"Despot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and nobles, for wits and courtly prelates, for grave philosophers and ladies frail as fair. A palace and a hell, a grim monument to regal egoism, created to minister to the inflated vanity of a despot, an eternal warning to mankind that the abuse of absolute power is an accursed thing. Every flower, in those wide gardens has been watered with the tears of stricken souls; every stone in that vast pile of buildings ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... a triumph as fanaticism enjoyed over the fine arts in England during and for some time after the great Civil War, no parallel can be found in the history of any other nation. And it was not, be it remembered, the work of a capricious and cruel despot; it was the tyranny of a solemn legislative assembly. Hypocrisy had some share in the proceeding, very likely; but in the main the Puritanism of the time was sincere even to its frenzies of intolerance. Good men and true held that they were ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... fought his own way up from country home to college hall, and from college hall to the House of Representatives, and from House of Representatives to the Senate Chamber, and from the Senate Chamber to the Presidential chair. Why should anyone want to kill him? He was not a despot who had been treading on the rights of the people. There was nothing of the Nero or the Robespierre in him. He had wronged no man. He was free and happy himself, and wanted all the world free and ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... he was asked, and he was the chief contributor to the public fountain under the big elm. If he carefully, or even jealously guarded his own interests, and held the leading law firm in the hollow of his hand, he was not oppressive, to the general knowledge. He was a despot, perhaps, but he was Blackstone's ideal of the head of a state, a good despot. In all his family relations he was of the exemplary perfection which most other men attain only on their tombstones, and I had found him the best of neighbors. There were some shadows of diffidence ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... religion, ethics, and constitutional government, any counterfeit could impose on them. Any atheist could pass himself off on them as a bishop, any anarchist as a judge, any despot as a Whig, any sentimental socialist as a Tory, any philtre-monger or witch-finder as a man of science, any phrase-maker as a statesman. Those who did not believe the story of Jonah and the great fish were all the readier to believe that metals can be transmuted ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... your mind! Despot!" roared Razumihin; but Raskolnikov did not and perhaps could not answer. He lay down on the sofa, and turned to the wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna looked with interest at Razumihin; her black eyes flashed; Razumihin ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the shattered barquenteen The black frieze-coated sailors bore Their dying despot to the shore And ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... the conduct of Napoleon in Paris less indicative of war; ambition being conspicuous in every movement. Some of his measures were prudent and salutary, but many of them were unprincipled, unjust, and even criminal. His aim was to be the despot and sole ruler of France; not to be the venerated head of a great and free people. His first act exhibited the despot in lively characters. This was to put the press in chains: Fouche, with an army of "Arguses ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the Gulf. And when we do, the world community will have sent an enduring warning to any dictator or despot, present or future, who contemplates ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... quivered, the veins stood out in knots on his neck and forehead, and his fingers closed convulsively as though they were grasping the handle of a spear. Presently the rage passed away—for as well might a man be wroth with fate as with a Zulu despot—to be succeeded by a look of the most hopeless misery. The proud dark eyes grew dull, the copper-coloured face sank in and turned ashen, the mouth drooped, and down one corner of it there trickled a little line of blood springing from the lip bitten ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... three hundred thousand men ready to crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the three years I have been here, in every one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts, and a great deal more blood was spilt. In Turkey, where the sole nod of the despot is death, insurrections are the events of every day. Compare again the ferocious depredations of their insurgents, with the order, the moderation, and the almost self-extinguishment of ours. And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the government, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the beautiful house in which it is lodged. For a Minister who loves an arbitrary and single-handed authority the India Office is the most attractive of all. The Secretary of State for India, is (except in financial matters, where he is controlled by his Council) a pure despot. He has the Viceroy at the end of a telegraph-wire, and the Queen's three hundred millions of Indian subjects under his thumb. His salary is not voted by the House of Commons; very few M.P.'s care a rap about India; and he is practically free from Parliamentary control. The Foreign ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... cruelty of the monarch. To the firm establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it we must attribute the frequent civil wars through which an Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to the princes of the reigning house; and, as soon as the fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the sword and the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! O that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... on the sea had been delightful to her. Her husband, without being brutal, was rough with her, as a man who is the despot of his shop is apt to be rough, without anger or hatred; to such men to give an order is to swear. He controlled himself in the presence of strangers, but in private he let loose and gave himself terrible vent, though he was himself ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... this servile language was addressed was a hateful despot, who stands marked in the history of Virginia for his oppressive administration, his arrogance, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... despot and victim; farewell, Asia, land of satrap and slave; farewell, Europe, land of monarch and subject: welcome, broad, varied, exhaustless New World, spreading inviting fields before longing eyes that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for they will never attack a living creature unless it is weak from illness. Sometimes they steal a baby, never killing it outright, but carrying it away to their dens to starve it to death before mutilating its body. If the courage of this beast equalled his strength, he would be the despot of the desert. But he is like his fellow workman, the jackal, cowardly ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... welcomed them within their gates, with an insolence that was hard to be borne by descendants of the Abencerrages and other noble houses of Granada. Salim, the Arab Sheykh, was the first to feel the despot's power: he was murdered in his bath—it was said by the Corsair himself. In their alarm, the Algerines secretly made common cause with the soldiers of the Penon, and a general rising was planned; but one day at Friday prayers Barbarossa let the crowded congregation know that their designs were ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... even the birds would not approach them! Then I understood that I saw before me that detestable thing of which I had often heard as the most prominent object in the typical African native town or village, the "crucifixion tree," upon which the petty despot who rules over that particular community is wont summarily to put to a cruel and lingering death such of his subjects as may be unfortunate enough to offend him! In some cases, I believe, the monarch is content to cause his victims to be securely lashed ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... pamphlets and elaborate series of letters in the newspapers, signed by such names as Cato, Agrippa, A Countryman. They declared that Congress would overpower the states, that the President would become a despot, that the Courts would destroy liberty; and they insisted that amendments should be made, guaranteeing liberty of speech, freedom of the press, trial by jury, no quartering of troops in time of peace, liberty of conscience. Read McMaster's History of the People ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... and ingenuity; his accounts of his condition often sufficient to bring the tears into the manliest eyes; and his ceaseless and vain efforts to procure his liberation mortifying when we think of himself, and exasperating when we think of the petty despot who detained him in so long, so degrading, and so worse than useless ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... the vain exercise of power which heaped up the great pyramid to gratify the pride of a despot with a giant sepulchre; for many great harbors, many important lines of internal communication, in the civilized world, now exhibit works which in volume and weight of material surpass the vastest remains of ancient architectural art, and demand the exercise of far greater constructive skill ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... for his rude genius and energy, that country might have still been utterly barbarous. Yet would it be reasonable to say that the Russian people ought always, to the end of time, to be despotically governed, because the Czar Peter was a despot? Let us remember that the government and the society act and react on each other. Sometimes the government is in advance of the society, and hurries the society forward. So urged, the society gains on the government, comes up with the government, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he said heavily, seeming to sink more deeply into his chair. "Very clever." He shifted his eyes to the women who stood about him. "You may go," he said indifferently. His tone was exactly that of a despot dismissing his slaves. Two of them colored with instinctive resentment. His eyes lingered an instant on the third. Her face had showed only a passionate relief. "You, Senhora," he said heavily, "may ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... nice enough,—the money,— When the weather's fierce and blue And the blankets of its comfort Come and warm the heart of you! But it soon demands the minutes Every hour and day and week, With the gall of angry despot And a most unmeasured cheek; So I'm reconciled to leave it and its tyrannies resign For the ways of love and laughter with the baby's ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... very well, no doubt, in depriving these people of effective strength in war; for at this time the head chief of the Minnetaree villages was a man who, given opportunity, would have made the river run red with the blood of his enemies. This was Le Borgne, a one-eyed old despot, of surpassing cruelty and bloodthirstiness, whose very name, even in his present position, would compel a shiver of apprehension. A chief such as he, at the head of forces matched to his ferocious desires, would have changed the history ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... to remove the choice of ministers from parliament have not adequately considered what a parliament is. When you establish a predominant parliament you give over the rule of the country to a despot who has unlimited time and unlimited vanity. Every public department is liable to attack. It is helpless in parliament if it has no authorised defender. The heads of departments cannot satisfactorily be put up for the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... shift of wind; and he also wondered (quite audibly), when we should make the land. I afterwards persuaded him to allow that a monikin was but a monikin, after all, whether he had the advantages of universal suffrage, or lived under a despot. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... The despot treads thy sacred sands, Thy pines give shelter to his bands, Thy sons stand by with idle hands, Carolina! He breathes at ease thy airs of balm, He scorns the lances of thy palm; Oh! who shall break thy craven calm, Carolina! Thy ancient fame is growing dim, A spot is on thy garment's ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... that he was in reality a son of Philip himself. However, he rose at court, became a private friend of young Alexander, and at last his Somatophylax, some sort of Colonel of the Life Guards. And from thence he rose rapidly, till after his great master's death he found himself despot of Egypt. ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... a failure at every other profession he turned photographer; now he has himself elected a deputy. A government thus composed will always be sadly lacking, incapable of evil as well as of good. On the other hand, a despot, if he be stupid, can do a lot of harm, and, if he be intelligent (a thing which is very scarce), he ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... every passion and every action is in its nature indifferent, that right and wrong exist only in the state, that the will of a despot is to determine what is moral and what immoral, has given just offense. Moreover, this was not, in fact, Hobbes's deepest conviction. Even without ascribing great importance to isolated statements,[1] it must be admitted that his doctrine was ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... faint, Bowed to the earth with chains of ravished gold, With feet unsandaled, walked Zenobia, Slave to the craven tyrant's cruelty. Neither her peerless beauty, nor her sex, Nor yet her grievous sufferings could melt The despot's stony heart. She, who surpassed Her conqueror in all the qualities Of head or heart which crown humanity With nobleness and high preeminence— She, whose misfortunes in a glorious cause, And not her errors, had achieved her ruin— Burdened with ignominy and disgrace For her resplendent ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... is one of the survivors, with Egypt, China and India, of the infancy of mankind. It is at the mercy of the cruel despot of the North. With a lineage unrivalled for purity, a religious sentiment and ethics drawn out of the glory and greatness of Mount Sinai ... with an eternal influence from its law-givers, prophets, and psalmists never vouchsafed ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... 'You mustn't think... don't imagine... I see one must talk to you in a different manner. Listen; I understand your position. You are frightened, upset.... Pull yourself together. At this moment I must seem to you a monster... a despot. But put yourself in my position too; how could I help being indignant, saying too much? And for all that I have shown you that I am not a monster, that I too have a heart. Remember how I treated you on ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... trampled down: the country-side a miserable waste. No less revolting to all human feeling was the stretch of road which the people of Cremona had strewn with laurel-leaves and roses, erecting altars and sacrificing victims as if in honour of an Oriental despot.[384] The rejoicings of the moment soon turned to their destruction.[385] Valens and Caecina were in attendance and showed Vitellius over the battle-field: this was where their legions had charged: the cavalry took the field from here: this was where the auxiliaries ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... white finger in his buttonhole, and stood looking in his face with a saucy gaze. Clarence yielded at once. His small despot knew very well how to rule him and to put down such short-lived attempts at insubordination ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... would willingly labor and save, by taxing them ad misericordiam for the most laudable philanthropic objects. For it makes not the smallest difference to the motives of the thrifty and industrious part of mankind whether their fiscal oppressor be an Eastern despot, or a feudal baron, or a democratic legislature, and whether they are taxed for the benefit of a corporation called Society or for the advantage of an individual styled King or Lord," writes Sir Henry Maine. In short it matters not in the least what you baptize oppression, ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... as well as her aunt, knew that this top held four teaspoonsful of tea. Lady John filled it once, filled it twice, and turned the contents out each time into the gaping pot. Then, absent-mindedly, she paused, eyeing the approaching party,—that genial silver-haired despot, her husband, walking with Lord Borrodaile, the gawky girl between them, except when she paused to practise a drive. The fourth person, a short, compactly knit man, was lounging along several paces behind, but every now and then energetically shouting out his share in the conversation. The ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... To the jaundiced eye, objects appear discolored. To a mind thoroughly depraved, the source of truth may seem distorted. Therefore the hope of the Epicure—therefore the portrait which some have drawn of the divine sovereign, rather resembling an earthly despot, than the Jehovah of the bible! YET God is visible in his works and ways. "They are fools and without excuse, who say, there is no God." And as far as God appears in the works of creation and providence, he appears as he is. Passion, prejudice, or depravity may disfigure or ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... Gungadhura's vanity to have an Englishman in his employ; but Tom Tripe never knew from one day to another what his next reception would be. On occasion it would suit the despot's sense of humor to snub and slight the veteran soldier of a said-to-be superior race; and he would choose to do that when there was least excuse for it. On the other hand, he recognized Tom as almost indispensable; he ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... rapidly developed in Commodus into fixed characteristics. He had become what he remained until his end, an odd mingling of loutish, peevish school-boy, easy-going, self-indulgent athlete and superstitious, suspicious despot. ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Major-Generals should be Alexander Hamilton, Inspector-General; Charles C. Pinckney, who was still in Europe; and Henry Knox. But a change came over the passions of France; Napoleon Bonaparte, the new despot who had taken control of that hysterical republic for himself, was now aspiring to something higher and larger than the humiliation of the United States and his menace ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... about a better social order and a freer life. They were social idealists. But they based their ideals on trust in the common man and the readiness to make adjustments, not on the rule of a benevolent despot ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... emperor were characterized by attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to the same common level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste for building, magnificent shows, and above all a constant and liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... added proof of the accuracy of his presentiments, but once understood by England there was no faltering. Prussia, Austria, the Czar, all acknowledged the new Empire, and made peace or alliance with its despot, but from the rupture of the Peace of Amiens England waged a war without truce ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... which he did with a beating heart, he found the despot of a hundred subjects sitting behind a desk, with his hat on, a brow superciliously severe, and his nose crimped into a most cutting and vinegar curl. The truth was, the master knew the character of the curate, and felt that because he had taken Jemmy under his protection, no opportunity ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... I, were I a despot, quite benevolent, of course, Armed with the last developments of high-explosive force, I'd build a bigger "Bertha," and discharge it in the void Crammed with the novelists who brood on Messrs. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... had reached his palace in the capital. Roman despot was never more courted nor more feared; but death was coming fast to close his triumphant career. A mortal malady wasted him: yet the cardinal abated nothing of his pride, nor of his vindictiveness. He exiled some of the king's personal and cherished officers; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... for the wife, that saying has a double meaning. The husband does not in any way resemble the public politician. This great citizen, so liberal to the world about him, so kindly inspired with love for his native place, is a despot in his own house, and utterly devoid of conjugal affection. This man, so profoundly astute, hypocritical, and sly; this Cromwell of the Val-Noble,—behaves in his home as he behaves to the aristocracy, whom he caresses in hopes to throttle them. Like his friend Bernadotte, he wears a velvet glove ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... growth, invaded, hewed down, and renewed, to hear again the sound of the axe, set afire by a thousand accidents, burning upon its own funeral pyres, all its primeval glory withered. The forest of old Virginia was jocund and powerful, eternally young and eternally old. The forest was Despot in the ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... unpromising and unprofitable enterprise. He, who was himself a barbarian, could only accomplish his purpose by means of aid from outside, by the instrumentality of those who had experience of a more advanced order of things. The borrowed forces could only be applied by the powers of a despot. That power, moreover, was already provided. Muscovy had never been governed otherwise than by irresponsible and irresistible authority. That authority had been inactive and not deeply felt. Now the same authority interfered to alter almost everything, ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... property in the Charente, where he spent the summer, and passed the rest of the time in Paris. Having instincts for government which he could not satisfy, he laid the blame for this on his family and on life, and thus thwarted, his character had grown tyrannical so that he acted the despot unconsciously to those nearest to him, as a right and duty that could not be disputed. The word tolerance had no meaning for him; for he could not make a mistake. Nevertheless he possessed intelligence, and moral vigour; he even had a heart, but all wrapped about ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... that tyrannical master who kills us, damns us, or saves us, according to His pleasure. The God of Jesus is our Father. We hear Him in listening to the gentle inspiration which cries within us, "Abba, Father."[2] The God of Jesus is not the partial despot who has chosen Israel for His people, and specially protects them. He is the God of humanity. Jesus was not a patriot, like the Maccabees; or a theocrat, like Judas the Gaulonite. Boldly raising himself above the prejudices of his nation, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... air of an amiable despot Manx nodded his venerable head. Up went the signal, and in a few minutes the fleet was reduced to order. Every smack swept round into position, and, bending over on the same tack, they all rushed like a shoal of startled minnows, away in the same direction—the ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... era. Many English kings had occasionally committed unconstitutional acts; but none had ever systematically attempted to make himself a despot, and to reduce the Parliament to a nullity. Such was the end which Charles distinctly proposed to himself. From March, 1629, to April, 1640, the Houses were not convoked. Never in our history had there been an interval of eleven ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... don't mean this guy's a tyrant or despot," he added quickly. "These people are pretty proud. They wouldn't like a dictator—as such. But the Korental doesn't need force to govern his people. They do things his way because ... well, it's ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... first it would appear that the bailiff had gone upon his old plan, shrugging up his shoulders to the men at the master's meanness, while he praised to the landlord the condition of his tenants; but this could not long deceive, so he turned instanter on another tack; he assumed the despot, issuing authoritative edicts, which no one dared to disobey; he made the labourer hide his needs, and intercepted at its source the lord's benevolence; he began to be found out, so the bolder spirits said, in filching with both hands from man and master; and, to the mind ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... since that period had it been made in vain. The scholars had heard of the glorious feats of their forefathers in their boyish years, when they set the lash of the master at defiance for days together. Now, alas! all was changed; the master, in the opinion of the boys, reigned a despot absolute and uncontrolled; the merciless cruelty of his rod, and the heaviness of his tasks, were insupportable. The accustomed holidays had been rescinded; the usual Christmas feast reduced to a non-entity, and the chartered rights of the scholars ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... been alive when Spinola won for him the great victory of Ostend, "he would have felt it his duty to make immediate arrangements for poisoning him." Doubtless the imputation is sufficiently justified by what we know of Philip; but it is uncalled for. We do not care to hear about what the despot might have done. We know what he did do, and the record is sufficiently damning. There is no harm in our giving the Devil his due, or as Llorente wittily says, "Il ne faut ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... said, "has solved one of the most difficult problems of statesmanship. He has been able, successfully and satisfactorily, to administer, amidst many difficulties, a colonial government over a free people. This is an easy task where the commands of a despot are law to his obedient servants, but not so in a colony where the people feel that they possess the rights and privileges of native-born Britons. Under his enlightened government, Her Majesty's North American provinces have realized the blessings of a wise, prudent ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... admirably rendered into idiomatic English. And the substance of the Cyropaedia, which is in fact a political romance, describing the education of the ideal ruler, trained to rule as a benevolent despot over his admiring and willing subjects, should add a further element of enjoyment for the reader of this famous book ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... silent infant, and, almost before Holden could realise that he was in the world, developed into a small gold-coloured little god and unquestioned despot of the house overlooking the city. Those were months of absolute happiness to Holden and Ameera—happiness withdrawn from the world, shut in behind the wooden gate that Pir Khan guarded. By day Holden did his work with an immense pity for such as were not so fortunate as himself, and a sympathy ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... Esdale, "although only a Fakir, may be as effectual as that of persons of more essential consequence. And, to say the truth, where the caprice of a despot is the question in debate, there is no knowing upon what it is best to reckon.—Take my advice, my dear Hartley, leave this poor girl to her fate. After all, by placing yourself in an attitude of endeavouring to save her, it is ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... rivals, who, exiled by sexual jealousy from his own and the other similar hearth-homes, would come, with each returning year, more and more to be feared. An ever-recurring and growing terror would dog each step of the solitary paternal despot, and necessitate an unceasing watchfulness against danger, and even an anticipation of death. For when old age, or sickness decreased his power of holding his own, then the tables would be turned, and the younger men, so hardly oppressed, would ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... peace, and yet now she would have given vast sums could she have seen her antechamber full again. She knew that Friedrich Wilhelm's visit would terminate on the morning following the wild-boar sticking in the Kernen forest. Would he go, this rough, virtue-loving despot? She remembered how he had tarried four whole weeks at Dresden when he had paid a visit to Augustus the Strong some years before. And this in spite of his disapproval of the reigning favourite, the Countess Orzelska, and the many lesser ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... landed property in our own country. Not that any English economist would go so far as to advocate the French system of compulsory subdivision, which owes its existence in great measure to the policy of the first Napoleon,—who took care, with the instinct of a true despot, to secure the solitary power of the throne against the growth of an independent class of wealthy proprietors. All that English economists contemplate is the abolition of primogeniture and entail. I must not found any conclusion on observations so partial and cursory ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... among them is still essentially democratic or oligarchic, and chieftainship exists only in embryo. Thus Sir William MacGregor tells us that in British New Guinea no one has ever arisen wise enough, bold enough, and strong enough to become the despot even of a single district. "The nearest approach to this has been the very distant one of some person becoming a renowned wizard; but that has only resulted in levying a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... poisoner, Marquise de Brinvilliers, must have suggested to Dumas his later portrait of Miladi, in the Three Musketeers, the mast celebrated of his woman characters. The incredible cruelties of Ali Pacha, the Turkish despot, should not be charged entirely to Dumas, as he is said to have been largely aided in this by one ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... free region of thought and action Browning brought us long ago. Tennyson did not, save at intervals when the poet over-rode the man. This differentiates the men. But it also tells us why Browning was not read fifty years ago, when social conventions were tyrannous and respectability a despot, and why he has been read for the last fifteen years ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... best, of his workpeople, his servants, of this poor lad whom the prosecution had placed in the box as a witness against his brother, that this man's life was a long lie; that, smiling and pleasant as he appeared, he was a tyrant, a petty despot in his family, a hard master to his hands, a cruel master in his house, What wonder that between this lad and such a stepfather as this there was no love lost. There were scores, ay and thousands of boys in England who similarly hated their stepfathers, and was ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... of course, can only be done when there is one single mind directing the whole production. The facts of art are diverse, but the essence of artistic effect is unity. Monarchy, Anarchy, and Republicanism may contend for the government of nations; but a theatre should be in the power of a cultured despot. There may be division of labour, but there must be no division of mind. Whoever understands the costume of an age understands of necessity its architecture and its surroundings also, and it is easy to see from the chairs of a century whether it was a century of crinolines or not. In fact, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... Proconsuls.—This governor, whom no one resisted, was a true despot. He made arrests, cast into prison, beat with rods, or executed those who displeased him. The following is one of a thousand of these caprices of the governor as a Roman orator relates it: "At last the consul came to Termini, where his wife took a fancy to bathe in the men's bath. All ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... the despots' Despot. All must bide, Later or soon, the message of his might; Princes and potentates their heads must hide, Touched by the awful sigil of his right; Beside the Kaiser he at eve doth wait And pours a potion in his cup of state; The stately Queen his bidding must obey; No keen-eyed Cardinal shall him affray; ...
— The Dance of Death • Hans Holbein
... only legislate, but, when in a state of irritation or excitement, they defy even legislation, that they are not to be compared to restricted sovereigns, but to despots, whose will and caprice are law. The vices of the court of a despot are, therefore, practised upon the people; for the people become as it were the court, to whom those in authority, or those who would be in authority, submissively bend the knee. A despot is not likely ever to hear the ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... this might have been done, and the slave-trade crushed completely. It will be more difficult now, since the despot of France has put the stamp of his licence on the inhuman trade, and the slave-dealer is no longer an outlaw. It would be a very different affair to hang to the yard-arm some French ruffian, bearing his ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... divine command swelling in his heart, Moses speaks his last word to Pharaoh, towering above him in righteous wrath, and dwindling his empty threats into nothingness. What a contrast between the impotent rage of the despot, with his vain threat, 'Thou shalt die,' and the unblenching boldness of the man with God at his back! One cannot but note in Moses' prediction of the last plague the solemn enlargement on the details of the widespread calamity, which is not unfeeling gloating ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... a queen before, she now became a despot of the most arbitrary sort. She was not patient by nature, and as to her habits of obedience, they seemed broken as well as her leg. There was no limit to her exactions. Her brothers she treated like worthless slaves, and they soon learned to keep out of her reach, ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... Gordon, and the danger to which he was exposed. But the Khedive was too much occupied to attend to these matters, or to comply with Gordon's request to send a regiment and a man-of-war to Massowah, as soon as the Abyssinian despot made him to all intents and purposes a prisoner. The neglect to make that demonstration not only increased the very considerable personal danger in which Gordon was placed during the whole of his mission, but it also exposed Massowah to the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... begins again, God alone knows where France will be before you and I are in our graves. They have drained all our patience, and our pockets very nearly; but they have scarcely put a tap into our energy and endurance. But what are they? A gang of slaves, rammed into the cannon by a Despot." ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... think there is little danger that the Government may 'crystallize into a military despotism.' Would supplies be granted by Congress; or, if granted, would not the people of a country which has sprung to arms only to defend a free government, be strong enough to resist any single military despot? Let the history of the present rebellion, in which a population of only eight millions, and that in the least defensible States of the Union, has resisted for nearly three years the combined power of all the other States, with a population of more than twenty millions, answer the question. The Atlantic ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... benignant smile, "despot, demagogue, dictator, oligarch, lord of the roost and cock of the walk! It's a great thing to be monarch ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... would burn his idols. He proved himself to be sincere, for, as we have seen, he persuaded all his people to do likewise. I use the word "persuaded" advisedly, for, like all the other Feejee chiefs, Tararo was a despot, and might have commanded obedience to his wishes; but he entered so readily into the spirit of the new faith that he perceived at once the impropriety of using constraint in the propagation of it. He set the example, ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... that can understand the essential aim of society, and then urge it forward, and at the same time keep it well in hand on the roads that lead thereto, and such a man will soon seize and exercise the personal power almost of a despot, and people will not only make him welcome, but even celebrate his praises, for they do not quit the substance for the shadow, or sacrifice the end to the means. Such was the empire of Charlemagne. Among annalists and historians, some, treating him as a mere conqueror and despot, have ignored ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... derived some definite notions of how the Chinese advanced from the patriarchal to the feudal, from the submissive and monarchical to the emulous and democratic, finally to collapse under the overpowering grasp of a single Dictator or Despot, whose centralized system in the main, still survives; having also seen how the nucleus of China proper was encompassed on three sides by Tibetans, Tartars, Tunguses, Coreans, and by various ill-defined tribes to the south; let us see if ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... greater obstacles." Jewish blood flowed in his veins, and everything seemed against him, but he remembered the example of Joseph, who became prime minister of Egypt four thousand years before, and that of Daniel, who was prime minister to the greatest despot of the world five centuries before the birth of Christ. He pushed his way up through the lower classes, up through the middle classes, up through the upper classes, until he stood a master, self-poised upon the topmost round of political ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... exert themselves to restrain this corresponding right of their fellow men? Not by going to the magistrate to inform, or to the spiritual despot to obtain ecclesiastical penalties, but he resorts to methods, which, if successful, are in effect the most severe pains and penalties that can restrain ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... face of a TYRANT, if the necessity of the times should call for so noble an exertion. And how soon there may be such NECESSITY, GOD only knows. May HE grant them FORTITUDE as well as SOUND PRUDENCE in the day of TRIAL! He who can flatter a despot, or be flattered by him, without feeling the remonstrances of his own mind against it, may be remarkable for the guise and appearance of sanctity, but he has very little if any true religion - If he habitually allows himself in it, without any remorse, he is a hardened impenitent ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... from heaven for the despot," he replied, with another look into the Prince's eyes which brought him to the conclusion that the sooner his presence on board the Grashna was dispensed with the better for his plans. There was a sense of quiet mastery in Franklin ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... road ascends in zigzags; such a picture creates for the moment a presumption that you are in Italy, and even leads you to believe that if you mount the winding road you will come to an old town-wall, an expanse of creviced brownness, and pass under a gateway surmounted by the arms of a mediaeval despot. Why I should find it a pleasure in France to imagine myself in Italy, is more than I can say; the illusion has never lasted long enough to be analysed. From the bottom of its perch Poitiers looks large and high; and indeed, the evening I reached it, the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... course of time, grew to be very proud of her master, the despot of Power-house Gully. She revealed her pride every time she fell in with acquaintances on the way to church. In reply to an oft-repeated question as to why Mr. Fry did not go to church with her any longer, she ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... that you did not. Of course, Captain Munday, on board your own ship you are a despot, and I must say that you have made everything very pleasant for us. But I don't think even your position entitles you to talk to me about my private affairs,—or about hers. You say you know nothing. Is it manly to repeat what one hears about a poor forlorn woman?' Then the Captain ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... edicts. His sense of justice, however, kindled none the less at this final piece of tyranny. He blazed and fumed indignantly on behalf of his sisters, in the sanctuary of that little study,—a spot where the despot seldom set foot; and out of this comparatively trivial cause had sprung a mighty resolution, which he and she whom he proudly honoured as "sister and friend" had, after some girding of the loins, repaired to the front parlour this evening ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... often in politics, and in other affairs of life as well. If a man takes money from me without my consent, he steals, but if I agree to his taking it, the transaction becomes a gift or a loan. A despotic government steals, a constitutional one borrows or receives free offerings. The fact that the despot pays interest on a part of what he steals raises him to the position of the magnanimous brigand who leaves his victims just enough money to carry them to the nearest town. Possibly it is after all a quibble of definitions, and the difference may not be so great as it seems at ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... at all. But irrational despotism is always democratic, because it is the ordinary man enthroned. The worst form of slavery is that which is called Caesarism, or the choice of some bold or brilliant man as despot because he is suitable. For that means that men choose a representative, not because he represents them, but because he does not. Men trust an ordinary man like George III or William IV. because they are themselves ordinary men and understand him. ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... send an ambassador to the United States. Let him announce to the Americans that the National Convention of France, from pure friendship to America, has consented to respite the sentence of Louis. Ah, Citizens, do not give the despot of England the pleasure of seeing sent to the scaffold the man who helped my beloved brethren of America to free themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... had a benevolent despot I believe that he ought to set aside an arbitrary sum which would represent the limit that we as a nation could lend ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... for myself the only consciousness in the world, and all the world besides was merely a variety of material and impression, to be observed and known, to be interested in and delighted with. I was thus lonely, lonely as a despot, when Nora, your sister, appeared to me, and instantly I became aware there was another consciousness in the world as great as, or greater than, my own,—another person than myself, a person of supreme beauty and intelligence ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... palace a great mosque is being built as a mausoleum for Mehemet Ali. The despot probably reckons on having some years yet to live, for much remains to be done before the beautiful structure is completed. The pillars and the walls of the mosque are covered with the most splendid ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... joy o'erflow, Hurra, Hurra, Hurra, We hail the Despot's overthrow, Hurra, Hurra, Hurra, No more he'll raise the gory lash, And sink it deep in human flesh, Hurra, Hurra, Hurra, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... immediately by an extensive and complete despotism. Millions of men soon became the abject slaves of an irresponsible monarch. Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, appear at once in history as powerful states at the mercy of a despot whose will was law. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... for the facts. In the illustration taken from Burke, the known fact is that neither Turkey nor Spain can govern their distant provinces despotically. The general law is that no country can govern a distant dependency harshly. The fact proved is that England cannot play the despot with ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... lived with his courtiers, not as a despot among his slaves, but as the most accomplished of gentlemen among his associates. The social equality was, however, always guarded from abuse by the most punctilious observance, on their side, of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... history tell us of the progress and development of man through various steps and ages, known by various names. We learn of the stone age, the bronze, and the iron age. We can see the different steps in the growth of the forms of government; how anarchy was put down by the strong arm of the despot, of the growth of aristocracy, of limited monarchies and of parliaments, and ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... says, no one in France regretted the Batavian Republic when it was stricken from the roll of history by the will of a despot; or, rather, the Parisians, in their occasionally exaggerated infatuation, fancied that the Dutch would be overjoyed to have ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... to possess several distinct and contradictory personalities, all strong but by no means all noble, which by a freak of fate were united in one man under one name, to make him by turns a hero, a fool, a Christian knight, a drunken despot and a philosophic Pagan. The Buddhist monks of the far East believe today that a man's individual self is often beset, possessed and dominated by all kinds of fragmentary personalities that altogether hide ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... ruined, whose nearest and dearest had suffered torture and death at his hands, would not let the matter rest. They banded themselves into a society which should never be dissolved until the work was done. It was my part after we had discovered in the transformed Henderson the fallen despot, to attach myself to his household and keep the others in touch with his movements. This I was able to do by securing the position of governess in his family. He little knew that the woman who faced him at every meal was the woman whose husband he had hurried at an hour's notice into eternity. ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... history the action of those men who, in their honest zeal for freedom, inflamed somewhat by political strife, turned against their own country, when it was in truth the Champion of Freedom, and approved of a military despot of the most ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Liberalism with which our present conception of the State is in full sympathy. The conception of the common good as it has been explained can be realized in its fullness only through the common will. There are, of course, elements of value in the good government of a benevolent despot or of a fatherly aristocracy. Within any peaceful order there is room for many good things to flourish. But the full fruit of social progress is only to be reaped by a society in which the generality of men and women are not only passive recipients but practical contributors. To ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... estimates during long years, and sometimes divided and dispersed by his strokes, they, the rabble, will trample on him, like the Lilliputians on Gulliver, incapable of estimating his stature, and eternity and history will speedily bury him, not like a despot, in Egyptian porphyry, but ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... pouring wine over the animal slain by them in the hunt. The act is intended to secure divine favor towards a deed which involved the destruction of something that by all ancient nations was held sacred, namely, life. Even a despot of Assyria felt that to wantonly destroy life could not be safely undertaken without making sure of the consent of the gods. Significantly enough, Ashurbanabal offers his libations after the lion or bull hunts to Ishtar as the "goddess of battle."[1494] The animal is sanctified by being devoted to ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... the triumph of an individual over an average. The tyranny of the specialistic oligarchy is making itself felt to-day, and I should like to fortify the revolutionary spirit of liberty, whose boast it is to detest tyranny in all its forms, whether it is the tyranny of an enlightened despot, or the tyranny of a virtuous oligarchy, or the tyranny ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... enough in the general signification of the term, they deemed to be sovereign; and they belonged to a numerous class, who view disobedience to the sovereign in a democracy, although it be in his illegal caprices, very much as the subject of a despot views disobedience to ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Court were always much the same. Some member of the society conspicuous for rank or wit of style, or for a combination of these qualities, was elected King of the Revel, and until the close of the long frolic he was despot and sole master of the position—so long as he did not disregard a few not vexatious conditions by which, the benchers limited his authority. He surrounded himself with a mock court, exacted homage from barristers and students, made proclamations to his loyal ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... parcelled out again and placed under the hated yoke of Austria. Soldiers from Piedmont and Lombardy, from Venice and Naples, Parma and Modena, had fought side by side, sharing the glory of a military despot and willing to endure a tyranny that gave them a firm administration and a share of justice. They saw that prosperity for their land would follow the more regular taxation and the abolition of the social privileges oppressive to the peasants. They ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... up in the sky, And the linnet trembled, but could not fly; With a swoop to the earth the eagle fell, And rose up anon with a savage yell. The birds in the woodlands dared not move. What a despot ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... Best Polity."—Every student who has access to Mills' Representative Government should read the chapter with the heading at the beginning of this paragraph. He combats the proposition, "if a good despot could be insured, despotic monarchy would be the best form of government." Granting that much good might be done, he shows that the very passivity of the people must result in deterioration, "that is, if the nation had ever attained anything to decline from." On the other ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... pestilence and danger, Told of cottages all empty, And of mansions grim and silent, Of the hearthstones all deserted, All the happy, quiet hearthstones. In this sad and fearful era, In the year of eighteen hundred Three and thirty, came a despot, More oppressive in his power Than the hosts of foreign armies, More insatiate in his passion Than the simoon of the desert. Came a despot whose invasion Struck the heart all dumb with terror, Drove ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... delight of Runjeet was extreme, but of short duration,—the lapidary to whom he gave orders to mount his new acquisition pronouncing it to be merely a bit of crystal. The mortification and rage of the despot were unbounded. He immediately caused the palace of the King of Cabul to be invested, and ransacked from top to bottom. But for a long while all search was vain; at last a slave betrayed the secret;—the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... believe that saying, because I believe another one to the effect that hell is paved with benevolence, which most people, the proverb being too deep for them, misinterpret as unfulfilled intentions. As if a benevolent despot might not by any error of judgment destroy his kingdom, and then say, like Romeo when he got his friend killed, 'I thought all for the best!' Excuse my rambling. I meant to say, in short, that though you are benevolent and judicious you are ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... become his own king. Unhappy he who shall dare to command him, and shall offer, as his authority, only the vote of the majority; for, sooner or later, the minority will become the majority, and this imprudent despot will be overthrown, and all ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Man battled, whom we call Nature, because we know no better name, Goddess of gentleness and torture-flame, Still are you despot; still are we the thrall; Still we can only wait what Fate may fall From your wild pinions that no man can tame. Nor gold or gain, nor battlement or wall Shall guard us from the ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... make any difference to Billie that her husband had sympathized with Capellette's greatest despot and worst failure? Did it make any difference to Van that Billie approved when the woman she was allied with discarded the despot for ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... granted that the policy has made her oppressive to the Finns, the Poles—though the Russian Poles feel far less oppressed than do the Prussian Poles. But it is a mere historic fact, that if Russia has been a despot to some small nations, she has been a deliverer to others. She did, so far as in her lay, emancipate the Servians or the Montenegrins. But whom did Prussia ever emancipate—even by accident? It is, indeed, somewhat extraordinary that in the perpetual permutations of international politics ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... unalterably opposed to the papacy. After some consideration, therefore, she adopted the expedient of a compromise, the substance of which was that whatever was handsome and attractive in Catholicism was to be retained, and only those technical points dropped which made the Pope the despot of the Church. In ordinary times this would have answered very well; human nature likes to eat its cake and have it too; but this time was anything but ordinary. The reaction from old to new ways of thinking, and the unforgotten persecutions of Mary, had made men very ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... of this great man. Moses, could not look on and see the helpless suffer at the hands of another, even though it brought death to himself. Forgetful of his own safety, defying the absolute power and authority of this despot, so far as it lay in his power, against all these odds he redressed the wrong of a fellow creature. God saw in Moses a man whom He could use. From the golden throne he sought a retreat, and for forty years was an humble ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... practically decided by the first great battle. The nations yielded without further struggle. Strangers to freedom, crushed by military absolutism, the prostration of each and all to an irresponsible despot had paralysed individual energy. Spain, on the other hand, without an army and without a ruler, but deriving new strength from each successive defeat, first taught Napoleon that he was not invincible. And the same spirit of liberty which inspired the people of the Peninsula ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... D. 1294, Boniface VIII. became Pope. From his accession Hallam dates the decline of the Papacy, which, for "more than two centuries, had been on throne of the earth, and reigned despot of the world."—Dowling. This was 1260 years from the death of Peter,—the earliest time from which they can date. His bull of excommunication against Philip of France, being disregarded by that monarch, who adroitly made the Pope his prisoner, his rage brought on a fever, which caused his ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... is at our gates. Vaterland is in danger: my weiss is then for war. France, led by a despot, is about to desecrate the Rhine. His imperial bees are swarming, but we shall send him back with his bees in his bonnet, and a bee's mark (BISMARCK) on the end of his nasal organ. France wars for conquest; Prussia never. When FREDERICK the Great captured ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... of the fat rewards that would be ours when the oppressor should be overthrown and the wise and generous Valdevia in his seat. Then Kearny leaped to his feet and wrung my hand with the strength of a roustabout. He was mine, he said, till the last minion of the hated despot was hurled from the highest peaks of the Cordilleras ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Inspector-General became a sort of comedy-epic in the land of the Czars, the land where each petty town-governor is almost an absolute despot, regulating his persecutions and extortions according to the sage saying of the town-governor in the play, "That's the way God made the world, and the Voltairean free-thinkers can talk against it all they like, it won't do any good." ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... frantic charge and tenfold odds, in vain! And what avails thee that, for CAMERON slain, Wild from his plaided ranks the yell was given - Vengeance and grief gave mountain-range the rein, And, at the bloody spear-point headlong driven, Thy Despot's giant guards fled like the rack ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland! His touch is at thy temple door, Maryland! Avenge the patriotic gore That flecked the streets of Baltimore, And be the battle queen of yore, Maryland! ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy |
