"Knout" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Will you look on while the Kossacks of the far north tread under foot the bodies of your fathers, mothers, wives and children? If not, defend yourselves. Will you see a part of your fellow-citizens sent to the wilds of Siberia, made to serve in the wars of tyrants, or bleed under the murderous knout? If not, defend yourselves. Will you behold your villages in flames, and your harvests destroyed? Will you die of hunger on the land which your sweat has made fertile? If not, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... free of his assailants, and as he with Edith pressed against the wall of a house, they remained happily safe from the horses' hoofs as well as from the blows of the knout which were being dealt ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... rigorous character. It is true that the Jews were not the only unfortunates whom the fanatic autocrat wished to Russify, that is, compel to see the pure light of Greek Orthodoxy. But they, of course, suffered the most. The slightest laws were enforced by the chinovniks (officials) with the knout and the leaden lash. When the Judeo-Polish gaberdine, the long side-curls (peot), and the wig or turban (knup) fell into disfavor with the Government, the miserable offender caught by an officer seldom saved himself with the mere sacrifice of knup, coat, peot, and beard. ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... more stupid in all the elements of tragedy! This unhappy woman, spurred to all kinds of desperate deeds by the awful fear of the knout, had been overcome by that fatal power which has wrecked ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... world from one standpoint, it has achieved remarkable success in applying the knout to superstition and limitation. But, like a too energetic housekeeper, it has swept out much that is essential with the debris. When spirituality ceases to be real or vital to a people, then a grave danger threatens them. Materiality has ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... his feasts, the dishes were of gold from the Ural Mountains, and the attendants who waited upon the monarch were arrayed in all the grandeur of Eastern princes; but the slightest blunder on their part subjected them to death, to the more dreaded knout, or to banishment in Siberia. Nominally a Christian, the Emperor of China is quite a saint when compared with him, and infinitely more respectable. But the Czar is a fool, chiefly immersed in the pleasures of the table; and Clotilda, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... appeal to me," sounded in Piers' voice, which was steady and good-humoured, "I'm bound to say that Russia isn't altogether without good points. You spoke of it, by the bye, as the country of the knout; but the knout, as a matter of fact, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... harder than I had ever worked in my life, and about Easter he began to single me out for the most merciless fault-finding. That was his way of showing that he considered you worth while. He had a habit of standing over you in class, holding your paper like a knout. And once or twice—I called myself a conceited little idiot—but once ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... cried a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to turn in the aisle, backed cumbrously with a manifold thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere the congregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last conical hat and leaded knout had vanished, and only the tarry reek of their boots was left in proof of their actual passage. A deep silence hung for a moment like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Our castles have been burned by the Russians, our fields have been laid waste, our vassals have been massacred, and of our kinsmen, some have died under the knout, while others drag out a life of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... loyalty have borrowed, Slaved for Slavdom still in Peace, and died in War; We have borne the yoke of power, and its abuses, We have trusted cells and shackles served their turn; Nay, that e'en the ruthless knout had noble uses; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... fancied himself in some subterranean place of vast dimensions, through the grim galleries of which men and women with evil faces crept like animals. And towering above them, unreal in size, his scornful face an epitome of sin, the knout which he wielded symbolical and ghastly, driving his motley flock with the leer of the evil shepherd, was the man from whom he had already learnt to recoil with horror. The picture came and went in a flash. Francis found ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Morten continued. "Even God loses patience with those who always let themselves be trampled upon. Last night I dreamed I was one of the starving. I was going up the street, grieving at my condition, and I ran up against God. He was dressed like an old Cossack officer, and had a knout hanging ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the roar of thy Democracies, Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, Mirror my wildest passions like the sea And give my rage a brother—! Liberty! For this sake only do thy dissonant cries Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades Rob nations of their rights inviolate And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet, These Christs that die upon the barricades, God knows it I am with them, ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... timely strictures might not have kindled into song any masculine intellect, but they might have prevented the temple of the Muses from being desecrated. They might have prevented the appearance of such a publication as this. In the days of the knout, we believe that no such volume as Mr Coventry Patmore's could have ventured to crawl out of manuscript into print. While we admit, then, that we have to blame our own forbearance in some degree for its appearance, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... his cruelties. Already the yoke of the Tartars had begun to have a very deteriorating effect upon the Russian character, and the more sanguinary code of the Asiatics had effaced the tradition of the laws of Yaroslav. Mutilation, flagellation, and the abundant use of the knout prevailed. The servile custom of chelobitye, or knocking the head on the ground, which was exacted from all subjects on entering the royal presence, was certainly of Tartar origin, as also the punishment inflicted upon refractory debtors, called the pravezh. They were beaten on the ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... House of Commons. A very large and symbolic knout might occupy the position of the present mace, and from time to time the SPEAKER could take it up and crack it. As this needs a certain amount of practice it will be necessary to select a fairly horsey ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... appear, on the platform where the trial had been held, and in the eyes of all. The victim was stripped and stretched against a pillar, or bent over a low post, his hands being tied, so that he had no means of defending himself. The instrument of torture was a sort of knout or cat-o'-nine-tails, with bits of iron or bone attached to the ends of the thongs. Not only did the blows cut the skin and draw blood, but not infrequently the victim died in the midst of the operation. Some have supposed that Pilate, out of consideration for Jesus, may have ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... suggest, when the saplings are released, and permitted to resume their upright positions. Of course, the sufferer is lifted from the earth, and hangs suspended by his limbs, with a strain on them that soon produces the most intense anguish. The celebrated punishment of the "knout" partakes a good deal of this same character of suffering. Bough of the Oak now approached the corporal, to let him know how high an honor ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... Queen came the guard full of zeal: Haled in bonds the Pretender: "Shall it be noose or knout, rack or wheel?" But her proud face grew tender. Down she stepped from her throne—made him free; "Love," she said, with a sigh, "What is rank? You are you, we are we, I am I!" —The Cheating ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... in order To keep the occasion In manner befitting, Are filling the glasses; And now they are singing In voices of thunder A rollicking chorus, Of husbands' relations, 190 And wielding the knout. ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... grandmother's chair, her face hidden from Lady Maulevrier's falcon eye. Every word uttered by her ladyship stung like the knotted cords of a knout. She knew not whether to be most ashamed of her lover or of herself—of her lover for his obscure position, his hopeless poverty; of herself for her folly in loving such a man. And she did love him, and would ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... making fun of these soldiers, I shouldn't have a word to say for myself! The Skipper says that he's heard that the persecution of the Jews has just begun again. Cruel shame, but I daren't say this aloud, in case anyone should understand just that amount of English, and then—whoopski!—the knout and Siberia! So I'll say "nowt." Really humorous that, I'm sure, and 19,000 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... found missing, and full soon The boatswain's cat, sagacious smelt him out, Gave him a clawing to some tune— This cat's a cousin Germam to the Knout ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... ashamed to be free instead of taking my part with the rest. Women—beautiful women of noble birth—are going to prison for their opinions. Girl students in Russia go to the gallows; let themselves be cut in pieces with the knout, or driven through the frozen snows of Siberia, sooner than stand looking on tamely at the world being made a hell for the toiling millions. If you were not all skunks and cowards youd be suffering with them instead of battening here on ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... Rochefoucauld. A hermit he was during the dozen hours a day he toiled, but he was a sociable man, nevertheless, a cultured man fond of music, possessing a tongue that was feared as much as is the Russian knout. Mr. Moore has printed many specimens of his caustic wit. Whistler actually kept silent in his presence—possibly expecting a repetition of the mot: "My dear friend, you conduct yourself in life just as ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... party got out a box of pies, wine, and sweets for themselves. The ladies wrapped up in their white dogskins. The drivers disputed as to whose troyka should go ahead, and the youngest, seating himself sideways with a dashing air, swung his long knout and shouted to the horses. The troyka-bells tinkled and the sledge-runners squeaked ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... cane, stick; ratan[obs3], rattan; birch, birch rod; azote[obs3], blacksnake[obs3], bullwhack [obs3][U.S.], chicote[obs3], kurbash[obs3], quirt, rawhide, sjambok[obs3]; rod in pickle; switch, ferule, cudgel, truncheon. whip, bullwhip, lash, strap, thong, cowhide, knout; cat, cat o'nine tails; rope's end. pillory, stocks, whipping post; cucking stool[obs3], ducking stool; brank[obs3]; trebuchet[obs3], trebuket[obs3]. triangle[instruments of torture: list], wooden horse, iron maiden, thumbscrew, boot, rack, wheel, iron heel; chinese water torture. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... can regain her ascendancy over you, she will slip out of your clutches like a fish, and you will never catch her again. Be as inflexible as law. Show no more charity than the headsman. Hit hard, and then hit again. Strike and keep on striking as if you were giving her the knout. Duchesses are made of hard stuff, my dear Armand; there is a sort of feminine nature that is only softened by repeated blows; and as suffering develops a heart in women of that sort, so it is a work of charity not to spare the rod. Do you persevere. Ah! when ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac |
