"Oppress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by which the proprietor might oppress his peasants, and it will be readily understood that they were very considerable and very elastic. By law he had the power to impose any dues in labour or money which he might think fit, and in all cases the serfs were ordered to be docile ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... seeking to remove the legal disabilities which now oppress woman as wife and mother, the friends of woman suffrage are not seeking to undermine or destroy the sanctity of the marriage relation, but to ennoble marriage, making the obligations and responsibilities of the contract mutual and equal for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... When with elated hearts we join'd your train, Ye Sun-born virgins! on the road of Truth. Then we could still enjoy, then neither thought Nor outward things were clos'd and dead to us, But we receiv'd the shock of mighty thoughts On simple minds with a pure natural joy; And if the sacred load oppress'd our brain, We had the power to feel the pressure eas'd. The brow unbound, the thoughts flow free again, In the delightful commerce of the world. We had not lost our balance then, nor grown Thought's slaves and dead to ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... distress of this woman, whom he resolved to relieve; and in proportion as his commiseration was excited, his resentment rose against the miscreant, who seemed to have insinuated himself into the commission of the peace on purpose to harass and oppress his fellow-creatures. ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... before her departure. Miss Webster had met with a tenant for six weeks, and was in very good spirits, and very willing to take care of the Schombergs' goods, which, to tell the truth, were not likely to oppress her either in number or value, with the exception of one cherished article, one relic of former days—a good semi-grand piano, which M. Schomberg had purchased for his daughter, about a year before his death. Miss Webster looked ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... captured by command of Alexander, before whom he was brought, the king inquired how he dared to molest the seas. "How darest thou," replied he, "molest the earth? Because I am master only of a single galley, I am termed a robber; but you, who oppress the world with huge squadrons, are called a king and a conqueror. Would my fortune change I might become better; but as you are the more fortunate, so much are you the worse." "I will change thy fortune," said Alexander, "lest fortune should be blamed ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... sphinx. The monster which continued to oppress Thebes until such time as one of her victims should be able to answer the riddle she put to him. Oedipus answered her, and ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... self-seekers in their negotiations. "You know;" said he in a letter to his brothers, "that my intention has never been to seek my private advantage. I have only aspired for the liberty of the country, in conscience and in polity, which foreigners have sought to oppress. I have no other articles to propose, save that religion, reformed according to the Word of God, should be permitted, that then the commonwealth should be restored to its ancient liberty, and, to that end, that the Spaniards and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... village, at their own cost, to supply the wants of travellers, and the ancient custom is now adhered to, not in favour of travellers generally, but in favour of those who are deemed sufficiently powerful to enforce its observance. If the villagers therefore find a man waiving this right to oppress them, and offering coin for that which he is entitled to take without payment, they suppose at once that he is actuated by fear (fear of them, poor fellows!), and it is so delightful to them ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... his Two, who are all mute, so far as I can learn, and stand like criminals in the dock, feeling themselves unjustly condemned—gets more and more into conflagration, and cannot be distinctly reported. "MY name to such a thing! When was I found to oppress a poor man for love of a rich? To follow wiggeries and forms with solemn attention, careless what became of the internal fact? Act of 1566, allowing Gersdorf to make his Pond? Like enough;—and Arnold's loss of water, that ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... men. As soon as Enjolras folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to constrain this sinister rabble ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... all based upon that large defect in your race—the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... obtained "autonomy." You at Rome, I suppose, have men of high character in that capacity—Tupio the shoemaker and Vettius the broker! You seem to wish to know how I treat the publicani. I pet, indulge, compliment, and honour them: I contrive, however, that they oppress no one. The most surprising thing is that even Servilius maintained the rates of usury entered on their contracts. My line is this: I mirrie a day fairly distant, before which, if they have paid, I give out that I shall recognize only twelve per cent.: ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of me, Fanny," said Mr. Allison, when about parting with his companion, "as one who would oppress you with thoughts too serious for your years. I know the dangers that lie in your path of life, and only seek to guard you from evil. Oh! keep your spirit pure, and its vision clear. Remember what I have said, and ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... her," Katherine answered gravely, for poor Mrs. M'Crawney had made her heart ache that day, because of the terrible discomfort in which the poor woman was lying, and the homesickness for old Ireland which seemed to oppress her. ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... when we know First how vain this world below: When its darker thoughts oppress, Doubts perplex, and fears distress; When the earliest gleam is given Of the bright but distant heaven; Then thy fostering grace afford; Then, ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... sensible man will say that Governments do not often oppress the people under their care, so no sensible man will contend that Foreign Offices do not sometimes sin in the same way. But let us try to give an accurate picture of the work on which the British Foreign Office spends ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... have to suffer from, the enmity of our fellow-mortals, or whether we are persecuted by beings more powerful and more malevolent than ourselves? We know that we have to work out our salvation, and that we shall be judged according to our strength; if then there be evil spirits who delight to oppress man, there surely must be, as Amine asserts, good spirits, whose delight is to do him service. Whether, then, we have to struggle against our passions only, or whether we have to struggle not only against our passions, but also the dire influence of unseen enemies, we ever struggle ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... face of the distressing position they occupied, it may be asked what powerful motive induced the Jews to live amongst nations who almost invariably treated them as enemies, and to remain at the mercy of sovereigns whose sole object was to oppress, plunder, and subject them to all kinds of vexations? To understand this it is sufficient to remember that, in their peculiar aptness for earning and hoarding money, they found, or at least hoped to find, a means of compensation ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... softly grins like a sharp who can see his way through. As for Rucker, who's waitin' on the table an' packin' in viands from the kitchen, he takes it as sullen as a sorehead dog. Personal, I ain't got no use for Rucker; but between us, Missis Rucker, one way an' another, does certainly oppress him grievous. ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Father's Murtherers destroy'd, And a long, happy, peaceful Reign enjoy'd. Belov'd of all, for merciful was He, Like God, in the Superlative Degree. The Jewish Sects he did not seek to quell, Yet Laws he made they might no more rebell: Wisely about them made of Laws a Fence, Yet kind, would not oppress their Conscience. The Pharisee, a very numerous Sect, Above the rest were in their Worship strict: In their own Synagogues he let them pray, And worship God after their stricter way. In Peace all liv'd, and former strife forgot, The Chemarims and Hell had ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... need of sceptical misgivings to whisper treason in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he were already defeated. He loses his feeling of innocence; his mind is at variance with itself; the old divinity no longer presides there; but wild Desires and wild Repentance alternately oppress him. Ere long, too, he has committed himself before the world; his character for sobriety, dear to a Scottish peasant as few corrupted worldlings can even conceive, is destroyed in the eyes of men; ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... confessions of the Magistrates and other confidential persons will convince your Lordship of the guilty intentions of Governor Bligh, and how little he regarded the sacred personage whom he represented by suffering himself to be guided by a wretch like that man Crossley to persecute and oppress His ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... day of his appearing? "for that day shall burn as an oven: and he shall appear as a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger in his right: and he shall break ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... my Senses quite oppress, And neighbouring now so near my Fairest, The bitter Darts of Love, are ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym
... pursued by the overseers and their friends, after the Indians had become quiet, and resolved to wait patiently for redress from the Legislature, will inflame them to acts of violence, and give the whites, who wish to oppress ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... General Government were checks upon each other. That the majority should govern is a general principle controverted by none, but they must govern according to the Constitution, and not according to an undefined and unrestrained discretion, whereby they may oppress the minority. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... with more patience, but when it parted him from his dearly-loved wife, when it made outcasts of the children he was so proud of, who can wonder that he should feel inclined to cry with Job, 'Is it good unto Thee that Thou should'st oppress!' Nevertheless, like Job, the bishop held fast ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... mind.(1) In new and unknown combinations the impression must act by sympathy, and not by rule, but there can be no sympathy where there is no passion, no original interest. The personal interest may in some cases oppress and circumscribe the imaginative faculty, as in the instance of Rousseau: but in general the strength and consistency of the imagination will be in proportion to the strength and depth of feeling; and it is rarely that a man even of lofty genius ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... pleasure instead of pain. Help him to taste the joy of praise, the praise that helps more than all teasing criticism. Help him to see that it is more truly a mark of superiority to help, to cheer, to do good, than to oppress and tease. Take time to habituate ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... will find relief, And time alleviate every grief; Memory, though slowly, will decay, And Sorrow's empire pass away. Awhile Misfortune may controul, And Fain oppress the virtuous soul, Yet Innocence can still beguile The patient sufferer of a smile, The beams of Hope may still dispense A grateful feeling to the sense; Friendship may cast her arms around, And with fond tears embalm the wound, Or Piety's soft incense rise, And waft reflection to the skies; ...
— Elegies and Other Small Poems • Matilda Betham
... While melting music steals upon the sky, And soften'd sounds along the waters die; 50 Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay. All but the Sylph—with careful thoughts oppress'd, The impending woe sat heavy on his breast. He summons straight his denizens of air; The lucid squadrons round the sails repair; Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seem'd but zephyrs to the train beneath. Some to the sun their insect-wings unfold, ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... shone with celestial radiance. Then was founded the Order. The Mendicant bade him bind the Thorn upon his heel in the place of his spur, so that whenever thereafter he should be tempted to goad or oppress whether man or beast the Thorn should remind him of pity and mercy. I wait for your ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... did not propose to interfere with existing colonies dependent on European powers, he ranged himself squarely on the side of those that had declared their independence. Any attempt by a European power to oppress them or control their destiny in any manner he characterized as "a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." Referring in another part of his message to a recent claim which the Czar had made to the Pacific coast, President Monroe warned the Old World ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... future, his ideas of life and people and happiness. Once we were staying in one of these country hotels obviously pretentious, but very uncomfortable—the sort of hotel where the walls of the room oppress you, and the furniture astonishes you, and there are no private baths. He sat down in the largest chair, literally ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... any man's face. In the Reign of Terror no living being in all the city of Paris can rise in the morning and be certain of escaping the spy, the denunciation, the arrest, or the guillotine, before night. Such times are trying enough to oppress any man's spirits; but Lomaque is not thinking of them or caring for them now. Out of a mass of papers which lie before him on his old writing-table, he has just taken up and read one, which has carried his thoughts back to the past, and to the changes which have taken place ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... walked unheeding. If he spent the whole night on the ramparts, there was no one to know or care. It was better than tossing sleepless under a roof. He felt as if a roof would suffocate him. But sheer physical weariness began to oppress even his elastic frame at last. He awoke to the fact that ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... vague feelings back to a subtle shock he had sustained in a last look at Creech's dark, somber face. It had been the face of a Nemesis. All about Creech breathed silent, revengeful force. Slone worked out in his plodding thought why that fact should oppress him; and it was because in striking Bostil old Creech must strike through Bostil's horses ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... back to the time when Judaea was bowed down under Roman rule. The Jews bear their lot without a murmur, and this resignation encourages Florus, the governor of Judaea, to oppress them more. ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... virtue has come to be lightly thought of; it is in consequence, unpopular, and its unpopularity is greatly increased by the conduct of the converts who, relying on the influence of the missionaries, oppress and take advantage of the common people (the non-Christians): and yet more by the conduct of the missionaries themselves, who, when collisions between Christians and the people occur, and the authorities ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... of the customs of the people, of the few pleasures they enjoy, and the many sorrows that oppress them, is as accurate as it is lucid and entertaining. It will be well to give this book studious attention; it is so completely sincere and so free from prejudice; and there are many excellent illustrations after ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... that bishops should be rich, and was among those who thought that the country had been injured when the territorial possessions of our prelates had been converted into stipends by Act of Parliament. But the grandeur of the Longestaffes and the too apparent wealth of the Primeros did oppress him, though he was a man who would never breathe a word of such oppression into the ear even of his dearest friend. It was his opinion,—which he did not care to declare loudly, but which was fully ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... then—four hundred and twenty years ago—acknowledged the Emperor for its sovereign, was a free town, as it is now; that is, it had no local lord to favor or oppress it at his pleasure, but was governed by laws enacted by representatives of the people. The spirit of a noble independence pervaded the little Canton of which it was and is the capital. Though it was fortified, its stone defences ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... for proclamations, &c., used to be in Printing-house Square, but was removed in 1770; and we must not forget that where a Norman fortress once rose to oppress the weak, to guard the spoils of robbers, and to protect the oppressor, the Times printing-office now stands, to diffuse its ceaseless floods of knowledge, to spread its resistless aegis over the poor and the oppressed, and ever to use its ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... harmony. The complex and momentary impression of all these sensations requires an experience he has never gained, and feelings he has never known. If he has never crossed the desert and felt its burning sands scorch his feet, the stifling reflection of the sun from its rocks oppress him, how can he fully enjoy the coolness of a beautiful morning? How can the perfume of flowers, the cooling vapor of the dew, the sinking of his footstep in the soft and pleasant turf, enchant his senses? How can the singing of birds delight him, while the accents of love and pleasure are yet ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... ventured to endeavour to overturn religion, to oppress and afflict the Church of God, and for that end advanced heinous things pernicious to the Republic, particularly, that each Province has singly a right to decree in matters of religion, and that the others ought not to take cognizance of the disputes which arise ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... him to the island of St. Helena. And the exile, separated from the beloved France so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock and bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction occurred and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their subjects." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... possession of its playthings, of having been shamefully ridiculous and cowardly, we count for nothing; we are nothing any more: the people, which ought to unite with us, denies us, abandons us and seeks to oppress us. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... clearly or in fewer words how intimately connected are the advance of the worker and the further increase of profits. "Social improvement," Professor Patten says, "takes him [the workman] from places where poverty and diseases oppress, and introduce him to the full advantage of a better position.... It gives to the city workman the air, light, and water that the country workman has, but without his inefficiency and isolation. It gives more working years and more working days in each year, with more zeal and vitality ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... quest of them. But the severest stroke was that inflicted by the persecution begun and pursued by persons interested in the continuance of the trade, of such witnesses as had been examined against them; and whom, on account of their dependent situation in life, it was most easy to oppress. As I had been the means of bringing them forward on these occasions, they naturally came to me, as the author of their miseries and their ruin.[3] These different circumstances, by acting together, had at ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... such spirit and management of any corporation or enterprise as tends to oppress the people, and rob them of their just profits. We are not enemies to capital, but we oppose the tyranny of monopolies. We long to see the antagonism between capital and labor removed by common consent, and by an enlightened statesmanship worthy ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... have its rights, but we do not wish to oppress our people. Let moderation be observed ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... one or the other is an unexpiable offence. The worst of these has the popular current in its favor, and uses its triumph with all the unprincipled fury of faction; while the other is waiting, with all the impatience of revenge, for the time when its turn may come to oppress and punish by the popular favor. But my choice is made. If I cannot hope to give satisfaction to my country, I am at least determined to have the approbation ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... We kneel and kiss the consecrated earth; In pleasing dreams the blissful age renew, And call Britannia's glories back to view; Behold her cross triumphant on the main, The guard of commerce, and the dread of Spain; Ere masquerades debauch'd, excise oppress'd, Or English honour grew ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... dews turn to the gourd's hurt, And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, As from the first its lot was cast. For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed By unexhausted power to bless, I gaze below on hell's fierce bed, And those its waves of flame oppress, Swarming in ghastly wretchedness; Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win If not love like God's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. Priest, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... 'I often shut myself up, particularly after dinner, or during dinner if it be long. The process of digestion, little, as I can eat, seems to oppress me. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... . Till now no drop of an Assyrian vein Hath flow'd for me, nor hath the smallest coin Of Nineveh's vast treasure e'er been lavish'd On objects which could cost her sons a tear. If then they hate me 'tis because I hate not, If they rebel 'tis because I oppress not. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... calling out their people." That was another source of dissatisfaction with King Angus of Gram; he had been augmenting his forces by hiring off-planet mercenaries. "And the people won't help some other baron oppress his people; it might ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... that time, been made upon him; it was not till the quarrel arose concerning ecclesiastical privileges that the claim was started, and the primate was, of a sudden, required to produce accounts of such intricacy and extent before a tribunal which had showed a determined resolution to ruin and oppress him. To find sureties that he should answer so boundless and uncertain a claim, which in the king's estimation amounted to forty-four thousand marks [m], was impracticable; and Becket's suffragans were extremely at a loss what counsel to ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... for protection against the most horrible outrages committed by the Earl, and says that his conduct savoured of insanity. Before he succeeded to the earldom, and consequently when he had not yet so much power to oppress, he committed the following aggressions on the Saviles of Poolham. We must premise that Sir Robert Savile, though a knight of good estate, and though his descendants became Earls of Sussex, was, nevertheless, a natural son ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... mystery that must already oppress the reader, Mr. Bilkins's cook had, after the manner of her kind, stolen out of the premises before the family were up, and got herself married—surreptitiously and artfully married, as if matrimony were ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... them, and ever remember that your wealth comes from God, and that it is only intrusted to you for a short time. Do not hoard up your riches; that is contrary to the precepts of the Saviour. Be a father to the orphans, the protectors of widows, and never permit the powerful to oppress the weak. Never take the name of God in vain, and never violate your oath. Do not envy the triumph of the wicked, or the success of the impious; but abstain from everything that is wrong. Banish from your hearts all the suggestions of pride, and remember that ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... too, with great concern," said Oswald; "and every thing that I can say and do in your favour is misconstrued; and, by seeking to do you service, I lose my own influence. But I will never give my sanction to acts of injustice, nor join to oppress innocence. My dear child, put your trust in God: He who brought light out of darkness, can bring good ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... released; the one by submission, the other by death: but the obstinacy of their two companions was chastised by the loss of their eyes; and the Greeks, the least adverse to the union, deplored that cruel and inauspicious tragedy. [35] Persecutors must expect the hatred of those whom they oppress; but they commonly find some consolation in the testimony of their conscience, the applause of their party, and, perhaps, the success of their undertaking. But the hypocrisy of Michael, which was prompted only by political motives, must have ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... It began to oppress the boy. It frightened him. He felt an uncontrollable desire to look out into the room and establish the identity of the mysterious entrant. He glided his hand towards the window-frame in the hope that he might find a chink ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... required the powerful to be just; but she has not otherwise intrusted the preservation of her works to their visionary plans. What fuel can the statesman add to the fires of youth? Let him only not smother it, and the effect is secure. Where we oppress or degrade mankind with one hand, it is vain, like Octavius, to hold out in the other, the baits of marriage, or the whip to barrenness. It is vain to invite new inhabitants from abroad, while those we already possess are made to hold their tenure with uncertainty; and to tremble, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... seemed to take in his misfortunes,—above all, the full confidence he appeared to repose in his innocence,—had the natural effect of softening Edward's heart, whom the coldness of Major Melville had taught to believe that the world was leagued to oppress him. He shook Mr. Morton warmly by the hand, and assuring him that his kindness and sympathy had relieved his mind of a heavy load, told him, that whatever might be his own fate, he belonged to a family who had both gratitude and ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... have heard the tone in which it was said. Wasn't it affable in such a great monarch towards a mere republican? I wonder how people can slander him so, and tell such stories about him. I never saw a nicer man; only he looks sleepy. I suppose the cares of state oppress him, poor man! But one thing you may be sure of, dear Mrs. Downe, if people at home laugh at the Emperor and condemn him, just find out if they have ever been invited to the Tuileries. If not, you will ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... held the reins of the government, they often used their power to oppress the poor, and this gave rise to many quarrels. Little by little the two parties, the rich and the poor, grew to hate each other so much that it was decided that a new code or set of laws should be made, and that they should be obeyed ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... congress is asked to put the name of God in the constitution, and thereby pledge the nation to some theological faith in which some United States citizens may not believe and thus subject a certain class to political ostracism and social persecution, it is asked not to protect but to oppress the citizens of the several States in their most sacred rights—to think, reason, and decide all questions of religion and conscience for themselves, without fear or favor from the government. Popular sentiment and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Literature, State-craft, Philosophy, Science build a sacred and inviolable city of the soul amid the tumult of seven thousand revolutions, the dust and crash of falling cities, the tramplings of recurrent invasions, the infamies and outrages of tyrants and marauders who oppress the land. Unshaken by the storms that rage around it, this refuge of the spirit, raised by Italian poets, thinkers, artists, scholars, and discoverers, grows unceasingly in bulk and strength, until the younger nations take their place beneath its ample dome. Then, while yet the thing ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... It would as ill become you to cultivate narrow national memories in regard to the past as it would to cultivate narrow national prejudices at present. You have come out, as from other relics of barbarism which still oppress Europe, so from the barbarism of jealous nationality. You are heirs to all the wealth of the Old World, and must owe gratitude for a part of your heritage to Germany, France, and Spain, as well as to England. Still, it is from England that you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... own misfortunes and, although no noble sentiment unites us, although our hearts do not beat to a single name, at least may the common calamity bind me to my countrymen, at least may I weep over our sorrows with them, may the same hard fate oppress all our ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... thou soft restorer, come, And close these wearied eyes, by grief oppress'd; For one short hour, be this thy peaceful home, And bid the sighs that rend my ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... whither—God knoweth! Some into those regions of snow or of desert where Death reigneth only; Some off to the country of Crete, where rapid Oaxes down floweth. And desperate others retreat to Britain, the bleak isle and lonely. Dear land of my birth! shall I see the horde of invaders oppress thee? Shall the wealth that outspringeth from thee by the hand of the alien be squandered? Dear cottage wherein I was born! shall another in conquest possess thee— Another demolish in scorn the fields and the groves where I've wandered? My flock! never more shall you graze on that ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... oppress me never cease; Not for a moment dare I rest, Nigh to despair. I think with fond regard of those, Who in their posts at court remain, My friends of old. Fain would I be with them again, But fierce reproof return would ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... shall dawn and the Turk shall heed the voice of United Democracy as it proclaims with force, "Thou shall not oppress, nor shalt thou close the gates of these straits again!" then shall visitors from many lands wander through these trenches and marvel what kind of men were they that held them for so long against such odds, and gaze at the honeycombed ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... the total removal of all real or imaginary causes for combinations. The workmen and the capitalist would so shade into each other— would so evidently have a common interest, and their difficulties and distresses would be mutually so well understood that, instead of combining to oppress one another, the only combination which could exist would be a most powerful union between both parties ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... grieved at the loss of a friend, was otherwise very happy. The boys at Saint Winifred's were not overworked; there was enough work to stimulate but not to oppress them, and Walter's work grew more promising every day. He was fond of praise, and Mr Percival, while he always took care so to praise him as to obviate the danger of conceit, was not so scant of his approbation as most men are. His warm and generous appreciation encouraged ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... thee I raise my prayer. Sainted virgin! martyr'd maiden! Let thy countenance incline Upon one with woes o'erladen, Kneeling lowly at thy shrine; That in agony, in terror, In her blind perplexity, Wandering weak in doubt and error, Calleth feebly upon thee. Sinful thoughts, sweet saint, oppress me, Thoughts that will not be dismissed; Temptations dark possess me, Which my strength may not resist. I am full of pain, and weary Of my life; I fain would die: Unto me the world is dreary; To the grave for rest I fly. For rest!—oh! could I borrow Thy bright wings, celestial dove! ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... contract debt is as liable to abuse by local boards as it is by the General Assembly. If it is important to the people that the State should be free from debt, it is also important that its municipal divisions should not have power to oppress them with the ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... conscientiously we could not do in the present state of the country, and of the distresses of the middle and lower orders of the people,—to which we might add, too, that of the higher orders. My own individual opinion was such that I could not bring myself to oppress the country at present by additional taxation for that purpose, and I strictly and firmly acted upon that opinion, when I had every reason to believe that, adhering to it, I should no longer write the letter C. after the name Eldon. I think now the speech, in which he will disavow ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... the pensive nymph oppress'd, And secret passions labour'd in her breast. Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, 5 Not ancient ladies ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... no other spot on earth will the loss of your mother so oppress you. I know what that has been to you, by my consciousness of what that possession was. And remember one thing, which gives me some right to speak to you as I am doing now—I loved your mother and ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... more and more inclined to reduce my baggage, to lop off superfluities. I become more and more in love with simple things and simple folk—a small house, a hut in the woods, a tent on the shore. The show and splendor of great houses, elaborate furnishings, stately halls, oppress me, impose upon me. They fix the attention upon false values, they set up a false standard of beauty; they stand between me and the real feeders of character and thought. A man needs a good roof over his head ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... five years of mistaken passion, even as they had faced each other that night in her mother's kitchen. But the grave of that dead passion yawned between them. It was Joan who broke the silence, that after her single outburst seemed to fill and oppress ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... ah, no! amid sorrow and pain, When the world and its facts oppress my brain, In the world ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... contempt for their pusillanimity. The insolence of power is stronger than the plea of necessity. The tame submission to usurped authority or even the natural resistance to it has nothing to excite or flatter the imagination: it is the assumption of a right to insult or oppress others that carries an imposing air of superiority with it. We had rather be the oppressor than the oppressed. The love of power in ourselves and the admiration of it in others are both natural to man: the one makes him a tyrant, the other a ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... grief and rage oppress'd, His heart swell'd high, and labour'd in his breast; Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruled; Now fired by wrath, and now by reason cool'd: That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, Force through the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord; ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... people to live and to develop itself, according to its abilities, up to the natural limits of its type. They have become convinced that this is not possible in dispersion, as, under that condition, prejudice, hatred, and contempt continually follow and oppress them, and either stint their development, or force them to an ethnical mimicry which necessarily makes of them, instead of original types with a right to existence, mediocre or bad copies of foreign models. They therefore work ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... eat his bread again. It seemed to him that they had had a brush which would be difficult to forget. And as he sat there before the squire's wine, hot with righteous heat, all his grievances against the man and the landlord crowded upon him. A fig for intellectual eminence if it make a man oppress his ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... doubtfulness as to their value which was new to him. The complete idleness and emptiness of his life in the country had made him meditative. Was it worth living, that monotonous business life of his? Would not the time soon come in which its dreariness would oppress him as the dulness of Lidford House had oppressed him to-night? His youth was fast going—nay, had it not indeed gone from him for ever? had not youth left him all at once when he began his commercial career?—and the pleasures that had been ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... had gone to bed, on the night of Lady Kitty's recitation, William Ashe stayed up till past midnight talking with old Lord Grosville. When relieved of the presence of his women-kind, who were apt either to oppress him, in the person of his wife, or to puzzle him, in the persons of his daughters, Lord Grosville was not by any means without value as a talker. He possessed that narrow but still most serviceable fund of human experience which the English land-owner, ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... however, came to enlighten and inform, not to burden and oppress. The mind of Murray rejoiced in freedom and exercised itself in light. Text-books were his handmaidens, he was not their slave. The exclusive labors of the great masters of his craft occupied his hours, but he still found time for ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... very cold; some water which we crossed was frozen hard enough to bear the horse. "Jim" had advised me against taking any wraps, and my thin Hawaiian riding dress, only fit for the tropics, was penetrated by the keen air The rarefied atmosphere soon began to oppress our breathing, and I found that Evans's boots were so large that I had no foothold. Fortunately, before the real difficulty of the ascent began, we found, under a rock, a pair of small overshoes, probably left by the Hayden exploring expedition, which ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... give a complete history of railroad monopoly in the United States. The author will therefore confine himself to showing that transportation companies will, like the great commercial organizations of the past, when left to follow their instincts, invariably use their power to oppress the public by exacting excessive charges for their services, or to discriminate against the many by extending special privileges to the few. Hundreds of cases might be given to illustrate the above rule, but a history of two of these corporations will suffice to show ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... Apostolic office, we warn and admonish in the Lord all Christians of whatever conditions they may be, and enjoin upon them that for the future, no one shall venture unjustly to oppress the Indians, Negroes or other men whoever they may be, to strip them of their property, or reduce them into servitude, or give aid or support to those who commit such excesses or carry on that infamous ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... be distressed; you have to deal with a cardinal of another kind. This one will not oppress you by his dignity." ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Madras, the third largest city of India, the heat began to oppress us. Up to this time India had been unexpectedly and refreshingly cool, at night even cold. But now it was unpleasantly warm. The heat reminded us of the conundrum: "Why is India, although so hot, the coldest country on the globe?" Answer: "Because the hottest thing in it is chilly" ("chili" ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... question, "Shall we then take it at its marked price for our property," he again replies, "No," explaining that their enemies had received the paper at a discount, and that, to receive it at par from them, would "give them voluntarily and with one eye open just that advantage over us to oppress, degrade and depress us." This combined financial and spiritual adviser closes his article by urging the brethren to set apart a portion of their time to the service of God, and a portion to "the study of the science of our government and ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... if you had, in your motherly partiality and fond love for him, indulged him to stir up a row and provoke people! He has, on this occasion, had unawares to eat humble pie, but will you, ma, put people to all this trouble and inconvenience and make use of the prestige enjoyed by your relatives to oppress an ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... shouting out and saying, "Help, O Moslems!" So the neighbours came in and freed his beard from her grip; then they reproved and reproached her, saying, "We are all content to eat Kunafah with cane-honey. Why, then, wilt thou oppress this poor man thus? Verily, this is disgraceful in thee!" And they went on to soothe her till they made peace between her and him. But, when the folk were gone, she sware that she would not eat of the vermicelli, and Ma'aruf, burning with hunger, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... subservient to her greatness. Permit me, sir, to explain to you the motives of my conduct. If all the Princes of Orange had acted like you, I should never have been the enemy of your house. But Prince Maurice of Nassau desired to oppress the liberty of that State which his virtuous father had freed at the expense of his life, and which he himself had defended against the arms of the House of Austria with the highest reputation of military abilities. Under a pretence of religion (the most execrable cover of a wicked design) ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... boats should be hoisted out, and the troops quit the vessels. Wherever a lighthouse or signal station was erected, alarm-guns were fired and beacons lighted. In a word, all the horrors of doubt and apprehension seemed to oppress the inhabitants of ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Rue de Londres should be rebaptised on the ground that the name of Londres is detested even more than Berlin. "If Prussia" (says one writer) "wages against us a war of bandits and savages, it is England which, in the gloom of its sombre country houses, pays the Uhlans who oppress our peasants, violate our wives, massacre our soldiers, and pillage our provinces. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Cassandra-wise, oppress my soul With more unrest, and Hebe-like, the bowl Of festal comfort for a moment raise To my poor lips, and then avert thy gaze? Wouldst make me mad beyond the daily curse Of thy displeasure, and in wrath disperse That halcyon draught, that nectar of the mind, Which is the theme ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... invest money you ought to look after it," she said magisterially. "You are a Socialist, aren't you? How do you know that your money isn't being used to oppress somebody?" ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... the evening paper without comment. Merefleet had never before spoken so openly to him. He realised that the man's loneliness must oppress him heavily indeed thus to master ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Confederates hope to reestablish to their profit, that is, to the profit of slavery, the Union which they have broken for fear of liberty[6]. We now see what is to be thought of the pretended tyranny of the North, and if it is true that it wishes to oppress and to subjugate the South. On the contrary, the North only defends itself. In maintaining the Union, it defends its rights, and it is its very life that it ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... accordingly, speaking to Madelon in a tone of condescending good-nature, which was quite lost upon the child, who was beyond caring for kindness or unkindness just then. She was only conscious of some terrible burden, which she could not define nor reason upon, but which seemed to oppress and weigh her down, making her incapable of thought, or speech, or motion. When they got into the railway-carriage she could only lean back in the corner, with a general sense that something dreadful had happened, or was going to happen; but that her head ached too much, and felt ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... had sought safety in Leyden, were starting for America, where they were going to oppress others as they had been oppressed, Rembrandt was just beginning his apprenticeship ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... the debt. This opens a door for many iniquitous practices, and it is in the rigorous and frequently perverted exertion of these rights which a creditor has over his debtor that the chiefs are enabled to oppress the lower class of people, and from which abuses the English Residents find it necessary to be the most watchful to restrain them. In some cases one half of the produce of the labour is applied to the reduction of the debt, and this situation of the insolvent debtor ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... knew she would justify my high opinion of her." Lord Glistonbury attempted to draw her towards him fondly; but, with an unaltered manner, that seemed as if she suppressed strong emotion, she answered, "I do not deserve your caresses, father; do not oppress me with praise that I cannot merit: I wish to speak to Mr. Vivian ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Christ embodies itself in a church, and raises itself a generous democratic power against the tyranny of princes. Later still, you will see how that power has attained its end, and passed beyond it. You will see it, having chained and conquered princes, league itself with them, in order to oppress the people, and seize on temporal power. Schism, then, raises up against it the standard of revolt, and preaches the bold and legitimate principle of liberty of conscience: but, also, you will see ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dissolve society; and a dependence on persons that was dangerous to freedom. It was a system very favourable to corporations, but offering no security to individuals. The State was not likely to oppress its subjects; and was not able ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... despondent nature; your circumstances oppress you, and your life is filled with an infinite sadness. You feel that you ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... with softest step, and we will, in lowest whispers, pour into your ear the story of the battle of life as 'tis fought in Paris. We will show you the fever and the heartache, the corroding care and the panting labor which oppress life in Paris. Then will you say, No wonder they all die of a shattered heart or consumed brain at Paris! No wonder De Balzac died of heart-disease! No wonder Frederic Soulie's heart burst! No wonder Bruffault went crazy, and Eugene Sue's heart collapsed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... terrible, and as he grew cold, a strange sensation of reckless despair began to oppress Lawrence, mingled with a feeling that perhaps after all it would be better to let go and slide off the boat so as to arrive at ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... instance which I have been taking suggests another remark; the number of those (so called) new doctrines will not oppress us, if it takes eight centuries to promulgate even one of them. Such is about the length of time through which the preparation has been carried on for the definition of the Immaculate Conception. ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... endeavour to strengthen my mind by arguing against the possibility of such a calamity. Alas! how soon have sorrows and friars, real as well as severe, followed the uniform and tranquil state of existence at which so lately I was disposed to repine! But I will not oppress you any longer with my complaints. Adieu, my dearest Matilda! ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... circle. She seemed much pleased with her singing, and remarked that she should be happy to give her an opportunity of performing in Stafford House, as soon as she should be a little relieved of a heavy cold which seemed to oppress her at present. This, of course, will be decisive of her favor in London. The duchess is to let us know when the ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... as there have always been, peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Ta Tsing Empire, and between their people respectively. They shall not insult or oppress each other for any trifling cause, so as to produce an estrangement between them; and if any other nation should act unjustly or oppressively, the United States will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... upward tending spirit of the age, busy in an hundred forms of effort for the world's redemption from the sins and sufferings which oppress it, has brought this one, which yields to none in importance and urgency, into distinguished prominence. One-half the race are its immediate objects, and the other half are as deeply involved, by that absolute unity of interest and destiny which Nature ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... is't not cheating, Thus to oppress mankind by hundred thousands, To squeeze, grind, plunder, butcher, and torment, And act philanthropy to individuals? - Not cheating—thus to ape from the Most High The bounty, which alike on mead and desert, Upon the just and the unrighteous, falls In sunshine or in showers, and ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... all the miners of the region as a part and parcel of the law, and all law is regarded by them as a thing made to oppress the poor ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... there are wrongs to be redressed, so long as the strong oppress the weak, so long as injustice sits in high places, the voice of the orator will be needed to plead for the rights of man. He may not, at this stage of the republic, be called upon to sound a battle cry to arms, but there are bloodless victories to be won as essential to the stability of a great ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of the place began to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my nerves. After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came to a positive conclusion at last. I determined to try if a good ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... of the people, held the theory that here at last, in this broad, rich, new land, men should struggle with one another for the goods of life on an equal basis. Man should neither oppress nor interfere with man. Justice at last to all! The struggle should be ordered by law so that men might be free to struggle and equal in their rights. To all the same freedom to live, to enjoy, to become! So these fathers of the republic had dreamed. So ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... is deprived of its chief, the inhabitants acknowledge no law; anarchy, troubles, and confusion immediately prevail, and until a successor is appointed, all labour is at an end. The stronger oppress the weak, and perpetrate every species of crime, without being amenable to any tribunal for their actions. Private property is no longer respected, and thus, before a person arrives to curb its licentiousness, a town is not unfrequently reduced from a flourishing state of prosperity ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Levellers would do for you. Oh why are you so mad as to cry up a king? It is he and his Court and Patentee-men, as Majors Aldermen, and such creatures, that like cormorants devour what you should enjoy, and set up Whipping-posts and Correcting-houses to enslave you. 'Tis rich men that oppress you, ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... abus'd me: [These speeches are several kinds of distractions, and in the action should appear so. You have convey'd coin forth our territories, Bought and sold offices, oppress'd the poor, And I ne'er dreamt on 't. Make up your accounts, I 'll now ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... that day with a wonderful energy, born of the new life within him. Nothing fatigued, nothing worried him. The court-house air did not oppress him. He heard the pleadings and made his decisions with ease and promptitude. His patience, gentleness, his clearness and force of brain were wonderful. The whole electricity of his body was satisfied: the man ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... right. Remember, however, that you must not trust merely to all they say, but investigate their words carefully. There are many who, some through hatred of certain persons, others out of desire for what they possess, or as a favor to some one, or because they ask money and do not receive it, oppress others under the pretext that the latter are rebellious or are guilty of harboring some design or uttering some statement against the supreme ruler. Therefore it is not right to pay immediate or ready attention to them, but to enquire into absolutely everything. If you are slow in believing ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... you been doing all the time I was away?" he said, when the awkwardness of the silence began to oppress him. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... pursues. Thus step by step, where'er the Trojan wheel'd, There swift Achilles compass'd round the field. Oft as to reach the Dardan* gates he bends, And hopes the assistance of his pitying friends, (Whose showering arrows, as he coursed below, From the high turrets might oppress the foe), So oft Achilles turns him to the plain: He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain. As men in slumbers seem with speedy pace, One to pursue, and one to lead the chase, Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake, Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester |
