"Browbeat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... know that I blame people for things. There are times when it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, without control of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been in a position to answer they might have told him that it required far less skill to play upon a man than any other instrument. ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... can believe it. What a rash, head-long sort of creature you must think me! Why, I was as bad as Nan herself, to go over there and simply browbeat her as I did! Do you suppose she will ever ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... had undertaken this job in our place, we should have deserved to be shut out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. Why,—why,—he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... evidently a little nonplussed that she should know his name, and by now she was ready even to browbeat him a little should it ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... placed these witnesses on the stand that they would exploit a foul calumny cooked up for the occasion, were to brand them as hopeless fools. If they did know it they were knaves—and they are welcome to impale themselves on either horn of the dilemma they like. They next attempted to badger and browbeat the poor girl into an admission that she had made an assignation with the Senegambian. The local papers in reporting the case said the language used by these chivalrous (?) Southern gentlemen to the plaintiff was unprintable. They secured no admission of guilt—not one word that could ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... day, and all the next, and a great part of the third, but we do not purpose going into it in detail. The way in which Mr Rasp (Captain Dunning's counsel) and Mr Tooth (Captain Dixon's counsel) badgered, browbeat, and utterly bamboozled the witnesses on both sides, and totally puzzled the jury, can only be understood by those who have frequented courts of law, but could not be fully or adequately described in less than six ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... with himself. He was a rough man, something of a brute—a good deal of an animal—but animals have their affections, and he loved Julia as well as it was in his nature to love anything. It was ingrained in him by nature and by years of unquestioned domination to bully and browbeat all defenceless people; but Julia, the most defenceless of his surroundings, had been treated always with a lighter hand. Childlike, she had taken advantyage of her immunity in many little ways, and though Samson had never forborne to bluster at her girlish insubordination, he rather liked it than ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... the voice crisply. "You'd found out there were humans involved in this business. It was important that the fact be suppressed. I tried to browbeat you, which was a mistake. While I was talking to you your suspicion was reported on short wave by the Wild Life driver. I tried to overawe you. You're the wrong kind of man for that. But everything can be explained. Everything! ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... [Per Errata; Originally: Mrs.] Burney records this year (1778) that Mrs. Thrale said to Johnson, 'Garrick is one of those whom you suffer nobody to abuse but yourself; for if any other person speaks against him, you browbeat him in a minute. "Why, madam," answered he, "they don't know when to abuse him, and when to praise him; I will allow no man to speak ill of David that he does not deserve."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 65. See ante, ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... to disprove the charges by repeating the silly story he had told me. He cross-questioned the witnesses, and did his best to browbeat Peverell. The messenger showed that it was impossible that any money could have been obtained from the bank while Cornwood was in Jacksonville between the time the Floridian arrived and departed. But the court was satisfied with ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... they had banked as potential labor would not work. A few came and stayed, but most of them quit after earning a few pesos. So the hemp rotted in the field. Desperate, facing ruin, some of the planters went after labor too strongly, frightened and browbeat the Bogobos into working. The scheme worked, so a condition approximating peonage was developed upon ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... to browbeat her into a state which he defined as normal, Rachel had accepted in numb helplessness. She had given up commanding him to leave her alone. His presence frequently became a nausea. Her enfevered senses had come to perceive in the conventionally clothed ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... Javert was just bluffing. Later developments proved me right. He knew nothing about it. Even the German Secret Service is not omniscient. Getting no results then from these wheedling tactics Javert shifted back to his bullying and essayed once more to browbeat me into a confession. Calling to his aid two officers who had been but casual onlookers they began volleying charges at me with ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... deputation, begging the governor to alter the obnoxious title. "Write not," they said, "'The King of the Jews,' but that 'He said, I am the King of the Jews.'" But Pilate's courage, which had oozed away so rapidly at the name of Caesar, had now revived. He was glad in any and every way to browbeat and thwart the men whose seditious clamor had forced him in the morning to act against his will. Few men had the power of giving expression to a sovereign contempt more effectually than the Romans. Without deigning any justification ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... aristocratical connections, with a superciliousness to which the Peers were not accustomed, and with tones and gestures better suited to a large and stormy assembly than to the body of which he was now a member. A short altercation followed, and he was told very plainly that he should not be suffered to browbeat the old nobility ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have been killed?" exclaimed the cowboy. "Everythin' square? Why, when he said that Johnnie was cheatin' and acted like such a jackass? And then in the saloon he fairly walked up to git hurt?" With these arguments the cowboy browbeat the Easterner and reduced ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... not browbeat me!" She rose from her seat, with indignation in her face. "Leave me, or I will call ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... beginning of the seventh canto of Dante's "Inferno." But the most picturesque group in the whole scene presented to us is that made by Cellini himself, armed and mailed, and attended by his prentices in armour, as they walked into the court to browbeat justice with the clamour of their voice. If we are to trust his narrative, he fought his way out of one most dangerous trial by simple vociferation. Afterwards he took the law, as usual, into his own hands. One pair of litigants were beaten; Caterina was nearly kicked to death; and the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... G. Carrington was never content to let a pupil fail and sit down. She nagged and browbeat poor Nellie until the girl lost her nerve and began to cry. By that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and that physics recitation was bound to ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... nobody got the better of Jared. There were itching fingers among the neighbours, and sharp wits too in the family itself, but Jared shrewdly held his own. He climbed into the saddle and stuck there. He cajoled when he could, and browbeat when he must. "No, he ain't no fool," said Cousin Jehiel, who had come up from Bainesville, with his eye on a certain harvester and binder. "He may make the farm pay, even if ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... It strikes me, that you would do well to put on a manner in your intercourse with the tenants, as much opposed to Hickman's as possible. Be generally angry, speak loud, swear roundly, and make them know their place. To bully and browbeat is not easily done with success, even in a just cause, although with a broken-spirited people it is a good gift; but after all I apprehend the best method is just to adapt your bearing to the character of the person you have to ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... depression and apathy. The house was stronger than she. But—but—only stronger, surely, if she consented to turn craven and give way to it?—Whereupon she consciously, of set purpose, defied the house, denied its right to browbeat thus and enslave her. For had not she this afternoon, up on the moorland, found a finer manner of mourning than it imposed, a manner at once more noble and so more consonant with the temper and achievements of her beloved dead? ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... in thine old age. When we were wed, thou left all things to the Lord; I would never have married thee else. Nay, lass,' said she, catching the expression on Lois's face, 'thou art never going to browbeat me with thine angry looks. I do my duty as I read it, and there is never a man in Salem that dare speak a word to Grace Hickson about either her works or her faith. Godly Mr. Cotton Mather hath said, that even he might learn of me; and I would advise thee ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... rival newspaper men, even while they admitted Ford obtained facts that were denied them, claimed that they were given him from charity. Where they bullied, browbeat, and administered a third degree, Ford was embarrassed, deprecatory, an earnest, ingenuous, wide-eyed child. What he called his "working" smile begged of you not to be cross with him. His simplicity was apparently so ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... the words the King himself hesitated, as if he poised between a heavy rage and a sardonic humour. He deemed, however, that the humour could the more terrify the Archbishop—and, indeed, he was so much upon the joyous side in those summer days that he had forgotten how to browbeat. ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... and looking steadily at him. Then, controlling her voice with an effort, she added, "Do not try again to browbeat me into ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... belly black. They run with great swiftness, and when domesticated attend their master in his walks with as much apparent affection as his dog. They have no spurs, but still, such is their high spirit and activity, they browbeat every dunghill fowl in the yard and force the guinea-birds, dogs and turkeys to ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... arrive upon the scene was taking his turn at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard of belated wayfarers,—messenger-boys, slatternly drabs, hackmen, loafers, and one or two plain citizens conspicuously out of their reputable grooves,—who were drifting in at the entrance to line the lobby walls with blank, curious ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... had a great muscular figure, as may be guessed from the story of the duel with Curran. To his bulk he added a stentorian voice, which he freely used in Nisi Prius practice to browbeat opposing counsel and witnesses, and through which he acquired his sobriquet. On one occasion his opponent was a dark-visaged barrister who had made out a good case for his client. Egan, in the course of an eloquent address, begged the jury not to ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... of Trent were brought to a close, and the Tridentine Creed was named after him. P. V., Pope 1566 to 1572, also of humble birth, was severe in his civil and ecclesiastical capacity, both in his internal administration and foreign relationships, and thought to browbeat the world back into the bosom of Mother Church; issued a bull releasing Queen Elizabeth's subjects from their allegiance; but the great event of his reign, and to which he contributed, was the naval victory ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... in Duck Town. Down there the people knew a man whom they called the Old Doctor. He was not old, not really; it was merely that he had the manner of a veteran. He browbeat them shamefully, as was perfectly proper for an old doctor; he bullied them a great deal, and scolded, and called names, and worked for them, and did not know how to sleep. That made them fear and respect him, but goodness knows what made them love ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... been asked, and an attempt had been made to confuse and browbeat the youth, when the Nestor of the Lexington Bar expectorated at a fly ten feet away, and remarked, "Oh, the devil! there is no need of tryin' to keep a boy like this down—he's as fit as we, ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... "Look here, you. What's all this trouble about? You mustn't think you can browbeat these boys, because you can't. See? I'm telling you the law and you can take it or leave it just as you like. If you've got any kick, go to the railroad. If you're not satisfied to wait until this ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... motion in the coarse and savage style of which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite so easy to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in their own hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended on his favour or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man whose life has been passed in attacking and domineering, whatever may ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... proved them innercent boys guilty, and a hung em? Oh, I am afeerd of Mars Lennox, for he favors his pa mightily; he has got the keenest scent of all the pack; and he went up yonder, and 'cused, and 'bused, and browbeat and aggervated and tormented that poor, helpless young creetur,'till she fell down in a dead faint on the jail floor; and sence then, the Doctor says her mind is done clean gone. Don't get mad with me, Miss Leo; I am bound to clare ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Mr. Royson, let us leave this man-trap. I came here In good faith, and I quit the place with the resolution that never again shall I entrust myself to the vagaries of any Jack-in-office who thinks he can browbeat a man of my repute like one of the wretched ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... expression?" He was a lean, pale person, with a large hook-nose and spectacles; and seemed, though a liberal in creed, to be really a nursling of that early age when Anabaptists fed the fires of Smithfield. From his years, practised talent, and position, he was well able to browbeat an unhappy juvenile who incurred his displeasure; and, though he really was a kind-hearted man at bottom, he not unfrequently misused his power. Charles did not know how to answer his question; and on his silence it was repeated. At length he said that ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... other hand, there are women of coarse fibre, who imagine that they vastly increase their own importance by being selfishly exacting in the matter of men's self-sacrificing attentions. They may browbeat the men who are in their power; but, outside of this narrow world of their own, they are held in thorough contempt by the very men whose admiration they had hoped to gain by ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... first magnitude, and such a blunder as could only have been made by a very stupid as well as a very arrogant man. Doria by this time was a warrior of European celebrity, and one to whom even kings used the language of persuasion; to attempt to browbeat him was ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... man of the world like Forbes could hardly fail to see that he was in a false position, and that any persistent attempt to browbeat the detective would not only meet with utter failure but ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... the ball, Ashton had returned to the bridge sobered and chastened. The change in him may have been due to another cut in his allowance, or to a peppery interview during which Mr. Leslie had sought to browbeat him into ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... in negotiating with Afghanistan, we should remember these things and should not attempt to browbeat a proud and sensitive ruler, who, however inferior in the ordinary equipment for regular war, holds such valuable assets on his side. And my own experience is that the Afghans are not unreasonable. Like every one else, they will "try it on," but ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... Bobby but paused to reflect upon it, was a very fair indication that all he had to do was to jump in his automobile and call on Aunt Constance Elliston, force his way upon the attention of Agnes and browbeat that young lady into an immediate marriage. He chose, on the contrary, to take the matter more gloomily, and Johnson, after worrying about him for three dismal days, consulted Biff Bates. But Biff, when the problem was propounded ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... burning smart, That, worm-like, gnaws the Maestro's heart When he sees another snatch the prize Out from under his very eyes, For which he would barter his soul? You see I taught him his art from first to last: Whatever he was he owed to me. And then to be browbeat, overpassed, Stealthily jeered behind the hand! Why that was more than a saint could stand; And I was no saint. And if my soul, With a pride like Lucifer's, mocked control, And goaded me on to madness, till ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... unexpected evidence and rulings of law, often involving such instantaneous decisions as to change his whole combinations and method of attack; examining witnesses with unerring skill, whom he was at once too chivalrous and too wise to browbeat; arguing to the court unexpected questions of law with full and available legal learning; carrying in his mind the case, and the known or surmised plan of attack of his antagonist, and shaping his own case to meet it; holding an exquisitely sensitive physical and mental organization in such perfect ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... what was in the chest. Bustin' it open was an accident. Perry Baker's as clumsy as a cow. But you see, Miss Lou, just how cool that ol' pirate took it all. Washy was tellin' me. He just browbeat 'em an' left 'em with all ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... conditions, clashing was inevitable. But worse agents of discord than the agricultural colonists were the itinerants who traveled through the woods visiting the tribes, exchanging goods for furs; these often cheated and robbed the Indian, taught him the use of intoxicants, bullied and browbeat him, appropriated his women, and in general introduced serious demoralization into the native camps. The bulk of the whites doubtless intended to treat the Indian honorably; but the forest traders were beyond the pale of law, and news of the details ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... Gorman, somewhat firmly, though not sternly, for he knew that Ned Hooper was not to be browbeat; "are you sober enough to attend to what ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... was a mistake for a man to allow events to browbeat him. He ought to fight back, hitting where he could. An event, once in a while, was strangely a coward. Besides that, if Destiny found a man always ready to strip, she came after a while to accord to ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... for his pains. A man who told him of a prediction or a dream wonderfully accomplished was sure of a courteous hearing. "Johnson," observed Hogarth, "like King David, says in his haste that all men are liars." "His incredulity," says Mrs. Thrale, "amounted almost to disease." She tells us how he browbeat a gentleman, who gave him an account of a hurricane in the West Indies, and a poor Quaker who related some strange circumstance about the red-hot balls fired at the siege of Gibraltar. "It is not so. It cannot be true. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... himself by urging the thing that Captain Blood had so admirably urged already on his behalf—that if the terms he had made with the buccaneers were not confirmed there was no harm done. M. de Rivarol bullied and browbeat him into silence. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... his side; if he allowed these Dickersons, father and son, to browbeat him this once, it would only ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd |
