"Downtrodden" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... need have no fear. We'll see that justice is done you," began the politician in his best tub-thumping manner. "We Socialists and Communists are determined to put an end to tyranny and oppression, whether of the downtrodden slaves of Capitalism at home or our coloured brothers abroad. The British working-man wants no colonies, no India. He is determined to change everything in England and do away with all above him—kings, lords, aristocrats, and the ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... every sort of tyrant. He did truly pray for all who are desolate and oppressed. If you try to tie him to any cause narrower than that Prayer Book definition, you will find you have shut out half his best work. If, in your sympathy for Mrs. Quilp, you call Dickens the champion of downtrodden woman, you will suddenly remember Mr. Wilfer, and find yourself unable to deny the existence of downtrodden man. If in your sympathy for Mr. Rouncewell you call Dickens the champion of a manly middle-class Liberalism against Chesney Wold, you will suddenly remember ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... with you," exclaimed Mrs. Marvin, promptly. "The principles of Christianity oppose success at every turn. To be Christ-like one must always be poor, always weak and, consequently, always downtrodden." ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... analyzed his sentiments toward his ward, never had he deemed it possible for his wisely disciplined heart to bow before anything of flesh; but now, as he sat looking at the sweet face, he saw that rebellion desperate and uncompromising had broken out in his rigidly governed, long downtrodden nature, and with the prompt vigilance habitual to him he calmly counted the cost ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... demanded the Human Judge hotly. "'Tis a glorious color! Erin go bragh! Off'cer, ye've exceeded yer jooty. D' ye think this is downtrodden an' sufferin' Oireland an' yerself the tyrant Gineral French? Let 'em paint their noses anny color they loike; but green for preference. I'm tellin' ye, this is the land of freedom an' equality, an' ivery citizen thereof is entitled to life, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... emancipation, even tended to decrease slavery. [27] Christianity also laid much emphasis on the virtue of charity and the duty of supporting all institutions which aimed to relieve the lot of the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... there was rancour in her heart, and meanwhile I was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn to them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant, with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the same—of the grey earth, of grey days, of black bread, people who cheated, but like birds hiding nothing but their head behind ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Mr. Wister has happily put it, "to leave out any facts which spoil the political picture of the Revolution they chose to paint for our edification; a ferocious, blood-shot tyrant on the one side, and on the other a compact band of 'Fathers,' downtrodden and martyred, yet with impeccable ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... will find on his table. A disliker of coarse expressions, and extremes of every kind, with a perfect horror for revolutions and attempts to revolutionise, exclaiming now and then, as a shriek escapes from whipped and bleeding Hungary, a groan from gasping Poland, and a half-stifled curse from downtrodden but scowling Italy, "Confound the revolutionary canaille, why can't it be quiet!" in a word, putting one in mind of the parvenu in the "Walpurgis Nacht." The writer is no admirer of Gothe, but the idea of that ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... heart has bled at the sufferings of the poor people who are wearing their wretched lives away in toil for a most wretched sustenance. The friends I once knew have turned from me and called me a socialist, an anarchist. They call us anarchists because we sympathize with the downtrodden masses—because we prophesy the coming of the great struggle that shall emancipate these masses. We are not anarchists, but we are proud to be called socialists. Anarchy is disorder and ruin. Socialism is order and equal rights for all. Let ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... and analyse the sentiments and psychological causes which bring about a war. A war waged to redeem its independence by a nation downtrodden by another nation is perfectly legitimate, even from the point of view of abstract morality. A war which has for its object the conquest of political or religious liberty cannot be condemned even by ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... it. There's American labor for you, at its best—union labor, the poor, downtrodden workingman. Look at him." We all looked. "This poor hard-working plumber here," and at that the latter stirred and sat up, scarcely even now grasping what it was all about, so suddenly had we descended upon him, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... different thing from expressing your sympathy in a convention for downtrodden Russia. It is a little different program, Mr. Chairman, and the evidence in this case will disclose that these members, in conjunction with that party, have tied themselves ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... now in a different country to that in which the operations since 1914 had been conducted. The country had seen no war, houses were intact, inhabitants looking starved and downtrodden were delighted to see the British troops. To stop our advance all roads in Bohain had been cratered at their exits from the village, and delay-action mines on the railways were constantly going up. As an example, D.H.Q. was in Brancucourt Farm, in a main road which had been cratered ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... may not use it, but has to get his water where he can. His sons are consigned to a corner in the village school, and the schoolmaster, if not superior to caste prejudices, discourages their attendance. Nevertheless, Mahars will not remain for years downtrodden in this fashion, and are already pushing themselves up from this state of degradation. In some places they have combined to dig wells, and in Nagpur have opened a school for members of their own community. Occasionally a Mahar is the most ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Poor downtrodden Peggy! She was at a crisis of motherhood that is common to high and low. Since Mary of Galilee found her son in the Temple questioning Wisdom, and with awe beheld that he was no longer her little child, the paralyzing question, "What have I to do with thee?" has set maternity back upon ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... occupation. In their case it is not so clear whether they came with the purpose of serving God, or of evading a life of want and toil with a view to being fed and clothed in idleness, and furthermore to being honored by those by whom they were wont to be despised and downtrodden. Such persons surely cannot excuse themselves from work on the score of bodily weakness, for their former mode of life is evidence against them." And he adds further on (De oper. Monach. xxv): "If they be unwilling to work, neither let them eat. For if the rich humble themselves to piety, it ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... has become a very factor. It stands not over-high, yet the shadow of it has fallen athwart the whole length and breadth of France, and in that shadow the tyrants have trembled, shaken to the very souls of them by the rude hand of fear; in that shadow the spurned and downtrodden children of the soil have taken heart of grace. The bonds of servile cowardice that for centuries had trammelled them have been shaken off like cobwebs, and they that were as sheep are now become the wolves that prey on those that preyed on them ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... of the chiefs from over-seas, whose presence had brought the movement to a head, would disperse; either amid the peals of Homeric laughter that in Ireland greet a monster jest, or, in sadder mood, cursing the detested Saxon for one more added to the many wrongs of a downtrodden land. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... "That the downtrodden peoples in Austria and Germany have been emancipated is a moral triumph. But why has the beneficent principle that is said to have inspired the deed been restricted in its application? Why has the experiment been tried only ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... statement of facts, but an oration on the rights of workers, their downtrodden condition and their beggarly wages. He said they had not enough to keep body and soul together, and that right well did their employers know it. He said there should be an increase of a half-dollar a day, or there ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the religious passion of Francis Thompson as he is from the sociological inquisitiveness of Mr. Gibson. To him each bird, each flower appears as a form of worship. Men and women appeal to him not because they are poor or downtrodden, but simply because they are men and women. He is neither an optimist nor a pessimist; the world is full of objects both interesting and beautiful, which will pay a rich return to those who observe them accurately. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... slowly toward his flat. Slowly, because in the lexicon of his daily life there was no such word as "perhaps." There are no surprises awaiting a man who has been married two years and lives in a flat. As he walked John Perkins prophesied to himself with gloomy and downtrodden cynicism the foregone conclusions ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... Would be gentle and patient; At times he was angry And nothing would please him; He frightened us all By his outbursts of fury: 'Eh, plough not, and sow not, You downtrodden peasants! You women, sit spinning And weaving no longer! 150 However you struggle, You fools, you must perish! You will not escape What by fate has been written! Three roads are spread out For the peasant to follow— They lead to the tavern, The mines, ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... rest accomplished? To build up, not to tear down, should be the object of the scientific anarch. Stop! You need not say the earth has to be levelled and ploughed before sowing the seed. That suits turnip fields, not the garden of humanity. Educate the downtrodden into liberty, is my message, not the slaughtering of monarchs. How am I going to go about it? Ah! that's my affair, my dear sir. After I read a certain book by Tolstoy, I realized that art was as potent an agent for mischief as the knout. Music—music is rooted ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... recognize the brotherhood of man. The new faith insisted upon this, insisted on our duty to our fellows; and so under Paul's leadership every Christian became a missionary, teaching, uplifting the downtrodden, giving them hope, not of this world, but of an infinitely brighter one. The faith spread faster than ever world conquest had been spread before. Scarce a generation after the Crucifixion it had permeated the Empire, and Nero, to divert from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... the institutions and destiny of nations. The wise men of the East may then journey westward again, to see the rising star of a regenerated humanity, the fall of thrones and dynasties, the lifting up of the downtrodden masses, and the political redemption of our race, not by a new dispensation, but by the fulfilment thus of the glorious prophecies and blessed promises of Holy Writ. And can we not lift ourselves into that serene atmosphere of love of country and of our ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... time he became the spokesman for the most pronounced absolutism and despotism. He turned suddenly against the very people whose cause he had so signally championed, and who hailed him as their prophet and leader. When the poor, downtrodden people needed him most, Luther cowardly deserted them, and by frenzied utterances excited the nobility to slay the common people without mercy in the most ruthless fashion, and even promised the lords whom he had denounced as tyrants heaven for enacting ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... well, and would have acquitted himself with zeal and discretion, to gain the good opinion of the ministers. But all the French ministers are the same. They lavished money which came out of other people's pockets to enrich their creatures, and they were absolute; the downtrodden people counted for nothing, and of this course the indebtedness of the state and the confusion of the finances were the inevitable results. It is quite true that the Revolution was a necessity, but it should have been marked with patriotism ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... with that act of tyranny and oppression, they actually came to my lonely lodgings and arrested me. What for? you ask in blank amazement. Has an honest and industrious American citizen no rights? Must it ever be that the poor and downtrodden are sacrificed to glut the maw of that ten-fold tyrant at Police Headquarters? They charged me with larceny, with working the confidence game, and despite my protestations and the eloquence of my learned counsel, who cost me my last nickel, a hard-hearted and idiotic ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... me for, any sort of sympathy. But it came about in these ways, and without the least help that I can trace, that by the time I was 19 years of age I was keenly interested in all kinds of questions: pity for downtrodden women, suffrage questions, marriage laws, questions of liberty, freedom of thought, care of the poor, views of Nature and Man and God. All these things filled my mind to the exclusion of individual men and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... tell what influence causes the downtrodden blade to raise itself once more! Is it the vivifying breath of the west wind, or a mysterious power sent forth from the bosom of Mother Earth? It was a touching sight to see how those two children, crushed as they ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... free American labor from the coal regions and to substitute importations of coolie Huns and Bohemians. Thus, the wicked American laborers will be chastened for trying to get higher wages and cut down a pious man's dividends; and the downtrodden coolies will be brought where they can enjoy the blessings of liberty and of the preaching ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... electors to the dispirited, degraded, downtrodden old monarch was the unkindest cut of all. Much as Rhodolph is to be execrated and despised, one can hardly refrain from an emotion of sympathy in view of this new blow which fell upon him. A deputation sent from the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... always master the details of the problem he is dealing with, granted that he sometimes propounds schemes before they are ripe; yet against that place (1) his wonderful personality, (2) his boundless vitality and energy, (3) his heartfelt sympathy for the downtrodden ones of the world, (4) his wonderful ideas and ideals, (5) his quickness of intelligence, (6) his ardent patriotism, (7) his remarkable powers of oratory, and (8) his almost uncanny gift of seeing into the future—and you have ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... services; but the accepting of presents he regards in the light of exchanges of love between a friend served and a friend admired. He has numerous affairs of ceremony with gifted widows, who write very excellent sensation books in behalf of downtrodden humanity, and who never fail to express their admiration of his great learning; and this high consideration he repays with ponderous eulogies on their books. His carping he reserves for the devil, and such authors as Prescott, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... behind her made her quick to appreciate suffering in others, and gave her an innate sense of fellowship with the downtrodden. She resolved to use that sense as a searchlight aiding her to see and overcome obstacles. She told herself that she was done with maudlin sentimentality. On the rare occasions when she had accompanied her mother to Chicago, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... even the correct mental attitude to insure heaven hereafter, the churches may surely count it as a product of their work that the people do trust God more simply for the past and future, and are more in earnest about securing justice for the downtrodden and the square deal in the present. In this they need as much as ...
— What the Church Means to Me - A Frank Confession and a Friendly Estimate by an Insider • Wilfred T. Grenfell
... The Court was agin him, but we acquitted him afore the Chief-Justice finished his charge, and gave him a vote o' thanks to boot. There's a heap o' furriners creepin' inter these parts—poor downtrodden cusses from Europe—end, ef they're all like Roudi, they'll dew—a'most as hendy wi' the knife as our own ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... sailors rescuing captives in deadly climes, as well as missionaries, are all aiding in hastening on a glorious consummation to all God's dealings with our race. In the hope that I may yet be honored to do some good to this poor long downtrodden Africa, the gentlemen over whom you have the honor to preside will, I ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... come into her head. She thought of the back streets she had looked out on from her bedroom window. Could anything like passion spring up in those dismal alleys? The people who lived there, poor downtrodden things, had enough to do to keep themselves alive. She knew all about them; they were in the air; their condition was deplorable! Could a person whose condition was deplorable find time or strength for any sort of lurid exhibition such as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... speech. He told of the money that had to be raised, but he did not stop at the narrative of what may be called ordinary expenditure. He told how the primary duty of a rich nation was to help those who had been exhausted, to give a chance to the downtrodden. He related some of the things he had in his mind—the insurance of workmen against illness and unemployment, the payment of pensions for persons over a certain age. He told of how unemployment might be largely eliminated by developments in the countryside, through new methods of agriculture, ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... of the habitants of New France as downtrodden or oppressed, dispirited or despairing, like the peasantry of the old land in the days before the great Revolution, as some historians have done, is to speak untruthfully. These people were neither ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door, and a squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I warn 'a go in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then the accents of a downtrodden parent, urging consolations and propitiations. "It's ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Theseus to display their greatness. The new Prince, who would fain win honor in Italy and confer upon his country untold benefits, finds her at the present moment 'more enslaved than the Hebrews, more downtrodden than the Persians, more disunited than the Athenians, without a chief, without order, beaten, despoiled, mangled, overrun, subject to every sort of desolation.' Fortune could not have offered him ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... when it shall learn of this, will deem that Rustem is fled before the face of this Turk; and when men shall believe that Tehemten is afraid, they will cease to combat, and Iran will be downtrodden at his hands. Turn thee not, therefore, at this hour from thy allegiance to the Shah, and tarnish not thy glory by this retreat, neither suffer that the downfall of Iran rest upon thy head. Put from thee, therefore, the words that Kai Kaous spake in his empty anger, and lead us forth to battle ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... to pecuniary aid for himself and his family and friends, and to expressions of sympathy for his downtrodden country by individuals, by voluntary associations, and by municipalities. All his speeches after his visit to Washington were laden with one thought, viz., the duty of all free countries to resist the spread ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell |
