-mystic does not arrogate to himself any unique place among his fellows, nor seek to enjoy, in esoteric isolation, modes of experience denied to the mass of humanity. Wordsworth, for instance, though a prince among modern mystics, appealed with confidence ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... by the iron bands of misfortune a helping hand. Odd-Fellowship holds no affinity with the classifications or distinctions of society, but dispenses charity to all alike. It does not array itself against the church, nor presume to arrogate its functions, or to supervise its teachings. Its lodges are not the council rooms of enmity to religious, civil, moral or social organizations. Far otherwise; all its oracles and instructions in relation to these grave subjects find their ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... officers are proud, and I am sure that you yourselves are proud, of your glorious achievement. Yet we soldiers must not arrogate to ourselves the entire credit of so magnificent a victory. Without the assistance of the navy, that victory—I say it frankly— would have been impossible. The sailors therefore are entitled to an equal share of the glory which we yesterday reaped on the slopes of those terrible heights; ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... you to bring against mankind double weapons! Such is not the usage of civilized warfare. Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves." ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... this brittle Empire that it should be partly strong and partly weak. In conscience and the empire of the soul Christ alone is King. No wonder that the Roman Empire has disappeared. The iron part is now entirely gone. The Pope and the Church of Rome foolishly arrogate to themselves to be this kingdom. They still try and believe in mixing the iron and clay—they yet claim authority in the spirit realm. Obedience to Christ and the Pope cannot be on the spiritual or clay side. No man ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... unworthy of the cares of universal Providence, and that the beasts can not be the objects of its justice and kindness? Mortals consider fortunate or unfortunate events, health or sickness, life and death, abundance or famine, as rewards or punishments for the use or misuse of the liberty which they arrogate to themselves. Do they reason on this principle when animals are taken into consideration? No; although they see them under a just God enjoy and suffer, be healthy and sick, live and die, like themselves, ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... so far sometimes forget themselves, or the rest of mankind, as to arrogate, in commending what is distinguished in their own way, every epithet the most respectable claim as the right of superior abilities. Every mechanic is a great man with the learner, and the humble admirer, in his particular calling: and ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... and subsistence from the supremacy, from which it flowed, upon which it stood, and by which at length it was removed. And in the grant and conveyance of the indulgence, all the power of the supremacy was arrogate, asserted and exerted, in first taking away the power of the keys from Christ's stewards, and then restoring only one of them to some few, with restrictions bounding, and instructions regulating them in the exercise of that. The acceptance whereof, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Christianity, even in the contemplation of the very superiority which it imparts; even there it is a principle, not of repulsion between man and man, but of good fellowship; but as to subjects of secular knowledge, since here it does not arrogate any superiority at all, it has in fact no tendency whatever to centre its disciple's contemplation on himself, or to alienate him from his kind. He readily acknowledges and defers to the superiority in art or science of those, if so be, who are unhappily ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... sister of the leaders of the hosts of the Lord. Women of later ages, conscious of intellectual superiority, elevated by position, or merely distinguished by usefulness, have sometimes been proud enough to despise the inferior of their own sex, and to arrogate to themselves the power allotted to man; and their awakened pride and vanity have introduced strife and confusion into the counsels of those who were appointed to guide the people ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous |
