"Oppress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subdue. You step upon the chapel-porch in the quiet of the night as you would step on the graves of friends. You pace back and forth in the wan moonlight, dreaming of that dim life which opens wide and long from the morrow. The width and length oppress you: they crush down your struggling self-consciousness like Titans dealing with Pygmies. A single piercing thought of the vast and shadowy future, which is so near, tears off on the instant all the gewgaws of pride, strips away ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... begin to know you as soon as possible. You will have Mrs. Forrester at hand, you see, if my family should oppress you too much. Barring Betty, who hardly counts as one of them, they aren't ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... professes to exhort men to virtue has come to be lightly thought of; it is in consequence, unpopular, and its unpopularity is greatly increased by the conduct of the converts who, relying on the influence of the missionaries, oppress and take advantage of the common people (the non-Christians): and yet more by the conduct of the missionaries themselves, who, when collisions between Christians and the people occur, and the authorities are engaged in dealing ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... Cassandra-wise, oppress my soul With more unrest, and Hebe-like, the bowl Of festal comfort for a moment raise To my poor lips, and then avert thy gaze? Wouldst make me mad beyond the daily curse Of thy displeasure, and in wrath disperse That halcyon draught, that nectar of the mind, Which ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... three hours passed rapidly by. Lucy and Bessie went from one part of the ground to another, encouraging the little ones to run and romp, bringing forward shy or isolated children, and watching that the ruder and stronger did not oppress the weaker,—or sitting down to talk with some of the elder girls, who preferred a quiet chat. Stella, in her airy muslin flounces, a tiny hat with floating blue ribbons crowning her golden tresses, flitted about with a winning ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... sponsor of terrorism and thus a priority for concern. The regime in Damascus supports and provides haven to Hizballah, Hamas, and PIJ. We will continue to stand with the people of Iran and Syria against the regimes that oppress them at home ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... countenance sharp from attenuation, and in that uncertain light, or rather shade, she looked almost as pale as the carved faces before us. The gentleman, who was of a stately height, bent over her with an anxious air, while she gazed fixedly upon the monument. Her silence seemed to oppress him, for after a minute or two he asked her whether it was not very beautiful. "You know," she answered, in one of those low voices that are more impressive than the loudest, "You know I always suspect those memorials. I would rather have a niche in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... so as not to be obliged to return to the hotel, where you would feel more lost still because you are at home, in a home which belongs to anyone who can pay for it; and at last you sink into a chair of some well-lighted cafe, whose gilding and lights oppress you a thousand times more than the shadows in the streets. Then you feel so abominably lonely sitting in front of the glass of flat bock beer that a kind of madness seizes you, the longing to go somewhere or other, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... or prompts soft pity's sigh— The prayer to snatch from harsh captivity The virtuous doom'd—teach but to praise—admire— Forbid to catch one spark of generous fire? The godlike wish of genius, man to bless, With rank and wealth still leaguing to oppress! Oh! when shall glory wreathe bright virtue's claim, And both to honour ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... interested in my drawing when Ruskin decided to move on to Chamounix, where we might hope to get really to work. When the first sublime and overpowering impression of Chamounix and the majesty and gloom of its narrow valley wore off, it began to oppress me, and long before we got away I felt as if I were in a huge grave. The geological interest was great, and the sublimity overpowering. But to my mind sublimity does not suffice for art; the beautiful must predominate, and of the beautiful there is little in the valley. The ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... have never violated any law, and even though he should betray me, Fergus, he cannot make me guilty. To the laws, to God, and his own conscience, I leave him. No, Fergus, all sympathy between me and the laws that oppress us is gone. Let them vindicate themselves against thieves and robbers and murderers, with as much vigilance and energy as they do against the harmless forms of religion and the rights of conscience, and the country ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... If claads oppress you wi' their gloom, An' t' sun seems lost to view, Don't fret an' whine, Ask t' sun to shine, An' don't ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... evil and retain every wholesome institution, to attend to the precepts of the seniors; let every assembly be convened according to the law, let the law be in the hands of the noblest, let the chieftains be upright and unwilling to oppress the poor." ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... confronted in this war? If Natural Selection be our only guide, let us sink hospital ships, destroy innocent villages and towns, exterminate our weaker opponents in any way that seems best to us. It was all summed up centuries ago by the author of the Book of Wisdom: "Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey hairs of the aged. But let your strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth." That is Natural Selection in operation in human life when human beings ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... I be indeed so, and if my eyes are indeed full of tears, I am sorrowful only at the sadness which seems to oppress your majesty." ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me to oppress me, Because I was assuming so much, And because I have dared to open my mouth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... for deceitful glory In deep waters[6].— Nor can any man, Whether dear or odious, Restrain you from the sorrowful path— There yet[7] with eye-streams To the miserable you[8] flourish: You meet in the sea-street; You oppress with your hands; [9]You glide over the ocean's waves; The fury of winter rages, Yet on the watery domain Seven ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... Raleigh describes them as a naked people, but valiant as any under the sky: and thus they remained, still rude and savage, till the common fate of other tribes overtook them. Powerful as they were, these wild hordes could only fight, overrun, oppress, and destroy; and even in their highest prosperity they were incapable of accomplishing any great and useful work. Up to the close of the last century they were the most numerous, as well as the most warlike, of all ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... it is refuted by stating it. We cannot attack the Hindoo or Mohammedan religions. If, therefore, we took this ground, we should simply have a conspiracy of four or five dominant sects, each denouncing the others as false, but all agreeing to worry and oppress all outsiders. Such a position is impossible for us. The real objection to the bill was simply that it recognised the fact that many persons had abandoned their religion; and also recognises the fact that they had ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... ally among the Romans. Her own people utterly disapproved of her method of education for her son, their king, "because they wished him to be trained in more barbaric style so that they might the more readily oppress their subjects." Presently they remonstrated with her: "O Lady, you are not dealing justly with us, nor doing what is best for the nation when you thus educate your son. Letters and book-learning are different from courage and fortitude, and to permit ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... Provincial Governor passed life very comfortably if he did not go out of his way to oppress his subjects and create discord. His tranquillity, nevertheless, was always dependent upon his maintaining a good understanding with the priesthood of his district, and his conformity with the demands of the friars. If he had the misfortune to cross their path, it brought him a world of woe, and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... oppress the boy. It frightened him. He felt an uncontrollable desire to look out into the room and establish the identity of the mysterious entrant. He glided his hand towards the window-frame in the hope that he might ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... Oppression. Excessive luxury in the upper classes is usually accompanied with misery among those at the opposite end of the social scale; because the rich in such a state of society are heartless, and not only neglect the poor, but oppress them. The prophets are full of the wrongs inflicted on the weak by the powerful. The wealthy landowners took advantage of the difficulties of their less prosperous neighbours to rob them of their holdings and remove the ancient landmarks; ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... know whose oblations he ought to receive, and whose he ought not. For he is to avoid corrupt dealers and not receive their gifts.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} He is also to avoid those that oppress the widow and overbear the orphan, and fill the prisons with the innocent, and abuse their own slaves wickedly, I mean with stripes and hunger and ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... humbly besought King Arthur to furnish him with a horse and money, that he might travel in search of new and strange exploits. "For," said he to the King, "there are many Giants yet among the mountains of Wales, and they oppress the people: therefore, if it please you, Sire, to favour my designs, I will soon rid your kingdom of these ...
— The Story of Jack and the Giants • Anonymous
... Daendels had previously caused a proclamation to be distributed which declared "that the representatives of the French people wished the Dutch nation to make themselves free; that they do not desire to oppress them as conquerors, but to ally themselves with them as with a free people." A complete change of the city government took place without any disturbance or shedding of blood. At the summons of the Revolutionary ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... hearkened to and followed. In a place like Campbelltown, it is easy for one of the principal inhabitants to make a party. It is easy for that party to heat themselves with imaginary grievances. It is easy for them to oppress a man poorer than themselves; and natural to assert the dignity of riches, by persisting in oppression. The argument which attempts to prove the impropriety of restoring him to the school, by alleging that he has lost the confidence of the people, is not the subject of juridical ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Thy peace bestow, Let no cruel blast distress us, Ever onward as we go, May no crushing load oppress us; Light of light, when night is near, Give ...
— Hymns from the Greek Office Books - Together with Centos and Suggestions • John Brownlie
... then shuffled into another Human Body, and acted my Part so very well in it, that I became first Minister to a Prince who reigned upon the Banks of the Ganges. I here lived in great Honour for several Years, but by degrees lost all the Innocence of the Brachman, being obliged to rifle and oppress the People to enrich my Sovereign; till at length I became so odious that my Master, to recover his Credit with his Subjects, shot me thro the Heart with an Arrow, as I was one day addressing my self to him at the Head ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... substance that his master had ordered him to acquaint the company with a proposal made him by Cardinal Mazarin since the blockade of Paris, which his Catholic Majesty did not think consistent with his safety or honour to accept, when he saw that, on the one hand, it was made with a view to oppress the Parliament, which was held in veneration by all the kingdoms in the world, and, on the other, that all treaties made with a condemned minister would be null and void, forasmuch as they were made without the ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Magistrates and other confidential persons will convince your Lordship of the guilty intentions of Governor Bligh, and how little he regarded the sacred personage whom he represented by suffering himself to be guided by a wretch like that man Crossley to persecute and oppress His ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... plane. The more it enshrines in its institution respect for humanity as a whole, the greater and more civilized it becomes. Such a nation remains faithful to its pledged word; neither interest nor even necessity moves it to commit felony. It loves to protect and not to oppress those who are weaker than itself. It has at heart the work of propagating throughout the world certain principles of social life which certainly are utopian, but are yet beautiful to have before the eyes and in the heart, in order to live not only for ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that he would use the railroad to ruin other gentry and oppress his native region, and that he was a Philadelphia emissary and an abolitionist, scheming to create a new state of the three ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... added to the debt. This opens a door for many iniquitous practices, and it is in the rigorous and frequently perverted exertion of these rights which a creditor has over his debtor that the chiefs are enabled to oppress the lower class of people, and from which abuses the English Residents find it necessary to be the most watchful to restrain them. In some cases one half of the produce of the labour is applied to the reduction of the debt, and ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... inclined to reduce my baggage, to lop off superfluities. I become more and more in love with simple things and simple folk—a small house, a hut in the woods, a tent on the shore. The show and splendor of great houses, elaborate furnishings, stately halls, oppress me, impose upon me. They fix the attention upon false values, they set up a false standard of beauty; they stand between me and the real feeders of character and thought. A man needs a good roof over his head winter and summer, and a good chimney and a big wood-pile in winter. The more open ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... said that his head should be smitten off; so he returned that night to the camp. And on the morrow he came there, and assembled together the Moors of that place, and comforted them much with his speeches, and promised that he would favour them greatly and not oppress them, and bade them till their fields and tend their flocks securely, saying that he would take only a tenth of the fruit thereof, as their law directed. And he placed a Moor there named Yucef to ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... his father's race, both in height and features, being tall and large, with a fine nose and contour of face. His manners are reserved but kind; and he looks as if too indolent to care much about acquiring power; too fat for an active traitor, though a dangerous man to oppress. We were the first Europeans he had ever seen; but, on our second visit, he lost much of his previous reserve, and was curious in examining our arms and accoutrements. We, as usual, exchanged presents; mine consisting of some nankeen, red cloth, knife, scissors, and handkerchief; while ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... temple, Malachi also foretells His second advent, His coming for the execution of the judgment, in these words: "And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not Me, saith the Lord of hosts."(703) Jude refers to the same scene when he says, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... on the road of Truth. Then we could still enjoy, then neither thought Nor outward things were clos'd and dead to us, But we receiv'd the shock of mighty thoughts On simple minds with a pure natural joy; And if the sacred load oppress'd our brain, We had the power to feel the pressure eas'd. The brow unbound, the thoughts flow free again, In the delightful commerce of the world. We had not lost our balance then, nor grown Thought's slaves and dead to every natural joy. The smallest thing could give us pleasure then— ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... patriot's high bequest, Great Liberty! how great in plain attire! With the base purple of a court oppress'd, Bowing her head, and ready to expire: But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings That fill the ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... rulers who have ruled with a foul tyrannic sway * But they soon became as though they had never, never been: Just, they had won justice: they oppressed and were oppress * By Fortune, who requited them with ban and bane and teen: So they faded like the morn, and the tongue of things repeats * "Take this far that, nor vent upon Fortune's ways ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... hours were evening hours, and those he considered precious to the progress of the friendly move. But it was quite in character, he bitterly remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstart who had trampled on those eminent creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... taken his share of the troubles, it would have been bad enough; but it was gradually dawning upon Dexter that the boy he had half-idolised for his cleverness and general knowledge was a contemptible, ill-humoured bully—a despicable young tyrant, ready to seize every opportunity to oppress. ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... them in particular. Like all other men in peculiar circumstances, the Varangians adopted an explanation applicable to their own condition. These Normans, who hated the Saxon nation, and had done so much to dishonour and oppress them, were now following them, they supposed, to the foreign capital where they had found refuge, with the purpose of making war on the bountiful prince who protected their sad remnant. Under this ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... oppress me when thou art in't? * In the lion's presence shall wolves devour? Shall the dry all drink of thy tanks and I * Under rain-cloud ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... arose concerning ecclesiastical privileges that the claim was started, and the primate was, of a sudden, required to produce accounts of such intricacy and extent before a tribunal which had showed a determined resolution to ruin and oppress him. To find sureties that he should answer so boundless and uncertain a claim, which in the king's estimation amounted to forty-four thousand marks [m], was impracticable; and Becket's suffragans ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... listened with a saddened and downcast look. A heaviness had fallen upon her with the first sight of old Mr. Harrington on the bank. True he had gone now, but his shadow seemed to oppress her still. ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... It is hardly necessary to say that in a moral point of view he had deteriorated rather than improved. In fact, he was fast developing into a social outlaw, with no particular scruples against lying or stealing. One thing may be said in his favor, he never made use of his strength to oppress a younger boy. On the whole, he was good-natured, and not at all brutal. He had on one occasion interfered successfully to protect a young boy from one of greater strength who was beating him. I like ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... quiet and religious parsonage—the bare possibility that sufferings so durable in their effects should be sweeping with their eternal storms a heart so capacious and so passively unresisting—are calculated to startle and to oppress us with the sense of a fate long prepared, vested in the very seeds of constitution and character; temperament and the effects of early experience combining to thwart all the morning promise of greatness and splendour; the flower unfolding its silken leaves only to suffer canker and blight; ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... to darken. At the opening of the Second Act we see him with Fleance crossing the court of the castle on his way to bed. The blackness of the moonless, starless night seems to oppress him. And he ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... positive inducement to violent and vicious white men to oppress and injure people of color. In this point of view, a negro becomes the slave of every white man in the community. The brutal drunkard, or the ferocious madman, can beat, rob, and mangle him with perfect impunity. Dr. Torrey, in his ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... for stealing of victuals, compelled peradventure by necessity of that intolerable cold, hunger, and thirst, to save himself from starving: but a [333]great man in office may securely rob whole provinces, undo thousands, pill and poll, oppress ad libitum, flea, grind, tyrannise, enrich himself by spoils of the commons, be uncontrollable in his actions, and after all, be recompensed with turgent titles, honoured for his good service, and no man dare find fault, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the old Kings of England. I wrote as an English nationalist keenly conscious of the sacred boundary of the Tweed that keeps (or used to keep) our ancient enemies at bay. I wrote as an English nationalist resolved for one wild moment to throw off the tyranny of the Scotch and Irish who govern and oppress my country. I felt that England was at least spiritually guarded against these surrounding nationalities. I dreamed that the Tweed was guarded by the ghosts of Scropes and Percys; I dreamed that St. George's Channel was guarded by St. George. And in this insular security I spoke deliberately ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... author will therefore confine himself to showing that transportation companies will, like the great commercial organizations of the past, when left to follow their instincts, invariably use their power to oppress the public by exacting excessive charges for their services, or to discriminate against the many by extending special privileges to the few. Hundreds of cases might be given to illustrate the above rule, but a history of two of these corporations will suffice to ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... used, he was assured by the best judges, that there were only two people in that great city who understood how to prepare it in perfection. If it be underdone, its virtues will not be imparted, and, in use, it will load and oppress the stomach; if it be overdone, it will yield a flat, burnt, and bitter taste, its virtues will be destroyed, and, in use, it will heat the body, and act as an astringent." The desirable colour of roasted coffee is that of cinnamon. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... the pensive nymph oppress'd, And secret passions labour'd in her breast. Not youthful kings in battle seiz'd alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, Not ardent lovers robb'd of all their bliss, 5 Not ancient ladies when ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... 14.—"Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of the strangers that are in ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... supervise or control. The officers themselves are of inferior stamp, drunken, untrustworthy, overbearing, much given to "trafficking" with the prisoners, accepting bribes to assist escape, quick to misuse and oppress their charges. Crime of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... advised him rather to endeavour to be loved, than to be feared by his people; not to give ear to flatterers; to be as slow in rewarding as in punishing, because it often happens that monarchs misled by false appearances, load wicked men with favours, and oppress the innocent. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... a mosque and therein four sheikhs, who take it ill, whenas there cometh a guest to me, and vex me with talk and molest me in words and threaten me that they will complain of me to the Commander of the Faithful, and indeed they oppress me sore, and I crave of God the Most High one day's dominion, that I may beat each of them with four hundred lashes, as well as the Imam of the mosque, and parade them about the city of Baghdad and let call before ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... perfectly pure, the mountain air a tonic which strengthened him, and his food and care of the best. The high-powered rifle bullet whipped cleanly through his shoulder, breaking no bone and tearing no ligament, and the flesh closed swiftly. Even Vic's mind carried no burden to oppress him in care for the future or regret for the past, for if he occasionally remembered the limp body of Hansen on the floor of Captain Lorrimer's saloon he could shrug the picture into oblivion. It had been fair fight, man to man, with all the odds ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... doomed to suffer during the space of a Century. That period is past. Nothing now remains but to consign to the Grave the ashes of Beatrice. I have been the means of releasing you from your visionary Tormentor; and amidst all the sorrows which oppress me, to think that I have been of use to you, is some consolation. Youth, farewell! May the Ghost of your Relation enjoy that rest in the Tomb, which the Almighty's vengeance has denied to me ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... gold, which not even the most critical taste could complain was too richly spread, there is a delicate, fascinating lightness: the chancel has almost an Italian gaiety, which comes upon one oddly in the gloomy town. Here the decoration, the gilded virgins, the elaborate carving, do not oppress as elsewhere; the effect is too debonair and too refreshing. It is one colour more, one more distinction, in the complexity ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... and want of strength. It was a solemn thing, to hear, in the darkened room, the feeble voice of the sick child recounting a weary catalogue of evils and calamities which hard men had brought upon him. Oh! if when we oppress and grind our fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds, are rising, slowly it is true, but not less surely, to Heaven, to pour their after-vengeance on our heads; if we heard but one instant, in imagination, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... black blue colour of the sky was gone, and had been replaced by a dull gloomy grey. The quality of the air appeared also to have changed; it was neither very warm nor very cold, but it had lost its lightness and elasticity, and seemed to oppress and weigh us down. Presently we saw the dark cloud rise gradually from behind the hills, completely clearing their summits, and then sweeping along until it hung over the valley, in form and appearance like some monstrous night-moth, resting the tips of its enormous wings on the mountains ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... ah, no! amid sorrow and pain, When the world and its facts oppress my brain, In the world of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... beloved by no one. They strive after the show of being feared by all, while in fact they themselves fear every body. They cannot endure any submission; but yet know not how to rule. They are false to their superiors, and oppress their subjects. They are shameless in their demands, and reject petitions with a haughty front. With blustering and impatience they press for presents, and are thankless when they have received them. They are great talkers with the tongue, but helpless ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... again if you like," she retorted, in a cracked voice, as she turned at bay. "But the Lord will make me even with you some day. Cursed be them that oppress the poor and needy; it is one of ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... as an officer. Military service did not oppress me. In this fortress, blessed by God, there was no duty to do, no guard to mount, nor review to pass. Occasionally, for his own amusement, the Commandant drilled his soldiers. He had not yet succeeded in teaching them which was ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... of her colonies is the result of that teeming island seed-bed at home; while the very smallness of the mother country is the guarantee of its supremacy over its dependencies, because it is too small either to oppress them or to get along without them. Now an Asiatic variant of English history is promised ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... for existence, so, later, that which we call humanity, the genuine philanthropy, would have placed any nation that had practised it at a disadvantage. To eat or to be eaten—that was the alternative in the epoch of cannibalism; to oppress or to be oppressed, in the ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Ah me! oppress some other, spiteful Fate! Jealousy, get thee hence—begone! away! These may suffice to show me all the grace Of changeful Love, and of that noble face. He takes my life, she gives me death, She wings, he burns my heart, He murders it, and she revives the soul: ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... must sweep her from her foundations, unless she conform to its requirements and join in the movement toward universal emancipation! Our people are taught from childhood to be led; they are willing followers—none more willing in the world! But why lead them into the pit? Why muzzle them with fear, oppress them with threats, fetter them with outworn dogma and dead creed? Why continue to dazzle them with pagan ceremonialism and oriental glamour, and then, our exactions wrung from them, leave them to consume with disease and decay with ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and Agnes having reposed no new confidence in me, a doubt that had several times arisen in my mind—whether she could have that perception of the true state of my breast, which restrained her with the apprehension of giving me pain—began to oppress me heavily. If that were so, my sacrifice was nothing; my plainest obligation to her unfulfilled; and every poor action I had shrunk from, I was hourly doing. I resolved to set this right beyond all doubt;—if such a barrier were between us, to break ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... thou shouldst oppress, Shouldst thrust aside the work of thine hands? Seest thou as man seeth? Are thy days as ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... to set aside the oath of ordination." (B. 1821, 22.) 7. A further objection to the General Synod was based on Article III, Section V, which provided, among other things, that the General Synod shall take good care "not to oppress any person on account of differences in opinion." After pointing out that this can only be understood as referring to doctrinal differences, Tennessee made the following arraignment: "What an opportunity is here given to introduce all manner of false doctrines! If no ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... the Crown and the nobles; feudalism was robbed of its vitality, and left the mere image of its former self, with nothing alive but its abuses, its caste privileges, its exactions, its pride and vanity, its power to vex and oppress. In England, the nobility were a living part of the nation, and if they had privileges, they paid for them by constant service to the state; in France, they had no political life, and were separated from the people by sharp lines of demarcation. From warrior ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... marvelous character of the man—you look in vain for any sign of an impress that it left upon them. I never go there. I cannot bear those people. I have sometimes the feeling that if it were feasible I should like to oppress them ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... was right when he declared in his place in Parliament, if we remember correctly, that the Penal Laws enacted by England against Ireland, were characterized by an ingenuity the most fiendish on record, and an attempt to oppress, degrade and demoralize a people, without a parallel in the history of even the most barbarious ages. Within the recollection of persons now living, nine-tenths of the population were held in a condition of the most abject slavery, and treated as aliens and enemies ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... walking up and down. The loneliness of the place began to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my nerves. After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came to a positive conclusion at last. I determined to try if a good swimmer ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... was frozen hard enough to bear the horse. "Jim" had advised me against taking any wraps, and my thin Hawaiian riding dress, only fit for the tropics, was penetrated by the keen air The rarefied atmosphere soon began to oppress our breathing, and I found that Evans's boots were so large that I had no foothold. Fortunately, before the real difficulty of the ascent began, we found, under a rock, a pair of small overshoes, probably left by the Hayden exploring expedition, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... He knows no mercy toward the transgressor, but toward the unfortunate he is full of compassion. His law says, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, burning for burning, stripe for stripe." But it also says, "Ye shall neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child." "If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer." "If thou at all take ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... every year, and that no one seems to have the courage to tack up something gay. What is much worse, even those bits of wanton color which have rested generations of weary eyes are being rapidly obscured by somber and intricate scroll-work, warranted to oppress and fatigue. The great masterpieces of humor, which have kept men young by laughter, are being tried in the courts of an orthodox morality and found lamentably wanting; or else, by way of giving them another chance, they are being subjected to the peine forte et dure ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... earlier than they are commonly provided against; I think that innumerable girls struggle miserably in the practice of duty, from a radical ignorance of its principles, and that the earlier these are learnt, the smaller is the burden of regret one heaps together to oppress the future, and the sooner one finds that peace of mind which is not common even amongst ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... but ere I go, will kneel To kiss this ivy—modest earthly type, That would with constant verdure grace her name, As I enshroud her memory with my love! For She has been the blessing that has nerved My strength in failing hours of blackest night, When doubts oppress and fears distract; and when Gigantic Evil's hoofs are crushing good, And pity burns in terror; while, appalled, Blanched Justice shrinks aloof; and not a voice, The smallest, dares uplift itself ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... those the more judicious) deny'd positively, that sufficient Authorities could be produced to prove, that a free People have a just Power to defend themselves, by opposing their Prince, who endeavours to oppress and enslave them: And alledged, that whatever was said or done tending that way, proceeded from a Spirit of ...
— Franco-Gallia • Francis Hotoman
... this strange tale, dealing with matters to him particularly strange, such as gambling, dishonoured mothers, horrors of men and mercenary marriages. It all struck him as very dreadful; it all sank into him; but it didn't oppress him in its strangeness; no outside fact, however dreadful, ever oppressed Franklin. What did oppress him was the thought of Helen in it all. This ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... converted into contempt for their pusillanimity. The insolence of power is stronger than the plea of necessity. The tame submission to usurped authority or even the natural resistance to it has nothing to excite or flatter the imagination: it is the assumption of a right to insult or oppress others that carries an imposing air of superiority with it. We had rather be the oppressor than the oppressed. The love of power in ourselves and the admiration of it in others are both natural to man: the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave. Wrong dressed out in pride, pomp, and circumstance ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... advance to the altar, by twelve upright regular steps, where the Most Potent, with the trowel, presented to me the symbolic offering which I swallowed, and was thus addressed by the Most Potent: "This mystic oblation, which, like you, we have received forms a tie so strong that nothing can oppress it; woe to him who attempts to disunite us. I then received the obligation ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... own part, I can remember few occasions when such thoughts did not oppress me during the waiting which is frequently incident to the opening of an engagement. These thoughts soon vanish amid the ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... mist as in a veil. Whenever we contemplate nature in calm meditation, it always lays hold of our heartstrings. What could have turned my senses more fervently to God, what could have more easily freed me from the trivial things that oppress me? I am not ashamed to confess to thee that at that moment thy image flamed up impetuously in my soul. It is true: Thy radiance pierces me as the sun pours into the crystal of the grape and, like the sun, thou dost ripen me with ever ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... multitudinous twitter of sparrows, and the subtle exalting smell of the fresh, brown earth; but these things do not compensate for human society. Nature palls upon the normal man when he is alone with her constantly. The monotone of the wind and the monochrome of the sky oppress him. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... as I have since learned, my good brother was very comprehensive, discriminating, and impartial in his supplications. He really distinguished between those at the South who "oppress" their fellow-men, and those who "remember them that are in bonds as bound with them." But,' said the pastor, 'the most of those who use that latter expression at the North really think the Apostle had slaves, as a class, in mind. I have no such belief. ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... work proved to be so distasteful to the people that he was obliged to deny that he had any intention of pulling down the image of Our Lady of Trim or the Holy Cross in Tipperary, though in his letter to Cromwell he admitted that "his conscience would right well serve him to oppress such idols."[25] In August of the same year Lord Butler reported to Cromwell that the vicar of Chester announced in the presence of the Deputy, the archbishop, and several members of the council that the king had commanded that images should be set up again and worshipped as before, whereupon ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... pure Jingoism. It means, "My country against other countries! My army and navy against other fighters! My right to annex unoccupied territory over the equal right of all other people! My power to oppress all weaker nationalities, all inferior races!" It never means anything good. For if a cause is just, like Ireland's, or once Italy's, then 'tis the good man's duty to espouse it with warmth, be it his own or another's. ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... dear! when absence rends My faithful heart from thee, What gloomy thoughts oppress my mind, There ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... nobility. The Nestorians, too, are marked out alike by religion and nationality as victims of oppression. However great their wrongs, they can hope for little redress, for a distant court shares in the plunder taken from them, and believes its own officials rather than the despised rayahs, whom they oppress. Even when foreign intervention procures some edict in their favor, these same officials, in distant Oroomiah, are at no ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... happen to you to experience an inexpressible sensation of languor, to sigh for no apparent reason, and even to feel inclined to shed tears, and to ask yourselves, 'Why does this feeling of love oppress me? why do my knees bend under me? whence ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... that the Grief, which equally oppress'd 'em, put the Princess into such an Extremity, that they sent for the Prince. He came, and found himself almost without Life or Motion at this sight. And what secret Motive soever might call him to the aid of Agnes, 'twas to Constantia he ran. The Princess, who finding her ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... magistrate. The king does not venture to place the public officers under the control of the people, lest they should be tempted to betray his interests; on the other hand, the people fears lest the magistrates should serve to oppress the liberties of the country, if they were entirely dependent upon the crown: they cannot therefore be said to depend on either the one or the other. The same cause which induces the king and the people to render ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the French government. In short, it is chiefly to the conduct of this English themselves, we are beholden for this favorable aid of the savages. If the English at first, instead of seeking to exterminate or oppress them by dint of power, the sense of which drove them for refuge into our party, had behaved with more tenderness to them, and conciliated their affection by humoring them properly, and distributing a few presents, they might easily have made useful and valuable subjects of them. Whereas, ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... the young woman. "And to oppress a free people—is that loyalty? To reduce the inhabitants to slavery, to exile them by herds with iron collars on their necks—is that loyalty? To massacre old men and children, to deliver the women ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... which this primitive religion consisted are mentioned in the book of Job, chap. i. ver. 5, and chap, xxxi, viz. not to blaspheme God, nor to worship the Sun or Moon, nor to kill, nor steal, nor to commit adultery, nor trust in riches, nor oppress the poor or fatherless, nor curse your enemies, nor rejoyce at their misfortunes: but to be friendly, and hospitable and merciful, and to relieve the poor and needy, and to set up Judges. This was the morality and religion of the first ages, still called by ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... gourd's hurt, And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, As from the first its lot was cast. 40 For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed By unexhausted power to bless, I gaze below on hell's fierce bed, And those its waves of flame oppress, Swarming in ghastly wretchedness; Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win If not love like God's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. 50 Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white With prayer, the broken-hearted ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... would perhaps have gone to the stake herself, if thereby she might have put an end to heresy. Philip would have seen every soul in Europe consigned to eternal perdition before he would have yielded up an iota of his claims to universal dominion. He could send Alva to browbeat the Pope, as well as to oppress the Netherlanders. He could compass the destruction of the orthodox Egmont and Farnese, as well as of the heretical William. His unctuous piety only adds to the abhorrence with which we regard him; and his humility in face of death is neither better nor worse ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... politeness, as if she had been addressing any one in her own circle. She seemed much pleased with her singing, and remarked that she should be happy to give her an opportunity of performing in Stafford House, as soon as she should be a little relieved of a heavy cold which seemed to oppress her at present. This, of course, will be decisive of her favor in London. The duchess is to let us know when ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... floating in mid-sea, saves her life and brings her to the minister who thanks him heartily for the favour and offers a reward. The merchant thus expresses his unwillingness to accept it, "Sir, under the rule of our gracious king, the weak do not fear the strong; the rich cannot oppress the poor; the word "robber" has become obsolete; the sick and the orphans are being treated by the best of physicians and are free from any want of food and clothing; children are being properly educated; ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... a just judgment? Natural laws reveal to us no such judgment. Nature teaches us that if we transgress certain natural laws we shall be punished. But it teaches no certain judgement either in this life or in any future life which will overtake the transgression of moral laws. A man may defraud, oppress, and seduce, and yet live a prosperous life, and die ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... to protect his Indians and recommend them to the mercy of Government was not felt by him to apply to the negroes with equal force. Slavery uses the same pretexts in every age and against whatsoever race it wishes to oppress. The Indians were represented by the colonists as predestined by their natural dispositions, and by their virtues as well as by their vices, to be held in tutelage by a superior race: their vices were excuses for colonial ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... for the Jewish people to live and to develop itself, according to its abilities, up to the natural limits of its type. They have become convinced that this is not possible in dispersion, as, under that condition, prejudice, hatred, and contempt continually follow and oppress them, and either stint their development, or force them to an ethnical mimicry which necessarily makes of them, instead of original types with a right to existence, mediocre or bad copies of foreign ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... care this morn oppress thee, To Him address thee, Who, like the sun, is good to all: He gilds the mountain tops, the while His gracious smile Will on the ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... old. Before her, fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain; As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd Clos'd one by one to everlasting rest; Thus, at her felt approach and secret might, Art after art goes out, and all is night. See skulking truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of casuistry heap'd o'er her head. Philosophy, that lean'd ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... itself the privilege of ruling the nation; Paris, like other departments, should be reduced to its on-eighty-third proportion of influence. It is monstrous that, in a capital of 700,000 souls, five or six thousand radical Jacobins should oppress the sections and alone elect their candidates; in the sections and at the polls, all citizens, at least all republicans, should enjoy an equal and free vote. It is monstrous that the principle of popular sovereignty should be used to cover up attacks against popular sovereignty, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... unchangeable law, knowing that the burden and the difficulty of such submission is their appointed lot in life,—these are the women and mothers of our wealthy classes, in whose hands, more than in those of any one else, lies the salvation of the men of our sphere in society from the miseries that oppress them. ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... choose for the most Part rather to steal, beg, or starve, than go Abroad to work; and in the mean Time the Magistrates and our Laws are so mild to them, that like as Pharaoh's lean Kine devoured the fat ones, they grievously oppress and molest ...
— The Present State of Virginia • Hugh Jones
... Violets, and Asphodel, 1040 And Hyacinth, Earths freshest softest lap. There they thir fill of Love and Loves disport Took largely, of thir mutual guilt the Seale, The solace of thir sin, till dewie sleep Oppress'd them, wearied with thir amorous play. Soon as the force of that fallacious Fruit, That with exhilerating vapour bland About thir spirits had plaid, and inmost powers Made erre, was now exhal'd, and grosser sleep Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... oppress me never cease; Not for a moment dare I rest, Nigh to despair. I think with fond regard of those, Who in their posts at court remain, My friends of old. Fain would I be with them again, But fierce reproof return would cause. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... sufficiently apt to avail themselves. Thus, when the present Bank of the United States first went into operation, fears were entertained by the state banks and their friends, that the United States Bank and its branches would prove troublesome and dangerous neighbours. Their strength to oppress, and even crush, a rival, was supposed to be in proportion to their capital; and, comparing them with things with which they had no sort of analogy, it was argued, that a state bank, in the neighbourhood of a branch of the national ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... nor Salvation Army can ever win the entire confidence of the poor. It must be on the side of the police and the military, no matter what it believes or disbelieves; and as the police and the military are the instruments by which the rich rob and oppress the poor (on legal and moral principles made for the purpose), it is not possible to be on the side of the poor and of the police at the same time. Indeed the religious bodies, as the almoners of the rich, become ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... frequently, that the freezing nights which had as often succeeded had formed an icy incrustation quite strong enough to bear the weight of a man. Though it was a dreary waste, yet Glenn gleaned a satisfaction in casting his eyes around where his glance beheld no one striving to oppress his fellow being that he might acquire riches and power, to be again snatched from his grasp by others, but a peaceful scene, fresh from the hand of God, and unmarred by the workmanship of meaner creatures. The broad ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... sighed Wilhelmine. "You have named them thus! The chains will at last oppress you, and you will forget the magic power which binds you, and will be free. No holy bond, no oath, no marriage tie—nothing but your love binds you to me. I rejoice in it, and so long as you do not forsake me, I am conscious that it is your own free choice and not force ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... they strive to prevent fatness in Apis as well as in themselves, for they are anxious that their bodies should sit as light and easy about their souls as possible, and that their mortal part should not oppress and weigh down the ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... have not: A cottager, I mark'd a throne Of half the world as all my own, And murmur'd at such lowly lot— But, just like any other dream, Upon the vapour of the dew My own had past, did not the beam Of beauty which did while it thro' The minute—the hour—the day—oppress ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Mammon, is by no means confined to the rich; many of these, having next to nothing, yet thought profession the one thing, money, houses, lands the only inheritances. It is a marvel that even world-loving people should never see with what a load they oppress the lives of the children to whom, instead of bringing them up to earn their own living, and thus enjoy at least THE GAME of life, they leave a fortune enough to sink a devil yet deeper in hell. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... bit gloomy at this idea. To tell the truth, he, the youngest of the party, was at times just a little homesick. The country through which they passed seemed so stupendous, so awesome, as almost to oppress the spirits of ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... how a Being purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification—of the first cause, the reason, or Logos, and the soul or spirit of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... for the coarseness of this paragraph. And so with the island cannibals. They were not cruel; apart from this custom, they are a race of the most kindly; rightly speaking, to cut a man's flesh after he is dead is far less hateful than to oppress him whilst he lives; and even the victims of their appetite were gently used in life and suddenly and painlessly despatched at last. In island circles of refinement it was doubtless thought bad taste to expatiate on what was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hustled. I saw that at any moment it might end ill. I had a mighty mind toward anything but non-resistance, but still, fearing to hit the fellows, I cried out meekly, "Thou art wrong, friends, to oppress a poor man." Just then I heard William Allen's voice back of me, crying, "Let that Quaker alone!" As he quickly exercised the authority of an officer, the gathering crowd dispersed, and the grenadiers staggered away. I was prompt enough ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... waste this apple-tree. Oh, when its aged branches throw Thin shadows on the sward below, Shall fraud and force and iron will Oppress the weak and helpless still? What shall the tasks of mercy be, Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears Of those who live when length of years ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... must be left to suffer. For this reason, although individuals and societies should have the utmost freedom as regards their own affairs, they ought not to have complete freedom as regards their dealings with others. To give freedom to the strong to oppress the weak is not the way to secure the greatest possible amount of freedom in the world. This is the basis of the socialist revolt against the kind of freedom which used to be advocated by ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... All its forms are marked with violent angles, as if the whole muscular energy—so to speak—of the cloud, were writhing in every fold, and their fantastic and fiery volumes have a peculiar horror—an awful life—shadowed out in their strange, swift, fearful outlines, which oppress the mind more than even the threatening of their gigantic gloom. The white lightning, not as it is drawn by less observant or less capable painters, in zigzag fortifications, but in its own dreadful irregularity of streaming fire, is brought down, not merely over the dark clouds, but through the ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... &c adj.; peccancy^, abomination; painfulness &c 830; pestilence &c (disease) 655; guilt &c 947; depravity &c 945. V. be hurtful &c adj.; cause evil, produce evil, inflict evil, work evil, do evil &c 619; damnify^, endamage^, hurt, harm; injure &c (damage) 659; pain &c 830. wrong, aggrieve, oppress, persecute; trample upon, tread upon, bear hard upon, put upon; overburden; weigh down, weigh heavy on; victimize; run down; molest &c 830. maltreat, abuse; ill-use, ill-treat; buffet, bruise, scratch, maul; smite &c (scourge) 972; do violence, do harm, do a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... sword in its sheath, and listen calmly to me. It is true, you have lent me four thousand dollars without security and without interest. You need not extol yourself for this, for you well know it is not the wish or the intention of the prince royal to oppress even the most pitiful of his subjects, or to withhold the smallest of their rights. You knew this; then why were you not satisfied to wait ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... soldiers' hearts went out like candle flames Before their eyes, and the blood perisht in them.— But I—could I do that? Would I not feel The power in me if 'twas there? And yet 'Twere a child's game to what I have to do, For days and days with sleepless faith oppress And terrorise the demon sea. I think A man might, as I saw my Master once, Pass unharmed through a storm of men, yet fail At this that lies before me: men are mind, And mind can conquer mind; but how can it quell The unappointed purpose of great waters?— Well, say the sea is past: ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... Nor can we hope he will a stranger spare, Who gives no quarter to his friend Voltaire.[85] 70 Unhappy Genius! placed by partial Fate With a free spirit in a slavish state; Where the reluctant Muse, oppress'd by kings, Or droops in silence, or in fetters sings! In vain thy dauntless fortitude hath borne The bigot's furious zeal, and tyrant's scorn. Why didst thou safe from home-bred dangers steer, Reserved to perish more ignobly here? Thus, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... particularly because this meeting of the representatives of the great Powers there would protect it and the courageous and faithful country of Neuchatel from indignities, spoliation, and all the horrors which oppress at this moment the unfortunate and far from courageous Fribourg. I am afraid that your Majesty has not a full appreciation of the people and the partisans who fill Switzerland with murders and the miseries of the most abominable Civil War. Your Majesty's happy realms ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... to educate a man to be a successful oppressor, with a genius for introducing new horrors and novelties in pain, oppress him early in life and don't give him any reason for doing so. The idea that "God is love" was not popular in those days. The early settlers were so stern even with their own children that if the Indian had not given the forefather ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... she, "he sleeps, the senseless thing, Oppress'd and faint with toiling in the stream!" Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream; Meanwhile, her lily fingers task to twine His uncrispt locks uncurling ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... exclamations, however, could not give full vent to his agitation. The loathing sense of disgust which had begun to oppress him on his way to the old woman's house had now become so intense that he longed to find some way of escape from the torture. He reeled along the pavement like a tipsy man, taking no notice of those who passed, but bumping against them. On looking round he saw a dram shop near at hand; ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... that despisest not the sighing of a contrite heart, nor the desire of such as be sorrowful: Mercifully assist our prayers that we make before thee in all our troubles and adversities, whensoever they oppress us; and graciously hear us, that those evils, which the craft and subtilty of the devil or man worketh against us, be brought to nought, and by the providence of thy goodness they may be dispersed; that we thy servants, being hurt by no persecutions, may evermore give thanks unto thee in thy holy ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... tides: While melting music steals upon the sky, And soften'd sounds along the waters die; 50 Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay. All but the Sylph—with careful thoughts oppress'd, The impending woe sat heavy on his breast. He summons straight his denizens of air; The lucid squadrons round the sails repair; Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seem'd but zephyrs to the train beneath. Some to the sun their insect-wings ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I, the Lord, am thy Savior and thy Redeemer, ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... could not be restrained. Nature has required the powerful to be just; but she has not otherwise intrusted the preservation of her works to their visionary plans. What fuel can the statesman add to the fires of youth? Let him only not smother it, and the effect is secure. Where we oppress or degrade mankind with one hand, it is vain, like Octavius, to hold out in the other, the baits of marriage, or the whip to barrenness. It is vain to invite new inhabitants from abroad, while those we already possess are ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... of the caulkers was resumed over my head and all around me; the stench of bilge-water, combining with the smoke of tobacco, the effluvia of gin and beer, the frying of beef-steaks and onions, and red herrings—the pressure of a dark atmosphere and a heavy shower of rain, all conspired to oppress my spirits, and render me the most miserable dog that ever lived. I had almost resigned myself to despair, when I recollected the captain's invitation, and mentioned it to Flyblock. "That's well thought of," said he; "Murphy ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Cares—clouded and confused—oppress, obscure In changeful forms, my eye, my heart, my mind: My soul finds room for every guest save one; Fair hope has flown,—no star can pierce my night: Each tyrant rages 'gainst opposing foe In deadly fight—yet brings to light no ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... definite site on the mainland for settlement and a trading-place. Joan Sordo testified that he believed the Chinese would welcome the Spaniards, and quoted a Sangley as saying to him: "Castilians, when will the day come for your entry into China? for these mandarins oppress us so that we ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... little by little, and began to oppress my head and heart. Perhaps something had happened to her. Perhaps she was injured, ill, dead. Perhaps a messenger would arrive with the news of some dreadful accident. Perhaps the daylight would find me with the same uncertainty and with ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... ills, and thought I had been worthy to be proved thy friend. Thou told'st me not the obsequies prepared {1080} Were for thy wife; but in thy house receiv'dst me As if thou griev'dst for one of foreign birth. I bound my head with garlands, to the gods Pouring libations in thy house with grief Oppress'd. I blame this: yes, in such a state I blame this: yet I come not in thine ills To give thee pain; why I return in brief Will I unfold. This woman from my hands Receive to thy protection, till return'd I bring the Thracian steeds, having there slain {1090} The proud Bistorian tyrant; should I ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... three-pointed sword in his hand. Two servants stand beside him, with a falcon and a hound; for Yang Oerlang is a great hunter. The falcon is the falcon of the gods, and the hound is the hound of the gods. When brute creatures gain possession of magic powers or demons oppress men, he subdues them by means of ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... is reunited to the spirit of the universe, returns; and on this solemn note the poem closes. The symphony of exultation which had greeted the passage of Adonais into the eternal world, is here subdued to a graver key, as befits the mood of one whom mystery and mourning still oppress on earth. Yet even in the somewhat less than jubilant conclusion we feel that highest of all Shelley's qualities—the liberation of incalculable energies, the emancipation and expansion of a force ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... when we know First how vain this world below: When its darker thoughts oppress, Doubts perplex, and fears distress; When the earliest gleam is given Of the bright but distant heaven; Then thy fostering grace afford; Then, O then, ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... state, or independent of it. England, Holland, France, and Spain, when they founded colonies beyond the sea, founded them for the good of the parent state, and governed them as dependencies. The home country might treat her colonies well or ill, she might cherish and guard them, or oppress them with harshness and severity, but she never treated them as equals. Russia, in pushing her obscure and barbarous conquest and colonization of Siberia,—a conquest destined to be of such lasting importance in the history of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... village, at their own cost, to supply the wants of travellers, and the ancient custom is now adhered to, not in favour of travellers generally, but in favour of those who are deemed sufficiently powerful to enforce its observance. If the villagers therefore find a man waiving this right to oppress them, and offering coin for that which he is entitled to take without payment, they suppose at once that he is actuated by fear (fear of them, poor fellows!), and it is so delightful to them to act upon this flattering ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... purchase. Hurried and wearied shop-girls tripped by in the draperies that betrayed their sad necessity to be both fine and shabby; from a boarding-house door issued briskly one of those cool young New Yorkers whom no circumstances can oppress: breezy-coated, white-livened, clean, with a good cigar in the mouth, a light cane caught upon the elbow of one of the arms holding up the paper from which the morning's news is snatched, whilst the person sways lightly with the walk; in the street- cars that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Chopin delighted. He once remarked to a friend, an artist who has since been frequently heard: "I am not suited for concert giving; the public intimidate me; their looks, only stimulated by curiosity, paralyze me; their strange faces oppress me; their breath stifles me: but you—you are destined for it, for when you do not gain your public, you have the force to assault, to overwhelm, to control, to ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... the will of their destiny that men and events should oppress them whithersoever they went," said an author of the heroes of his book. Thus it is with the majority of men; Indeed, with all those who have not yet learned to distinguish between exterior and moral destiny. ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... upon the assumption that women were, and must be always dependent by reason of their sex. In the light of a broader humanity, the distinctions seem cruel and barbarous, but that they were the result of any spirit of injustice or intentional tyranny, or of any desire on the part of men to oppress women or impose upon them any hardship or burden because of their physical weakness, is not at all probable. They were merely the outgrowth of the conditions incident to ruder stages of social development, ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... Sonnet, that full many a time Amus'd my lassitude, and sooth'd my pains, When graver cares forbade the lengthen'd strains, To thy brief bound, and oft-returning chime A long farewell!—the splendid forms of Rhyme When Grief in lonely orphanism reigns, Oppress the drooping Soul.—DEATH's dark domains Throw mournful shadows o'er the Aonian clime; For in their silent bourne my filial bands Lie all dissolv'd;—and swiftly-wasting pour From my frail glass of life, health's sparkling sands. Sleep ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... they be relied upon to defend the country. The rich bribe the conscription officers, and keep out of the ranks, invest their Confederate money and bonds in real estate, and would be the first to submit to the United States Government; and the poor, whom they oppress, are in danger of demoralization from suffering and disgust, and might also embrace reunion rather than a prolongation of such miseries as they have so long experienced. The patriotism of 1861 must be revived, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... dismay. My mother comes, in her anger, to chide me, and she does not spare; my stern brother storms like the winter's tempest; my sire rages and threatens; and then, like the panther that springs across the path of the lone hunter, comes thy hated rival, to oppress me with the tale of his love and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones |
