"Despot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... leaves the granite veins, Down thunders o'er the waste a torrid sea: Now Flood, now Fire, alternate despot ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... passion for overthrow, no Napoleon thundering at the head of vassal Europe against England; no conspiracy of peoples against thrones; no train of crouching sovereignties, half in terror and half in servility, ready to do the wildest will of the wildest despot of the world; no army of five hundred thousand men ready to spring upon our shores, and turning off only to the overthrow of empires. All was on a smaller scale; the passions feebler, the means narrower, the objects more trivial, the triumphs more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... despot, in his career of ordinary tyranny, were to tax his imagination to produce something more monstrous and unnatural than himself, and were to place a dove amongst vultures, or engraft a thorn on the olive tree, much as we should marvel at the caprice, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... distinguishes the old who have escaped the usury of life; pious, enlightened, energetic, he felt himself made for great undertakings. There is something in him which recalls Cardinal Lavigerie and all the prelates whose red robes cover a soldier or a despot rather ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... unfortunate islanders, who are also subjected to their sway, cannot be very eligible. A single quotation from the work referred to, will answer every purpose we can have in view in alluding to them in this place. "The chief agent of the American Company is the boundless despot over an extent of country, which, comprising the Aleutic islands, stretches from 57 to 61 degrees of latitude, and from 130 to 190 degrees of east longitude. The population of the islanders annually decreasing, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... conquests. It sufficed him to gain and to retain the affection of men in whose eyes he was not so much a prince, a feudal lord, as an indulgent and doting father. He was the ideal despot, a man of wide culture and simple tastes. "A smile," he used to say, "will sway the Universe." Simplicity he declared to be the keynote of his nature, the guiding motive of his governance. In exemplification whereof he would ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a shilling. Sir Thomas smiled, blessed her, and put a crown-piece in her hand; and Blanche danced down-stairs in her delight,—evoked less by the crown-piece than by the little victory over herself. It was to her that for which a despot is recorded to have longed ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... of a coyote at which Fenris whimpered and scratched in excitement (doubtless wishing to run him down and bite him, as is the usual reception to the detested coyote by the more important woods creatures) and once the fresh mud showed that an old grizzly—the forest monarch, the ancient, savage despot of the woods of which all foresters, near and far, speak with deep respect—had passed that way but a few minutes before. Foresters both, the two riders had every reason to believe that the old gray tyrant was lurking ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... is inflicting it alike upon writers and readers. Demoralization is the result of a life-long devotion to the maddening rumors of the day. It takes many a day to recall that fierce caprice, as of an Oriental despot, with which he watches the tiger-fights of ideas, and strikes off periods, as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... said Frank, looking rather disgusted. "What makes you stick your chin up and look in that way?" Frank had hitherto been rather a despot among his sisters, and forgot that the eldest of them was now passing altogether from under his sway to that of ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Russia, was so provoked by the awkwardness of an officer on review that he ordered him to resign at once and retire to his estate. "But he has no estate," the commander ventured. "Then give him one!" thundered the despot, whose word was law, and the man gained more by his blunders than he could have done by years of the ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... this school of slavish superstition, taught that he was the despot for whom it was formed, familiar with the degrading tactics of eastern tyranny, was at once the most contemptible and unfortunate of men. Isolated from his kind, and wishing to appear superior to those beyond whom his station had placed him, he was insensible to the affections which soften ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... those who consented to be honoured by it. Even if the Howes had been uniformly victorious and had finished the war by brilliant exploits, the pageantry was of such a nature as would have been better fitted for some inglorious Eastern despot; how much more then was it misplaced when all the work they had been commissioned to execute was left undone. The enemy had still the sword in their hands, and were daily increasing in courage, in skill, in strength, and in numbers. Such was the state ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... stimulus to the art of living and to add a new craving or two to the insatiable appetite for enjoyment; while the servility of its population was to create a new type of Roman ruler in the man who for one glorious year wielded the power of a Pergamene despot, without the restraint of kingly traditions or the continence induced by an ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... no doubt but the pledge has been renewed as a consideration for commercial advantages, or rather for an expected relaxation in the tyranny of France over the commercial world. Are you prepared, inhabitants of Canada, to become willing subjects, or rather slaves, to the despot who rules the nations of continental Europe with a rod of iron? If not, arise in a body, exert your energies, co-operate cordially with the king's regular forces to repel the invader, and do not give cause to your children, when groaning ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Superior to the feeling of scorn I naturally felt for her and her kind,—the fools who make international beds and find them filled with thorns,—there was the delicious sensation of being able to rise above my prejudices and become a willing conspirator against that despot, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... reminder to the Emperor, they said, that he was trifling with the cause of Italian unity, to which he was secretly pledged. But Englishmen were slow to believe in such designs on the part of the French ruler. "How should a despot set men free?" was their thought, interpreted for them vigorously enough by an anonymous poet of the day; and they enrolled themselves in great numbers for national defence. With this movement there might be some evils mixed, but its purely defensive and manly character entitles it on the whole ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... ferocity of the bull-dog, rather than from the warm impulsive instincts of the nobler animals. In stature and feature they were very much the barbarian, and were admirably fitted for being what they were,—the tools of the despot. No wonder that the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... A Parting The Gift of Life Incompatibilities The Stolen God—Lazarus to Dives Winter Sea-shells Hope The Prodigal's Return The Skylark Saturday Song The Champion The Garden Refused These Little Ones The Despot The Magic Ring Philosophy The Whirligig of Time Magic Windflowers As it is Before Winter The Vault—after Sedgmoor Surrender Values In the People's Park Wedding Day The Last Defeat May Day Gretna Green ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... that she could not breathe without seeming to sigh; and her most ordinary poses used to throw me into the deepest ecstasies of admiration. Whenever I gazed at her I fully agreed with Monsieur de Lessay that Jupiter had once reigned as a despot-king over the mountainous regions of Thessaly, and that Orpheus had committed the imprudence of leaving the teaching of philosophy to the clergy. I am not now quite sure whether I was a coward or a hero when I accorded al this to the ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... but especially for democracies against despots. What do I mean? Mistrust. Keep this, hold to this; preserve this only, and you can never be injured. What do ye desire? Freedom. Then see ye not that Philip's very titles are at variance therewith? Every king and despot is a foe to freedom, an antagonist to laws. Will ye not beware, I said, lest, seeking deliverance from war, ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... with her. The touch of her hand is soft and tremulous, and her kisses are delicate, sweet. He gives himself up to an idiocy he does not believe in, and really enjoys the blissfulness, as an Eastern despot might enjoy the admiration of ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... surpassed all the art of the Chaldeans, themselves so famous for it. The inspired Jew had divined a dream or vision which puzzled 'the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans,' and immediately was rewarded with the greatest gift at the disposal of a capricious despot. Most of the apologetic writers on witchcraft, in particular the authors of the 'Malleus Maleficarum,' accept the assertion of the author of the history of Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar was 'driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen,' in its apparent ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... or letters into meanings which they were never intended to convey, but there are too many evidences of cold-blooded outbursts of tyrannical intent to be set aside, and these make it impossible to regard Sir Hudson Lowe in any other light than that of a petty little despot. ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... is the interest of the stronger and that law and morality are mere conventions. The implications of this doctrine are of supreme importance. If Justice is frank despotism, then the Eastern type of civilisation is the best, wherein custom has once for all fixed the right of the despot to grind down the population, while the sole duty of the latter is to pay taxes. The moral reformation of law becomes impossible; no adjustment of an unchanging decree to the changing and advancing standard ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... first objects of their effeminate devotion; and it is difficult to say which were soonest corrupted by courtiers consummate in the arts of adulation, and unwearied in their exercise. The sovereign rapidly degenerated into an accomplished despot, and the women into intriguers and coquettes. Richelieu had indeed succeeded in subjecting the State to the rule of the Church, but Ninon was destined to play an important part in modifying the evils which afflicted society, and at least elevate its tone. From the methods she employed to ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... that a traveller must often take the law into his own hands. Some countries, no doubt, are governed with a strong arm by a savage despot; to whom or to whose subordinates appeals must of course be made; but, for the most part, the system of ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... peculiar tendency to rouse a suspicion of dishonesty, and to create an impression of treachery, scheming, and false reasoning; especially if the person addressed be a judge, who is master of the situation, and still more in the case of a despot, a king, a military potentate, or any of those who sit in high places.[1] If a man feels that this artful speaker is treating him like a silly boy and trying to throw dust in his eyes, he at once grows irritated, and thinking that such false reasoning implies a contempt of his understanding, ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... "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 and ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... never forgot the slight put by Lewis upon the Abbe de Savoie; and in the humiliation or ruin of his most Christian Majesty, the Holy Roman Emperor found his account. But what were these quarrels to us, the free citizens of England and Holland? Despot as he was, the French monarch was yet the chief of European civilization, more venerable in his age and misfortunes than at the period of his most splendid successes; whilst his opponent was but a semi-barbarous tyrant, with a pillaging murderous horde of Croats ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was it that most of the girls had no vacancies on their programmes. But Jeannette Willard was both a diplomat and a bit of a despot, socially, and several of the young eligibles relinquished, with surprisingly good grace, so Hal felt, their partners, in favor of the newcomer. He did not then know the tradition of Worthington's best set, that hospitality to a stranger ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... always saying unexpected things. On the whole, he is a right good fellow, and I can imagine that, though he can come down hard on one with a heavy hand and stern look, he does not do so by the instinct of a despot, but acting under ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... a tyrant's breast Is she the friend of stern control Wears she the despot's purple vest Or fetters she the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... making mistakes, and though it is easy to laugh about them afterwards, at the time they are very real miseries. At Fernhurst, things are not made easy for the new boy. Gordon found himself placed in the Upper Fourth, under Fleming, a benevolent despot who was a master of sarcasm and was so delighted at making a brilliant attack on some stammering idiot that he quite forgot to punish him. "Young man, young man," he would say, "people who forget their books are a ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... blind to innumerable proofs which are before every man's eyes; proofs that are stereotyped in the very words and phrases that are on every one's lips. Take for example the words despot and despotic. Despot, signifies etymologically, merely one who possesses arbitrary power, and at first, it was used to designate those alone who possessed unlimited power over human beings, entirely irrespective of the way in which they exercised it, whether mercifully or cruelly. But the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... governments, good and bad alike, who are against any form of popular liberty if it is guaranteed by even the most just and liberal laws, and who are as hostile to the upright exponent of a free people's sober will as to the tyrannical and irresponsible despot. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... concealment! Oh, what a base and coward thing am I, That on mine own security I thought And took no care of thine! Thy precious head Left as a pledge within the tyrant's grasp! Hence, craven-hearted prudence, hence! And all My thoughts be vengeance, and the despot's blood! I'll seek him straight—no power shall stay me now— And at his hands demand my father's eyes. I'll beard him 'mid a thousand myrmidons! What's life to me, if in his heart's best blood I cool the fever of this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... domain of the Greek empire is in theory the private domain of the Ottoman emperor or Turkish sultan. There is in barbaric states no republic, no commonwealth; authority is parental, without being tempered by parental affection. The chief is a despot, and rules with the united authority of the father and the harshness of the proprietor. He owns the land ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... like the eagle and strikes like lightning, all the mysteries of a profound mind, association with destiny; the river, the plain, the forest, and the hill summoned, and, to some extent, compelled to obey, the despot going so far as even to tyrannize over the battle-field; faith in a star, blended with strategic science, heightening, but troubling it. Wellington was the Bareme of war, Napoleon was its Michelangelo, and this true ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... men had some reason for supporting them, they would speedily sink to the ground. It is in vain to say a privileged class have got possession of the power, and they make use of it to perpetuate these abuses. Doubtless, they are always sufficiently inclined to do so; but a privileged class, or a despot, is always a mere handful against the great body of the people; and unless their power is supported by the force of general opinion, founded on experienced utility upon the whole, it could not maintain ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... "aucht-and-forty daugh" of Strathbogie to the Catholic Braes of Glenlivat where fifty years ago the "sma' stills" reeked in every moorland hollow, across to beautiful Kinrara and down Spey to the fertile Braes of Enzie, his Grace is the benevolent despot of a thriving tenantry who have good cause to regard him with esteem and gratitude. The Duke is a masterful man, whom no factor need attempt to lead by the nose; but on the margin of Spey, from the blush-red crags of Cairntie down to the head of tide water, he owns ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... still pleads for civic righteousness; the sound of Martin Luther's hammer nailing his thesis to the door of his Wittenberg church continues to echo around the world; the battle-cry of Cromwell's Ironsides shouting, "The Lord of Hosts!" still causes the tyrant and the despot to tremble upon their thrones; out of the fire and blood of the French Revolution, "Liberty and Equality" survive; Abraham Lincoln comes from the backwoods of Kentucky, and the prairies of Illinois, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... government of an absolute despotism, the best government in the world provided "the head man" possesses the attributes of goodness, wisdom, and firmness, and is exempt from the imperfections which seem inseparably attached to human nature. But when a despot can boast of none of those attributes, woe to the people who are obliged to submit to his oppressions and ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... daylight, of barter and trade, of work and worry. In this world every man is his own King—the sort of King one loves to imagine, not concerned in such petty matters as wars and parliaments and taxes, but a mellow and moderate despot who is a true patron of genius—a mild old chap who has in his court the greatest men and women in the world—and all of them vying to please the most vagrant of his moods! Invite any one of them to talk, and if your highness is not pleased with him you have only ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... often the happiest of people—far more so than the rich; but though they may be envied, no one will be found willing to take their place. Moore has told the story of the over-fed, over-satisfied eastern despot, who sent a messenger to travel through the world, in order to find out the happiest man. When discovered, the messenger was immediately to seize him, take his shirt off his back, and bring it to the Caliph. The messenger found the happiest man in an ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... their fellow-citizens. The new Council of Ten deserved the hatred which has ever since cloven to their name. Appius now threw off the mask which he had so long worn, and assumed his natural character—the same as had distinguished his sire and grandsire, of unhappy memory. He became an absolute despot. His brethren in the council offered no hinderance to his will; even the plebeian decemvirs, bribed by power, fell into his way of action and supported his tyranny. They each had twelve lictors, who carried fasces ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... great and glorious person, a towering beneficent despot when he did appear.... As for me I adored him with whole-hearted hero-worship. He was the "protector of the poor," who kept the rest of us in order. He was a magnificent person who revolutionized the art of war by the introduction of explosives. He was a tremendous walker, and first taught ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... States, where it had been long established and was in pacific undisputed sovereignty. He has demonstrated that in such circumstances, it is not the weakness but the strength of the ruling power in the state which is the great danger, and that the many-headed despot, acting by means of a subservient press and servile juries, speedily becomes as formidable to real freedom as ever Eastern sultaun with his despotic power and armed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... slaves; and he also excited the common people by telling them that although they were enjoying a fancied freedom they really had been deprived of their ancestral privileges and sacred rites, and made to endure the rule of one foreign despot, instead of that of many good kings ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the noted prize fighter, was the "Boss" of Tammany Hall during the Civil War period. It pleased his fancy to go to Congress, and his obedient constituents sent him there. Morrissey was such an absolute despot that the New York City democracy could not make a move without his consent, and many of the Tammanyites were so afraid of him that they would not even enter into business ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... tempted out into mid-Channel if the war were to break out afresh. But would it break out afresh? We had spent gigantic sums and made enormous exertions to curb the power of Napoleon and to prevent him from becoming the universal despot of Europe. Would the Government try it again? Or were they appalled by the gigantic load of debt which must bend the backs of many generations unborn? Pitt was there, and surely he was not a man to leave ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mastered his intellect, the world might well smile (and to my thinking had better smile than weep) at the issue of the investigation. When the first brief shock was gone, how few out of the solid twenty-four would be the hours claimed by the despot, however much the poets might call him insatiable. There is sleeping, and meat and drink, the putting on and off of raiment and the buying of it. If a man be of sound body, there is his sport; if he be sane, there are the interests ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... pomp the despot sate, While busy preparations shook the court, Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait; Within, a palace, and without, a fort: Here men of every clime ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... of any other temperament could have succeeded in retaining his post in this age of turmoil and unrest, Santa Cruz proved himself a despot, but in many respects a benevolent despot, who showed an interest in genuine progress. Realizing, for instance, the serious disadvantage under which his country laboured on account of its lack of an adequate population, he devoted much of his thought and time to the amendment of this ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... Lawlessness 18. Luther Repudiates the Ten Commandments 19. Luther's Invisible Church 20. Luther on the God-given Supremacy of the Pope 21. Luther the Translator of the Bible 22. Luther a Preacher of Violence against the Hierarchy 23. Luther, Anarchist and Despot All in One 24. Luther the Destroyer of Liberty of Conscience 25. "The Adam and Eve of the New Gospel of Concubinage" 26. Luther an Advocate of Polygamy 27. Luther Announces His Death 28. Luther's View ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... people themselves. It is clear, if the people not 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 truth, for moral courage fails where there is no law to protect it, and where ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Cushing, infringing the patent-right of the late Mr. James, the novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on the edge of the horizon. The exegesis of the vision has been various, some thinking that it means a Military Despot,—though in that case the force of cavalry would seem to be inadequate,—and others the Pony Express. If it had been one rider on two horses, the application would have been more general and less obscure. In fact, the old cry of Disunion has lost its terrors, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... that cannot die! 'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, Each step from Splendour to Disgrace; Enough—no foreign foe could quell Thy soul, till from itself it fell; Yet! Self-abasement paved the way 140 To villain-bonds and despot sway. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... hide all this injustice and misery from the light, I would willingly sink with it. When I have been travelling up and down on our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,—when I have seen such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and women,—I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 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 reverence due to his pre-eminent rank. In that enchanted circle men appeared ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... breaks for it," said my wife next morning, at breakfast, in that half-didactic, half-reproachful way of hers, which is harder to bear than her most energetic assault. Holofernes, too, is with her a pet name for any fell domestic despot. So, whenever, against her most ambitious innovations, those which saw me quite across the grain, I, as in the present instance, stand with however little steadfastness on the defence, she is sure to call me Holofernes, and ten to one takes the first opportunity to read aloud, with a suppressed ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... had (p. 056) stood the decayed town of Ravenspur. Landing boldly though with such a handful of men, he was soon joined by the Percies, and other powerful leaders; and so eagerly did the people flock to him as their deliverer from a headstrong reckless despot, that in a short time he numbered as his followers sixty thousand men, who had staked their property, their liberty, and their lives, on the same die. The most probable account of his proceedings up to his return to Chester, immediately ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... of merit which they so much admired in their favourites, and little did it relish that of Mr. Cooper. It is astonishing how constantly fond overweening prejudice deceives itself. The philosopher who told the powerful despot, his sovereign, that there was no royal way to mathematics, was believed, because the despot had common sense—but a headstrong multitude can never be persuaded that a person can be incompetent to any one thing, if they only will him to be great in it: and thus it has happened not infrequently, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... 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, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... joined in the effort to bring about such reconcilement. More on this head it needs not to say. Whatever may be the objection to special views held by him, he would, wanting even the most objectionable, have been less himself. It was by something of the despot seldom separable from genius, joined to a truthfulness of nature belonging to the highest characters, that men themselves of a rare faculty were attracted to find in Dickens what Sir Arthur Helps has described, "a man to confide ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the end," one of the students exclaimed. "Paris will assert herself, France will come to her assistance, and the Germans will find that it is one thing to fight against the armies of a despot, and another to stand before a ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... improvements whenever 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 ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... 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 make the rights ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... impressed observers most was the unswerving, changeless temper of his rule. The stern justice, the terrible punishments he inflicted on all who broke his laws, were parts of a fixed system which differed widely from the capricious severity of a mere despot. Hardly less impressive was his unvarying success. Heavy as were the blows which destiny levelled at him, Henry bore and rose unconquered from all. To the end of his life the proudest barons lay bound and blinded in his prison. His hoard grew ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... because they said he was dishonorable and a criminal," came into Pierre's head, "and from their point of view they were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr's death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot. Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive—live: tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... was a drugged potion. But then, fie upon him for an avaricious hound! How was it possible I should think he suspected any such thing, when he spoke not out like a man, but, for sheer coldness of heart, or base self-interest, suffered me to run the risk of being poisoned by the wily despot?" ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... powerful of to-day; it is the same, for instance, with the high-placed and high-paid official. Not only is the judge not judicial, but the arbiter is not even arbitrary. The arbiter decides, not by some gust of justice or injustice in his soul like the old despot dooming men under a tree, but by the permanent climate of the class to which he happens to belong. The ancient wig of the judge is often indistinguishable from the old wig of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... occupation had its lords and its lore, its 'mysteries,' and its social rights. The seamen, merchants, and artisans of the Netherlands had made their country the richest in Europe. They ranged the seas and learned the value of the land; and while they fed the great despot of the Middle Ages, the light of intelligence, born of energy and nurtured by activity, cast its benignant gleams from the central island of the Rhine, and drove from their mountain nooks the owls and bats of tyranny and superstition. They fought first, these lords ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... adequately considered what a Parliament is. A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. In proportion as you give it power it will inquire into everything, settle everything, meddle in everything. In an ordinary despotism, the powers of a despot are limited by his bodily capacity, and by the calls of pleasure; he is but one man; there are but twelve hours in his day, and he is not disposed to employ more than a small part in dull business; he keeps the rest for the court, or the harem, or for society. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... Simply, he answers, the presence of one abnormal individual, "in whom the instincts of the savage were scarcely at all qualified by what we call moral sentiments"; and "all this slaughter, suffering, and devastation" were, he says, "gone through because one man had a restless desire to be despot over all men." Here we see how Spencer, as a matter of common-sense, instinctively assigns to great men absolutely contrasted positions, according to the point of view from which he is himself regarding them—that of the speculative ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... hope that goes with liberty, the undying strength that accompanies the knowledge that you are master of your own soul. A good despot at the head of a military autocracy may for the time being make the most efficient government in the world; certainly a bad despot at the head of a military autocracy makes the worst government. But I will never believe that the total surrender of the individual to the guiding hand of ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell
... happiness and fortune to their confederates, so was he soon distinguished and raised, step by step, to the rank of prime-minister of the kingdom; whilst I, neglected, despised, and unknown, remained stationary. The proud despot exerted his utmost to bring me over to his party by bribery and promise of place; but I saw that he only wished to make me thereby more deeply feel his power, and that he felt nothing more was wanting to complete his triumph ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... "she thinks me cruel, and you also think me cruel—a despot who delights in the death of his enemies. Yet it is not so, for I desire peace and to save life, not to destroy it. It is you Christians who for hard upon a hundred years have drenched these sands with blood, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... people, rightly 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
... through, and as, having been careful to disarm in turn, he advanced, Laurence could not repress a tightening thrill of the pulses as he wondered what fate it was, as regarded himself, that should now fall from the lips of this despot, whose very name meant a ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... 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 ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... father oppressed the people. Nay! what am I saying? He leads a far better, far happier life. He gets plenty to eat and plenty of warm clothes. Thousands of innocent children, who have not the crimes of a despot father upon their conscience, have to starve whilst he ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... the doctrine still holds. The character of the people is, as before, the original source of this political form; and, as we have abundant proof, other forms suddenly created will not act, but rapidly retrograde to the old form. Moreover, such regulations as a despot makes, if really operative, are so because of their fitness to the social state. His acts being very much swayed by general opinion—by precedent, by the feeling of his nobles, his priesthood, his army—are in part immediate results of the national character; ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... degraded. When the history of philanthropy shall be written, and the just meed of commendation bestowed on the benefactors of humanity, how much more exalted a place will he receive, in the memory and gratitude of the world, than the perjured and audacious despot who, born the same year, in the neighboring city of the Hague, has won his way to the throne of France by deeds of selfishness and cruelty! Even to-day, who would not rather be John Henry Wichern, the director of the Rauhe ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... plebeian in thought, but possessed of a certain portentous polish, well suited to deceive the stupid herd that follows him, and sufficient for the character he is called upon to play; a debauchee boldly declared, and scarcely caring for the hypocrisy of concealment; above all, an irresponsible despot, whose will is law to all around him; and, when needing enforcement, can at any hour pretend to the sanction of authority from heaven: such is the head of the Mormon Church! With both the temporal and spiritual power in his hands; legislative, executive, and judicial ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... separate piece of gold to a peculiarly Jewish examination touching their Christian perfection;" Salvi was a mountain of conceit, who believed himself to be the Louis Quatorze of the lyric drama, and compelled his manager to imagine him exclaiming "L'opra c'est moi!" Toward his manager Salvi was a despot, who rewarded favors bestowed upon himself by compelling the manager to engage persons who had served the tenor. Maretzek cites a ukase touching a ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... sent you out into the woods alone?" said Mrs. Hazleton, smiling, "young despot that ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... 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 of ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... security of which he was not sure; and he carried this spirit of caution to such an extremity that many of the early years of his reign present a succession of timid and vacillating movements, that more nearly resemble the subterfuges of a coward than the crafty artifices of a despot. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... of the latter phenomenon consists in the torpedo effect of what we may call, under the circumstances, the difference of ranks. The schoolmaster is a despot to his scholar; for every man is a despot, who delivers his judgment from the single impulse of his own will. The boy answers his questioner, as Dolon answers Ulysses in the Iliad, at the point of the sword. It is to a certain degree ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... Cyprus, however, an insolent and haughty despot, sent back a message of defiance. King Richard at once ordered the anchors to be raised, and all to follow the ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... copied her: would to Heaven that we had in some other matters! It is the fashion now to call her a despot: but unless every monarch is to be branded with that epithet whose power is not as circumscribed as Queen Victoria's is now, we ought rather to call her the most popular sovereign, obeyed of their own free will ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... suggest that possibly such-and-such a course might be a wise one or that such-and-such a man might be the one to appoint to such-and-such a vacancy, it would be discovered that, with singular insight, she had made a perfect suggestion. Whereas, therefore, it might be said that she was a despot, it was universally agreed that she was a benevolent one and an enlightened one, and many even went so far as to fear that her death might actually prove ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... (lazily) We are very well as we are. Life without a care—every want supplied by a kind and fatherly monarch, who, despot though he be, has no other thought than to make his people happy—what have we to gain by the great change that ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... mocking England and God. Then tyranny's draught—once only—we drank to the dregs!—and the stain Went crimson and black through the soul of the land, for all time, not in vain! We bore the bluff many-wived king, rough rival and victor of Rome; We bore the stern despot-protector, whose dawning and sunset were gloom; For they temper'd the self of the tyrant with love of the land, Some touch of the heart, some remorse, refraining the grip of the hand. But John's was blackness of darkness, ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... a gory shroud To tyrants, and the slaves that yield' Eternal honor calls aloud For courage in the battle-field. Who loves or fears a conquered land That bows beneath the despot's hand? ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... thought and experience, which few people have had equal opportunities of acquiring, I think it is but proper deference in others to allow themselves to be convinced. In fact, I think it is only obstinacy which keeps them from acknowledging that they are. I am not a despot, I hope?' she asked, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the strength to paint my joy once more! That joy I feel when Winter's reign is o'er; When the dark despot lifts his hoary brow, And seeks his polar-realm's eternal snow. Though black November's fogs oppress my brain, Shake every nerve, and struggling fancy chain; Though time creeps o'er me with his palsied hand, And frost-like bids the stream of passion stand, And through his dry teeth sends a ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... purchasers, while in remote countries, where magnificence and savagery stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art labours for the rich alone; here she works for the poor no less. There the multitude produce only to give splendour and grace to the despot or the warrior, whose slaves they are, and whom they enrich; here the man who is powerful in the weapons of peace, capital, and machinery, uses them to give comfort and enjoyment to the public, whose servant he is, and thus becomes ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... vehemently rebellious because of the spectacle of its staid and comfortable neighbours. This section is very small, but makes a considerable noise. It holds meetings and utters treasonable speeches, and denounces the 'despot' in fiery language. It protests against a free and open park; it abhors artesian wells; it detests the throwing open of nut woods that all may go forth a-nutting; it waxes righteously indignant at every gift, be it prizes for the flower ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... Hamilton had induced. The proposition to stamp the coins with the head of the President was conclusive of an immediate design to place a crown upon the head of Washington. Doubtless the leaders of the Federal party, under the able tuition of their despot, had their titles ready, their mine laid. Jefferson, in the Cabinet, protested with such solemn persistence against so dangerous a precedent, and Hamilton perforated him with such arrows of ridicule, that Washington exploded with wrath, and demanded to ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... ground endeavour to justify the deceptive conduct of the Company, both in England and at Massachusetts Bay. Had Charles or his advisers cherished any hostile feelings against the Company, there was now a good opportunity of showing it. Had he been disposed to act the despot towards them, he might at once, on a less plausible pretext than that now afforded him, have cancelled his Charter and taken the affairs of the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... to absolve humanity from oppression, is not confined to the resistance of a single despot. It goes in the same degree to a privileged class that arrogates to itself the right to oppress; nor does it stop at the half-way house of mere negative protection. It allows in its onward course the full fruition of 'EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW.' In theory, the law is the sovereign, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... they become devoted to the will of the government, and lose gradually all regard for, and all sympathy with the rights and welfare of the people. There is a tacit agreement between them and the government, by which they are bound to keep the people in a state of utter and abject submission to the despot's will, while he, on his part, is bound to collect from the people thus subdued the sums of money necessary for their pay. Thus it is the standing army which is that great and terrible sword by means of which one man is able ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... and the mother could say no more. And thus it was, that this boy of powerful character and strong passions had, from motives the most amiable, been pampered from the darling into the despot. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the favorite Oriental turn of parable or apologue. He is mild in his treatment of the prisoners that fall into his hands, and ready to forgive even the heinous crime of rebellion. He has none of the pride of the ordinary eastern despot, but converses on terms of equality with those about him. We cannot be surprised that the Persians, contrasting him with their later monarchs, held his memory in the highest veneration, and were even led by their affection ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... At each successive revolution the people were courted—were flattered—were promised transcendent felicity. The people swore eternal hatred to Monarchy, and eternal fidelity to Constitutions, till, heaven, weary of their perjuries, sent them a despot in his wrath. ...
— Count The Cost • Jonathan Steadfast
... superficial lovers of romance to submit themselves to the magic of his genius. The readers of Dickens voted him, with three times three, to the presidency of their republic of letters; the readers of Hawthorne were caught by a coup d'etat, and fretfully submitted to a despot whom they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... puissant despot among the Kings of the Ban Isrl, who sat one day upon the throne of his kingship, when he saw come in to him, by the gate of the hall, a man of forbidding aspect and horrible presence. The King was affrighted at his sudden intrusion ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... or dependent on personal whim and favoritism, is despotism. But the greatest evils, in practice, result from the failures in assessment. The assessment of taxes has to be intrusted to men with fallible judgment, imperfect knowledge, and selfish interests. The assessor is as near a despot as any agent of popular government to-day. Not infrequently men of proved incapacity in every private business they have attempted are, for partizan or corrupt reasons, selected as assessors, and are given the power of passing judgment on the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... all you tell me about my friend. My intention is certainly to see her again, if I am able; but I am too old to lay plans, especially when it depends on the despot gout to register or cancel them. It is even melancholy to see her, when it will probably be but once more; and still more melancholy, when we ought to say to one another, in a different sense from the common, au revoir! However, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... he's at dinner," the despot on the other side of the counter coldly replied, and his tone implied that he didn't think the great author would relish being disturbed by an individual who didn't even know the proper time to call. However, I produced my letter of introduction and with some access of spirit requested ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Sir Peregrine Maitland and the clique who surrounded him persecuted the press, with the view of concealing from England the true state of public opinion, in the colony. Men submit to terrible injustice before they rebel. An able despot might so manage as to inflict almost unheard of cruelties upon individuals without driving a population to arms. Men with wives and families and properties, however inconsiderable in value such properties may be, are unwilling to risk their all, at the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... "shape" still pursued him, instead of getting angry with it or growing weary of it, he opened his heart and took it in, and made it at home, and set it upon a throne, where it reigned supreme, diffusing delight over all his nature. But soon, too soon, this bosom's sovereign became the despot, and stung, goaded and urged him to see again this living, breathing, glowing, most beautiful original. To seek her? For what? He did not even try to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... in the savage and barbarous state of all primitive peoples. If the misunderstanding of truth or an imperfect science is injurious, it must not therefore be rejected. Science is the constant and vigilant generator of all social improvement, and the most formidable enemy of the tyranny of a despot, of an oligarchy, or of the multitude, whether it take a religious or secular form. Since sharp instruments are powerful aids to civilization and material prosperity, they are not to be altogether set aside because some persons die ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... ceased to admire 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 ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... Allah sees—it has warned—now it will destroy. The day of judgment is at hand. The battleship Maryland is at anchor in the Hudson River at New York. No more shall it be the weapon of a despot government. It will be destroyed at twelve o'clock ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... said the Pope. "Isn't it almost enough to justify a man like Rossi that he has to meet a despot like that?" ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... [Greek: despots], lord or master; the origin of the first part of the Gr. word is unknown, the second part is cognate with [Greek: posis], husband, Lat. potens, powerful), in Greek usage the master of a household, hence the ruler of slaves. It was also used by the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... 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 ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... 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
... so far as that, but you are in the realm of a petty independent prince, who is something of a despot, and for your own sake you must submit to ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... which once had been the eyrie of some petty predatory despot, and which now served as an observatory for two idle divisions below in the valley, stood three telescopes. Otherwise the furniture consisted of valises, trunks, a table and chairs, a few books, several newspapers, and some tennis balls ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... poison in it. By some odd freak, Athalie had bought it in one of her Italian journeys, and while it was in her possession she thought she could defy the world. She imagined herself able to destroy her own life at any moment, and this idea made her feel as a despot to her parents and her lover. If they do not do all she wishes, the box is there; she need only choose the swiftest poison, and in the morning they would find her a corpse. Now a great temptation assailed her; life lay before her as a desolate ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the history of the race, with signal services to humanity and culture. There is not one that could stand a cynical cross-examination by an experienced criminal lawyer, except that of a perfectly wise and perfectly good despot, such as the world has never seen, except in that white-haired king ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... 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
... that moment, on the threshold of new experiences, I took the words on trust. Perhaps, for once, the things I had read in books had not eluded me! Perhaps the old gentleman in the flannel nightgown really was a potential African despot. In the midst of my reflections I heard another newspaper phrase, 'Not long ago the rivers ran blood.' This was the Second, who was fond of stories inside comic supplements, and who was recalling a bygone 'atrocity,' ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... 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 Marmion's ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... degenerate and an epileptic, ungovernably irritable, vain, mendacious, arrogant, sometimes quite irresponsible for his actions. A really strong man he can scarcely be; scarcely a man of true political insight, else he would not have tried to play the despot with no plausible ideal to allege in defense of his usurpation. Be that as it may, he agreed with the King that it was impossible to carry on the work of government with a fractious Cortes in session, and that the only way to keep ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... friends so long as they remained complaisant, and violent and implacable to all who thwarted him.—His uncontrollable temper alienated him from nearly all his family in his latter years. In private life he was an immovable despot." ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... not on that but on two other circumstances of the case, the affection of the parent for the children, and the superiority of the parent in wisdom and experience; neither of which properties can be reckoned on, or are at all likely to exist, between a political despot and his subjects; and when either of these circumstances fails even in the family, and the influence of the irresponsibility is allowed to work uncorrected, the result is any thing but good government. This, therefore, is a ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... and assumed the functions of governor; but he did not take away the parchment on which the charter was written. The people of Rhode Island were restive under the petty tyranny of Andros, and when they heard of the imprisonment of the despot at Boston, in 1689, they assembled at Newport, resumed popular government under the old charter, and began a new independent political career. From that time, until the enforced union of the colonies for mutual defence, at the breaking out ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... at Monsieur de Granville, and saw consternation written in his face. "It cannot be, it must not be too late!" she added, in the tone of a despot. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... and Goethe, two mighty conquerors, was an event in the world's history. On one side the scourge of God, the great annihilator of all survivals from the past, the gloomy despot, the last abortion ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... qualities, in all his complex interests, are exhibited with wonderful distinctness and address. Nor is it at the surface or the outward movements alone that we look; we are taught the mechanism of their characters, as well as shown it in action. The stony-hearted Despot himself must have been an object of peculiar study to the author. Narrow in his understanding, dead in his affections, from his birth the lord of Europe, Philip has existed all his days above men, not among them. Locked up within himself, a stranger to every generous and kindly ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... ages have lived nearest to things spiritual, that have most enriched the world with thoughts, whose inner visions pierced our outer clouds, seeing something of the glory of the infinite, brought back no pictures of a face austere, of a cruel despot, or of aught for love or ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... pestilent dungeons which lay below the Landgrave's castle. A few scattered cries of triumph were heard from the crowd; but they were drowned in a tumult of conflicting feelings. As human creatures, fallen under the displeasure of a despot with a judicial power of torture to enforce his investigations, even they claimed some compassion. But there arose, to call off attention from these less dignified objects of the public interest, a long train of gallant cavaliers, restored so capriciously to liberty, in ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... 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
... 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 ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus |
