"Usurp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is within the range of probability: whereas, that is not at all adhered to in many novels— witness the drinking scene in —, and others equally outrees, in which the author, having turned probability out of doors, ends by throwing possibility out of the window—leaving folly and madness to usurp their place—and play a thousand antics for the admiration of the public, who, pleased with novelty, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... nature. If we are to find sermons in stones, we are to look for them in the relations of the stones to other things—when they are out of place, when they press down the grass or the flowers, or impede the plow, or dull the scythe, or usurp the soil, or shelter vermin, as do old institutions and old usages that have had their day. A stone that is much knocked about gets its sharp angles worn off, as do men. "A rolling stone gathers no moss," ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... fellow-creature be in any respect justifiable. And although this rule appears to me to be scarcely applicable to our state in this stage of trial, seeing that such non-resistance, if general, would surrender our civil and religious rights into the hands of whatsoever daring tyrants might usurp the same; yet I am, and have been, inclined to limit the use of carnal arms to the case of necessary self-defence, whether such regards our own person, or the protection of our country against invasion; or of our rights of property, and the freedom of our laws ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Mansur, drove back the Castilians to the northern mountains and raided the inmost recesses of the Christian territories. Somewhat later the Wild Berber hordes of the Almoravides and the Almohads, crossing from Africa to usurp the Ommeiad dominions and carry on the holy war with greater energy, aroused new fears and provoked in the threatened kingdoms a fanaticism equal to their own. The Spanish Christians appealed for help to their northern ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... not every man's hand that they will suit. In the hands of common-place, they are simply revolting. In the hands of folly and affectation, their repulsiveness is aggravated by the simpering conceits which usurp the place of the strongest passions of our nature. He only is privileged to unveil these gloomy depths of erring humanity, who can subdue their repulsiveness by touches of ethereal feeling; and whose imagination, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... in the Holy Ghost, "Believe of him," says he, "the same as of the Father and of the Son," &c. (Cat. 4, n. 16, pp. 59, 60.) On the article of the holy Catholic Church, he observes that the very name of Catholic distinguishes it from all heresies, which labor in vain to usurp it; this always remains proper to the spouse of Christ, as we see, if a stranger ask in any city, Where is the Catholic Church? (Cat. 18, n. 26.) That it is catholic, or universal, because spread over the whole world, from one end to the other; and because universally and without ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... not enough to usurp the rights of a husband and father, he thought to play his part still better by deceiving the mistress also . . . . Ah! it is amusing, is it not? You also, Rose, you thought he was your old lover! Well, I at least am excusable, I the wife, who only thought ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the emperor, who resided at Constantinople, on many occasions to give up the possession of it to others, as a charge full of danger and expense; and sometimes, without his permission, the Romans, seeing themselves so abandoned, created an emperor for their defense, or suffered some one to usurp the dominion. This occurred at the period of which we now speak, when Maximus, a Roman, after the death of Valentinian, seized the government, and compelled Eudocia, widow of the late emperor, to take him for her husband; but she, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... ii. 9), "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former"? It is a question which it is natural to ask, and it should be ingenuously answered. Is it that these were tending to usurp the place of the spiritual, of which they were but the assurance and the symbol, and darken rather than reveal the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... there was no question. He did not at all usurp her office, nor interfere with it. But when he saw her getting weary of a parliamentary discussion, or a long discourse on politics or parties, his hand would gently draw away the paper from hers and his voice carry on the reading. And ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... talk. Indeed, now, two months after, it was still the absorbing theme that occupied the dwellers of the parish: and such it promised to remain till supplanted by something of sufficient dignity and importance to usurp its place. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... beneficence ought not to be done hap-hazard. Nothing needs more reflection than a good action. We never know whether that which seems best at one moment may not prove an evil later. The exercise of beneficence, as I have lived to discover, is to usurp the ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... This was an increasingly serious matter, for pious donors were constantly bequeathing churches and tithes to favourite Orders and popular houses, and the abbot attempted with considerable success to usurp the definitely episcopal authority by instituting the parish priest. Nor was this the only matter in which the abbot substituted himself for the bishop. The monastic community might build a church without any reference to the local ecclesiastical authority, and the abbot ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... intervention the work to which the Prussian nation had now committed itself beyond power of recall. It was the fortune of the Prussian State, while its King dissembled before the French in Berlin, to possess a soldier brave enough to emancipate its army, and a citizen bold enough to usurp the government of its provinces. Frederick William forgave York his intrepidity; Stein's action was never forgiven by the timid and jealous sovereign whose subjects he had summoned to arm themselves ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... had come to Jesus with the request, "Teacher, bid my brother divide the inheritance with me." The reply implied that the Master regarded his work as spiritual, and that he was not willing to invade the sphere of civil law or to usurp the place of regularly appointed authorities, "Man, who made me a judge or a divider ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... selfish man I am, I usurp the right. What damnable infatuation can bind you to that miserable poltroon, who skulks in safety, knowing that the penalty of his evil deeds falls on you? One explanation has suggested itself: it haunts me like a fiend, and only you can exorcise it. Are you married to that brute, and is it loyalty ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... had been in past years vague and indefinite enough on several points of importance, it was truly said. But in the pulpit and out of it, on one point it had been full, clear, and definite. A man must rule (well) his own household. "The husband is the head of the wife," who is not suffered "to usurp authority over the man," but who is to listen in silence, being "the weaker ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... the fact remains that the ruffians in their hire did shoot into the crowd without occasion, and did so shed innocent blood. And it is enough to condemn the system that it authorizes unofficial and irresponsible persons to usurp the most delicate and difficult functions of the State and exposes the lives of citizens to the murderous assaults of hireling assassins, stimulated to violence by panic or by the suggestion of employers to strike terror by an appalling exhibition of force. If ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... cunning, but separated by the very same passions, and a thousand others; living together under a kind of truce, but continually ready to break out into open war; continually jealous of each other; continually on the defensive, because continually dreading an attack; ever ready to usurp on the rights of others, and perpetually entangled in the most wretched contentions, concerning what all would neglect, if not despise, did not the errors of this selfish system give value to what ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Precedents also in the case. Much is to be offered to you in that; according to the laws of the nations, that was a due Parliament. Those Commissions were issued forth, and what was done was done by their power; and whereas it hath been said we did assume and usurp an authority, I say this was done rather in the fear of ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... their Governor. "I hope you will not be troubled at the change," he said, "for you are now fixed at the mercy of no Governor who comes to make his fortune. You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free and, if you will, a sober and industrious people. I shall not usurp the right of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... this matter his mother was to be supported, whilst his detestation of this adventurer who threatened to usurp the place that should rightly be his own spurred him to mad ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... there are enough generous minds in Europe that will counteract her in the balance. Of course her motive is to cripple a power that rivals her in commerce and manufactures, that threatens even to usurp her history. In twenty more years of prosperity, it will require a close calculation to determine whether England, her laws and history, claim for a home the Continent of America or the Isle of Britain. Therefore, finding ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... the daring burglar eyeing with confidence the counsel learned in the law's defects, fee'd by its produce to defend its quondam owner. The effigies of Pride, Extravagance, honest Distress, and reckless Plunder, all by turns usurp the scene. In my last waking sleep, just as I had composed myself in delicious indolence, a parcel fell with more than ordinary force on one beneath. These were two of my talking friends. I stirred not, but sat silently to listen to their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... no country, however abject its inhabitants may appear, where the most daring and ambitious can venture to usurp the supreme power without first obtaining a hold on public opinion; we cannot have a stronger proof of this fact, as applicable to Persia, than what we find in the conduct of Nadir upon this memorable occasion. Though that chief had revived the military spirit of his country, and roused a nation ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp to themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... seems very hard on you. You and your mother are poor, whilst I am no relation. Why should I usurp your place—in fact, be ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... on ignoring nothing which is published with the idea of being read, my experiences for observation have been somewhat unusual. The increase in the number of books, and the eagerness of the public to learn about them at the earliest possible moment, have caused the daily press to usurp some of the functions formerly enjoyed by the monthly reviews. The latter do little more than mention the vast majority of publications and confine more and more their critical talents to what they consider conspicuous ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... little perplexed, as if she could not understand how it could be otherwise than wrong for a girl to usurp her seat. ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have forborn to quote when I copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labours or usurp their honours, but that I might spare a perpetual repetition by one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Junius appears to ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... wreck—of the debasement and moral ruin of a people endowed by God with surpassing resources for the attainment of human happiness and human dignity. I cannot be loyal to a system of meanness, terror, and corruption, although it usurp the title and assume the form of a 'government.' So long as such a 'government' presumes to injure and insult me, and those in whose prosperity I am involved, I must offer to it all the resistance in my power. But if I despaired of successful resistance, ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... led the young man to a small chamber where they were greeted by Princess Eleanor, his wife, and by Bertrade de Montfort. The girl was frankly glad to see him once more and laughingly chide him because he had allowed another to usurp his prerogative and rescue ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... habit of happiness and is so engrossed in the big elemental things of life that she can laugh at the incidental pin-pricks that others call troubles. She differentiates major from minor and never permits a minor to usurp the throne. Being an integral part of her life, her work takes on all the hues of her life. For her, culture is not something added; rather it is a something that permeates her whole nature and her whole life. She does not read poetry and other forms of literature, study the great masterpieces ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... often happens that, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them.[52] Hence so frequently it arises that, in persons of this temperament, we see some bright but artificial idol of the brain usurp the place of all real and natural objects of tenderness. The poet Dante, a wanderer away from wife and children, passed the whole of a restless and detached life in nursing his immortal dream of Beatrice; while Petrarch, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... live as though in a different sphere altogether, where another scheme of nature obtained. It is colossal presumption in human beings to give examples to be followed, which, should they be followed, would end the human race. The Supreme Being will end it in His own time; it is not for us to usurp authority." ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the utter consternation of the king, he rushed out from his hiding-place, and began to assail the duke with the most violent reproaches, alleging that his pretensions of friendship for Henry were false, and that the real design of his movements was to usurp the throne. The duke retorted with equally fierce denunciations and threats. During the continuance of this altercation, the king remained stupefied and speechless, and at length, when the duke retired, officers were ready at the ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... poverty, and that you would traverse towns and castles and distant places, as the case required, barefooted and unostentatiously, in order to preach the word of God in all humility? And do you now presume to usurp these estates to yourselves against the will of the lords of these fees? Your religion appears to be in a great measure dying away, and ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... often, it is possessed by him that receives it with the same right as it was conveyed. It may, indeed, like all our possessions, be forcibly seized or fraudulently obtained. But no injury is still done to the people; for what they never had, they have never lost. Caius may usurp the right of Titius; but neither Caius nor Titius injure the people; and no man's conscience, however tender or however active, can prompt him to restore what may be proved to have been never taken away. Supposing, what I think ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... not going to allow business to usurp their time and thought during this joyful season! The children must have their trees, hung with gifts; the needy must be especially cared for, and visits must be exchanged; so the City was left to take care of itself, while ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... his duty to do anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary, unless prevented by direct constitutional ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... to pass for white men, as very many of them could easily have contrived to do, woe unto the poor impostors! They were hunted down from city to city as few felons would be, and finally done to death—"serve them right!" being the grim commentary regarding their fate for having sought to usurp the ineffable privilege of whitemanship! All this, Mr. Froude, was [121] the rule, the practice, in America, with regard to persons of colour up to twenty-five years ago. Now, sir, what is the phenomenon which strikes your vision ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... the gates." There was doubtless a great difference among the husbands at the gate, and I feel sure that this one took a specially large and public-spirited view of the business there discussed. The Virtuous Woman would not usurp his office, just because she had the power of speaking well,—she would remember the Russian proverb, "The Master is the Head of the House, while the Mistress is its Soul," and she would be a very high-souled mistress, and care greatly that her master should not ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... a just one. Vane had attempted to usurp the government. Cromwell turned to the speaker, who obstinately clung to his seat, declaring that he would not yield ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... here to ask the question, Why did the pale-face usurp the lands of the Indians without remuneration? It was because the Indian was not orthodox. He may have been lazy from a Puritanical stand-point, and he may also have hunted on the twenty-seventh Sunday after Easter; but still was it not right that ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... the supreme power would undoubtedly devolve on Protestants. Those Tories who held most firmly the doctrine that nothing could justify them in resisting their liege lord would have no scruple about drawing their swords against a Popish woman who should dare to usurp the guardianship of the realm and of the infant sovereign. The result of a contest could scarcely be matter of doubt. The Prince of Orange or his wife, would be Regent. The young King would be placed in the hands of heretical ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sprats; clarified horse fat is called "fresh country butter," and Irish regiments are made to decorate themselves with common clover under the delusion that it is the shamrock. Other plants have been from time to time utilised to usurp the title of "shamrock." Thus the small Lucerne clover or medicago is often sold as "shamrock" to Irish patriots, and the watercress has been solemnly pat forward as the true shamrock simply because old writers tell us, as evidence of the barbarous state of the Irish, that they fed upon shamrocks ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... been astonished at the schools being shut on the day after his arrival. And they remained shut, both the modern school and the middle-class girls' school for months, because the Professor's quite illegal attempt to usurp the inspectorship was resented. The secondary school was closed and the teachers who had come to [vS]ibenik with their families, but whose permanent domicile was elsewhere, received an order, delivered by carabinieri, that they would have to leave ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... Mordaunt. It appears to me that, under the pretext of acting as guardian to my father, you oppose a reconciliation between us, without even consulting his wishes; and it is strange that a niece, a granddaughter only, should usurp the position of the eldest son, and refuse to ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... one ever thought of asking how much of it he understood. I think it one of the happiest circumstances of his training, that nothing was ever explained to him, and that there was no professedly intellectual person in the family to usurp the place of Providence and supplement its shortcomings, in order to make him what he was never intended to be. His mind developed itself; intentional cultivation might have spoiled it.... He used to invent long stories, wild and fanciful, and tell where he was going when he grew up, and of the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... of the Tower. These acts of violence, exercised against the nearest connections of the late King, prognosticated the severest fate to his defenceless children; and after the murder of Hastings, the Protector no longer made a secret of his intentions to usurp the crown. The licentious life of Edward afforded a pretence for declaring his marriage with the Queen invalid and all his posterity illegitimate. It was also maintained that the act of attainder passed against the Duke of Clarence had virtually incapacitated his children from succeeding to the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... there are exceptions, I hope," he said. "Love, like everything else that is great, is very, very rare. We call the disposition to usurp and absorb another person by that name, but woe betide him or her who is the object of such a sentiment. Yet happily, the real thing is to be found now and again. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... claim these prisoners as mine, so you may get up and go about your business. You see, lads," he added, turning to the men, while Swinton rose and retired, "though I have no wish to domineer over you or to usurp authority. I have a right to claim that my voice shall be heard and my reasons weighed. As Swinton truly remarked, no man is master now, but as he followed this remark by making himself master, and laying down a law for us, I thought ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... "None can usurp this height," return'd that shade, "But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and will not let them rest." * * * * * "Are there not thousands in the world," said I, Encourag'd by the sooth voice of the shade, "Who love their fellows even to the death, Who feel the giant ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh
... empire. In later ages these were deemed preeminently the patent of imperial power. On one occasion a feudal prince asked the question, "How heavy are these tripods?" A minister of state, suspecting an intention to remove them and usurp the power, replied in a long speech, proving the divine commission of his master, and asked in conclusion, "Why then should you inquire the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... growing disk the sun crosses the sky; the moon shines no more, and is scarcely visible. Yet still, perhaps, the northern lights flicker over the desert, icy plain, and still the stars twinkle in silence, peacefully as of yore. Some have burnt out, but new ones usurp their place; and round them revolve new spheres, teeming with new life, new sufferings, without any aim. Such is the infinite cycle of eternity; such ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... adversaries and admirers, who vied with each other in doing him harm. He was too disgusted to reply. When he read the pronunciamentos directed against him in the pages of an important newspaper by one of those presumptuous critics who usurp the sovereignty of art with all the insolence of ignorance and impunity, he would shrug his shoulders ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Sicily, one morining gatherd the people together and the Senate of Syracusa, as if he had some what to advise with them of matters belonging to the Commonwealth, and upon a signe given, caus'd his souldiers to kill his Senatours, and the richest of the people; who being slaine, he usurp'd the Principality of that City without any civill strife: and however he was twice broken by the Carthaginians, and at last besieged, was able not onely to defend his own City, but leaving part of his own army at the defence thereof, with the other invaded Affrique, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... would get her a saddle, and then June would usurp Miss Anne's place on a horseback-ride up through the gap to see the first blooms of the purple rhododendron on Bee Rock, or up to Morris's farm on Powell's mountain, from which, with a glass, they could see the Lonesome Pine. And all ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... Lodovico soon saw that his only hope of seeing his native land again was to be found in the support of Ferrante, King of Naples, the sworn foe of the Medici. This monarch looked on Simonetta as a traitorous villain who had taken advantage of Bona's weakness to usurp the supreme power in Milan, and wrote to King Louis XI, begging him to come to his kinswoman's help and assist in restoring the Duke of Bari and his brother to their rights. But the French king had no wish to be drawn into the quarrel, and when Ferrante endeavoured to obtain ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... Cross He nails thy Enemies The Law that is against thee, and the sins Of all Mankind, with him there crucified, Never to hurt them more, who rightly trust In this his Satisfaction: So he dies, But soon revives; Death over him no Power Shall long usurp: e'er the third dawning Light Return, the Stars of Morron shall see him rise Out of his Grave, fresh as the dawning Light, The Ransom paid, which Man ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... not Brutus (I mean that Brutus, who in open senate Stabb'd the first Caesar that usurp'd ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... our Plato's age had oftentimes great conflicts with the rashness of folly? And while he lived, had not his master Socrates the victory of an unjust death in my presence, whose inheritance, when afterward the mob of Epicures, Stoics, and others (every one for his own sect) endeavoured to usurp, and as it were in part of their prey, sought to draw me to them, exclaiming and striving against them; they tore the garment which I had woven with my own hands, and having gotten some little pieces of it, thinking me to be wholly in their possession, departed. Some ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... here to dwell upon athletics and sport which now so largely occupy the attention of the youth of our land. Physical exercise is necessary to the maintenance of bodily fitness, yet it may easily become an all-absorbing pursuit, and instead of being merely a means to an end, may usurp the place in life which ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... of a Reformation, which is only to be effected by a Restoration of the Latin to the usual Dignity in your Papers, which of late, the Greek, to the great Displeasure of your Female Readers, has usurp'd; for tho the Latin has the Recommendation of being as unintelligible to them as the Greek, yet being written of the same Character with their Mother-Tongue, by the Assistance of a Spelling-Book its legible; which Quality the Greek wants: ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... least propagated, for their own advantage. It was said that, during the times of the Galwegian independence, one Hanlon Mac-Dingawaie, brother to the reigning chief, Knarth Mac-Dingawaie, murdered his brother and sovereign, in order to usurp the principality from his infant nephew, and that, being pursued for vengeance by the faithful allies and retainers of the house, who espoused the cause of the lawful heir, he was compelled to retreat, with a few followers whom he ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... friendship: Open to all, true only to thyself, Thou know'st those arts which blast with envious praise, Which aggravate a fault with feigned excuses, And drive discountenanced virtue from the throne; That leave blame of rigour to the prince, And of his every gift usurp the merit; That hide in seeming zeal a wicked purpose, And ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... shrewd and designing, often making pretence of friendship and affection to gain her ends when in reality hatred and animosity were burning in her bosom. Such was Rebecca Hartz. Such the woman to usurp the household government, when the gentle Mrs. ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... learned scribe Nor arithmaticion Ever able to decide The usurp'd base ambition, Which in truth I shall declare, Traytors here which lately were, Who ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... what was best for her among this crowd of hostile women—flew to the winds. He must go to her—must show her he loved and would protect her, and, above all, that he would permit no other man to usurp his place. ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... may be the outcome of his gross pleasures soon begins to haunt him and to usurp in his mind the place of nobler ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... It may necessitate the abolition of some of the big contests that have been the excitement of many thousands. But it must not be forgotten prelude and preparation for life; they must not be allowed to usurp the chief place in a man's thoughts or to unfit him for his greatest after-usefulness. [Footnote: Cf. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 90, p. 534; Outlook, vol. 98, p. 597.] Is it wrong to smoke? Statistics taken with care at many American colleges ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... aspired like her, like the philosophers, like the popes, like the press in our times, to a participation in the government of the world, but because they disputed her claims as one of the powers of the age. The Jesuits were scandalized that such a woman should usurp the reins of state, especially when they perceived that she mocked and defied them; and they therefore refused to pay her court, and even conspired to effect her overthrow. But they had not sufficiently considered the potency of her wrath, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... to be compelled to record that out of a quarrel, originating in a servile endeavour on the part of the two principal nobles of a great nation to usurp the functions of a maitre-d'hotel, grew an attempt at civil war, which, had not the treachery of Richelieu nipped it in the bud, might have involved France in a sanguinary and unnatural series of conflicts that would have rendered that country ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... "Do you think, Vizier, that this man could usurp my throne? How would it be if I gave him a palace and raised him to be ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... school without it, and regarded the masters, as a matter of course, as his natural enemies. Matters were not so comfortable in the house, either. The new praeposters of the Sixth Form were not strong, and the big Fifth Form boys soon began to usurp power, and to fag and bully the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... efforts. He also opposed the Absolute Veto and led the fight for the sequestration of the property of the Church. This course made him a popular idol and in the early days of the Revolution he was the leader of the extreme wing of the Republicans. When he saw, however, that mob law was about to usurp the place of the Republican institutions for which he had striven, he leaned towards the court and advocated the sacrosanctity of the King's person. Denounced as a renegade, with his life threatened and his influence lost, he retired ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... second article guaranties "the right of people to bear arms." Without this right, ambitious men might, by the aid of the regular army, overthrow the liberties of the people, and usurp the powers ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state. To compass this, the triple bond[69] he broke; The pillars of the public safety shook; And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke: Then seized with fear, yet still affecting fame, Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name. So easy still it proves, in factious times, 180 With public zeal to cancel private crimes! How safe is treason, and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the people's will! Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known, Since in another's guilt they find their ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... were no less bowed than of yore; nor was his hair less red; but the round face appeared rounder than ever by reason of a thick fringe of whiskers. His body had filled out, and he moved with a rolling gait that caused him to usurp more than one man's ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... in Hate: Resolv'd to Ruine or to Rule the State. To Compass this, the Triple Bond he broke; The Pillars of the Publick Safety shook: And fitted Israel for a Foreign Yoke. Then, seiz'd with Fear, yet still affecting Fame, Usurp'd a Patriot's All-attoning Name. So easie still it proves in Factious Times, With publick Zeal to cancel private Crimes: How safe is Treason, and how sacred ill, here none can sin against the Peoples Will: Where Crouds can wink; and no offence be known, Since in anothers guilt they find ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... was—almost, it seemed to her now, an unpardonable crime. To seize upon another girl's identity; to usurp another's chance; to foist herself upon the unsuspecting and kindly souls at the Ball homestead in a way that raised for them a happiness that was merely a phantom—the thought of it all was now a draught of which the dregs were ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... desert, for that one brief moment before its rays broke into the amazing splendour which is Egypt's, the world became less mysterious, more familiar. Things relating to the day's work forced themselves upon Michael's mind. His bath and breakfast and many other practical things began to usurp his thoughts, while the barking of dogs, the movement in the hut of the "boys," brought him back to the common, everyday life ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... H. Carleton, is my son. He will probably be with you for some time, and will not try to assume any authority or usurp your position as foreman and overseer. You will treat him as you do the other boys, and if he wants to work, pay him the same ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... playfulness to infect her brother Herbert with a portion of her jealousy, for she knew not the contents of those letters Mary ever wrote to Herbert, or she would not for one moment have imagined that either Lord Delmont or St. Eval would usurp her ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... characters on his spear. How he arrived in this position we do not know, any more than we know the origin of the Greek gods; indeed, in this respect and others there are parallels between the Greek and the Northern mythology. Wotan goes in fear lest the powers of the nether world usurp his domination, which he wants to make absolute. He makes a pact with the giants—the Titan forces of the earth—that be will give them Freia if they build him a castle, Valhalla, which he intends to fill with slain warriors in sufficient numbers to keep down his foes. This is his primary, ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... own. The simulated affection was now changed into undisguised hatred. Moreover, by the death of Alencon, Navarre now stood next the throne, and Guise's plots became still more extensive and more open as his own ambition to usurp the crown on the death of the childless Henry ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... class can make the wisest decisions, the majority are the best judges of speeches. All these classes in a democracy have equal power both individually and collectively. But oligarchy shares the dangers with the many, while it does not merely usurp the material benefits, rather it ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou With courtesy receive him; rise and bow; And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave Permission first his heavenly feet to lave; Then lay before him all thou hast; allow No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, Or mar thy hospitality; no wave Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul's marmoreal calmness: Grief shall be Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate; Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; Strong to consume small troubles; to commend Great thoughts, grave ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... whole hour. Lebrun visited but seldom. Notwithstanding his elevation, his character remained unaltered; and Bonaparte considered him too moderate, because he always opposed his ambitious views and his plans to usurp power. When Bonaparte left the breakfast-table it was seldom that he did not add, after bidding Josephine and her daughter Hortense good-day, "Come, Bourrienne, come, let ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... thee. Do thou With courtesy receive him, rise and bow, And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave Permission first his heavenly feet to lave, Then lay before him all thou hast. Allow No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow Or mar thy hospitality; no wave Of mortal tumult to obliterate Thy soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be, Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate; Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; Strong to consume small troubles, to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... another party, whose object is to materialise mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what is just; to acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from virtue; assuming the title of the champions of modern civilisation, and placing themselves in a station which they usurp with insolence, and from which they are driven by their ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... there is neither wood nor ravens to authorize the name. But the "Sunswick," which satisfied the Delafields and Gibbses of the olden, time, and which distinguished their lofty halls and broad lawns, was not elegant enough for the cockney tastes of these latter days, so "wood" must be made to usurp the place of cherries and apples, and "ravens" that of gulls, in order to satisfy its cravings. But all this was lost on Spike. He remembered the shore as it had been twenty years before, and he saw what it was now, but little did he care for the change. On the whole, he rather preferred ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... with whom you may happen to be dancing when supper is announced to the supper-table, unless she has come with a gentleman, in which case you must not usurp his privilege. If she is disengaged, escort her to a seat in the supper-room, if possible, and see that she is served with the dishes she selects. Do not take your own supper at the same time; wait till the lady has finished; then take her back to ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... little surprising that a mother-state should trust large bodies of mercenary troops in her colonies, at so great a distance from her; lest, in process of time, when the spirits of the people shall be depressed by the military power, another Caesar should arise and usurp the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... confusion over a thousand homes. Alas! for the palaces and hovels, that might have been nurseries for heaven, By hot intestine broils blighted into schools for hell; None knoweth his place, yet all refuse to serve, None weareth the crown, yet all usurp the scepter; The mother, heart-stricken years agone, hath dropped into an early grave; The silent sisters long to leave a home they cannot love; The brothers, casting off ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... is widely different with the office of Treasurer. The President ought not to usurp the power of his appointment, which ought, after serious discussion by the Council, to be made by the ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... and here he has contrived to enliven his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is a beauty upon the whole, but the swain's wish to carry "some faint idea of the vision bright," to entertain her "partial listening ear," is a pretty thought. But in my opinion the most beautiful passages in the whole ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... however, had been wrought in the course of the last few hours, upon the thoughts and feelings of our two fair captives, a change which had caused reality to usurp for a time at least, the place of romance, and constrained them to gaze with a vacant look upon the superbly natural beauties of the island glen. Therefore with thoughts concentrated upon their immediate personal prospects and fruitless conjectures as ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... I not thankfully obey the heavenly voice? Shall I carry my humility to the extreme of disobedience? Shall I not rather arise, and, with a cheerful and joyous heart, do my Saviour what service I can? I will not presume to usurp the prerogative of God, even to judge and punish myself. I will leave myself to Him, the merciful and all-knowing, and He shall do with me what He sees best. I will not reject His mercy. I will not resist His will. Let ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... scientific sovereignty; and in the scientific diagrams the passions, 'the poor and private passions,' and the arbitrary will, in whomsoever they speak, no matter what symbols of sovereignty they have contrived to usurp, make no better figure in their struggles with that law, than that same which the poet's vivid imagination and intense perception of incompatibilities, has seized on here. The king struggles vainly against the might of the universal ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... this: The Emperor loves you, it is true; he calls you his most faithful servant, and promises ever to be a gracious Sovereign to you, but he will never further your projects of becoming an independent ruler, and will not assist you to effect the Elector's ruin, that you may usurp his place. He rather wishes you to remain what you are—Stadtholder in the Mark—and to exert all your energies in maintaining that position, since the Emperor relies upon your good offices for securing ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach |
