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Repressive   /riprˈɛsɪv/   Listen
Repressive

adjective
1.
Restrictive of action.  Synonyms: inhibitory, repressing.  "An overly strict and inhibiting discipline"






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"Repressive" Quotes from Famous Books



... a bookshelf and stood before it. After a moment she took out a book and deliberately turned we leaves. Her attitude was plainly repressive. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... apart, like those-of the Rhodian), in whom the artist represents the People, to watch the match that is about to come off between Ratapoil and M. Berryer, or even in the act of lifting the "parricidal" club of a new repressive law to deal a blow at the Press, an effulgent, diligent, sedentary muse (this picture, by the way, is a perfect specimen of the simple and telling in political caricature)—however, as I say, he takes M. Thiers, there is always ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... coffee and sugar plantations, and Havana became the launching point for the annual treasure fleets bound for Spain from Mexico and Peru. Spanish rule, marked initially by neglect, became increasingly repressive, provoking an independence movement and occasional rebellions that were harshly suppressed. It was US intervention during the Spanish-American War in 1898 that finally overthrew Spanish rule. The subsequent Treaty of Paris established ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... centuries, Portugal lost much of its wealth and status with the destruction of Lisbon in a 1755 earthquake, occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, and the independence in 1822 of Brazil as a colony. A 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy; for most of the next six decades repressive governments ran the country. In 1974, a left-wing military coup installed broad democratic reforms. The following year Portugal granted independence to all of its African colonies. Portugal entered ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... on, "no American or Englishman can support or justify the repressive measures so often carried out ruthlessly by the Russian police. Still, even these may be exaggerated, for the police have to deal with a people very much different from our own. It is rather curious that at this moment I am in vague trouble concerning ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... like a blight all through the year to me. You hard-lined, thin- lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on. You are like the Devil to me; most of all when you teach me religious things, for you make ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... thanks," I answered. "But how are you?" And the next moment, it seemed to me, I heard her asking if I was hungry;—whereupon, absurd as it must sound, I was aware of an immense emotion that interfered with my breathing. It broke up through some repressive layer that had apparently concealed it, and made me feel—well, had I been thirty-five years younger, I could have cried—for pleasure. Mother, I think, forgot those years perhaps. To her I was still in overalls and wanted ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood

... preserved through the well known tendency of the survival of ancient practice in matters pertaining to the religious observances of a primitive people. Unfortunately, in the past the Zuni have been exposed to the repressive policy of the Spanish authorities, and this has probably seriously affected the purity of the kiva type. At one time, when the ceremonial observances of the Zuni took place in secret for fear of incurring the wrath of the Spanish priests, the original kivas must have been ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various

... easy to understand. I have pointed out its un-Chinese features and the persistent opposition of the literati. These were sufficient reasons for repressive measures whenever the Emperor was unbuddhist in his sympathies, especially if the monasteries had enjoyed a period of prosperity and become crowded and wealthy. What is harder to understand is the occasional favour ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... he said. "Repressive measures will be passed in Germany, as soon as the act can be got through. That will mean that Germany will be brought up into line with the rest of Europe, America, Australia, and half Asia, throughout her whole empire. ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson

... exceptions, of which the village where these pages are written was one. The central and southern portions of the Empire were only partially affected by the anti-foreign madness, not because they were under different conditions, but mainly through the strong repressive measures of four men, Liu Kun Yi and Chang Chih-tung, Governors-General of the four great provinces in the Yang-tse Valley; Yuan Shih Kai in Shantung, and a Manchu, Tuan Fang, in Shen-si. The jurisdiction of this quartette made an impassable barrier across which the movement was unable to ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... quails before his threatening face, though innocent of its meaning, and she remains. Her panting breathing comes and goes as if it would choke her; but with a repressive hand ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... his inveterate tendency toward damp emotional effects; he was perpetually dissolving in "showers of tears." In fact, our novelists down to the memory of living man gave way to their feelings with far more abandon than is true of the present repressive period. One who reads Dickens' "Nicholas Nickleby" with this in mind, will perhaps be surprised to find how often the hero frankly indulges his grief; he cries with a freedom that suggests a trait inherited ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... go, won't you, air, because we want to build the Empire?" burst out Billykins, thrusting himself in between his elders and looking so flushed and excited that Mr. Runciman, who had no son of his own, could not be so repressive as he felt ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant

... instincts. Our economic literature shows that we are but rarely curious to know whether industrialism is suited to man's inherited nature, or what man in turn will do to our rules of economic conduct in case these rules are repressive. The motives to economic activity which have done the major service in orthodox economic texts and teachings have been either the vague middle-class virtues of thrift, justice, and solvency, or the equally vague moral sentiments of 'striving for the welfare ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... who had playfully competed with men in a jumping match gravely attribute her defeat to the trammeling of her skirt. Similarly, women are pleased to explain their penury of mental achievement by repressive education and custom, and therein they are not altogether in heresy. But even in regions where they have ever had the freedom of the quarries they have not builded themselves monuments. Nobody, for example, ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... the police—and the severity of the magistrates. The general leniency of the judicial procedure here, and the utter absence of all repressive measures, are a scandal to Europe. What is wished for just now is the accentuation of the unrest—of the fermentation which ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad

... that with him cerebral excitement, when it reached a certain pitch, overflowed too rapidly into action. Whereas the gentry, after their centuries of repressive training, could always control themselves. They could fight, but they could wait for the appropriate moment. If you stung them with an insult, they resolved to avenge themselves—but not necessarily then and there; and their resolve deepened in every instant of delay, so that when the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... needed for the good as well as for the bad. The law was promulgated in the Garden, while man retained his innocence and remained in the integrity of his nature. It exists in heaven as well as on earth, and in heaven in its perfection. Its office is not purely repressive, to restrain violence, to redress wrongs, and to punish the transgressor. It has something more to do than to restrict our natural liberty, curb our passions, and maintain justice between man and man. Its office is positive as well as negative. ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... The discrepancy between the two maps was obvious and vast. On the bulletin boards there were many news items emanating from the "unredeemed" in Trent and Trieste, chronicling riots and the severely repressive measures taken by the Austrian masters. The little piazza in front of the newspaper office was thronged from morning to night, and the old woman in the kiosk beside the door did ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... American Colonies at the date of the Revolution, what they had besides land and water; the characteristics of the diverse elements of the population; the manufacturing interests, which had begun to be ingeniously and effectively pursued here, notwithstanding the repressive hostility of England to their introduction; and the distinctive qualities of our farmers, sea-men, professional men, and village politicians. But it is ungracious to ask for more than there is in this compact and most admirable volume. It is written with a severely good taste, in a spirit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... unlikeness of the unlike that is necessarily problematical; it may be simply accepted and dealt with as a fact, like any other fact. The problem arises only when the people of one race are minded to adopt and act upon some policy more or less oppressive or repressive in dealing with the people of another race. In the absence of some such policy, there has never been a race problem since the world began. It is the existence of such a policy become traditional, and supported by immovable ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... diffused a deep excitement among all classes. Every day new rumors arose, and throughout the Neapolitan dominions the population were filled with strange vague desires. The government itself was demoralized—one day exerting its utmost power in the most repressive measures, and on the next recalling its own acts, and retreating in fear from the position which it had taken up. The troops were as agitated as the people. It was felt that in case of an attempt at revolution they could not be relied upon. In the midst of all other fears one was predominant, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... is in the grip of a bloody revolution! Thousands of workers are slaughtered by machine guns in New York City! Washington is on fire! Industry is at a standstill and thousands of workers are starving! The government is using the most brutal and repressive measures to put down the revolution! Disorganization, crime, chaos, rape, murder and arson are the order of the day—the ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... child has certain educational difficulties. The true learning is not that which we are taught, but that which we take in for ourselves from experience and observation, and children's experiences and observation, especially of things other than repressive, are mainly of children. The little ones teach each other. Brothers and sisters are more with each other than are ordinary playmates, and in the familiarity of their constant intercourse some of the great lessons, so useful in after-life, are learned. Little Stephen had no means of learning ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... is now in its own hands, and facilities are thrown at its feet such as no other can hope to have. There have been good excuses for its shortcomings in the past. There are none now. Two years ago, Washington was a great boy who had grown up under the repressive guardianship of his Uncle Samuel; he had not been permitted to do anything for himself; he had no money except the few pennies which the old gentleman had grudgingly given him for menial services. He needed higher culture and better ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... to oppose the ferocious penalties of the Middle Ages. But it is still nobler to forestall crime. The classic school of criminology directed its attention merely to penalties, to repressive measures after crime had been committed, with all its terrible moral and material consequences. For in the classic school, the remedies against criminality have not the social aim of improving human life, but merely the illusory mission of retributive justice, meeting a moral delinquency ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri

... as Mansfield said, was passed, but the event was to be different from the expectation of the king and the nation at large. When Gage went out to enforce the repressive acts neither he nor those who sent him thought that his task would be hard. Four regiments, he believed, would be enough to settle the business. The Americans, Sandwich said, were cowardly and undisciplined; they would not stand a cannon-shot. That they ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... Voltaire, the spiritual adviser of Frederick the Great, "Ecrasez l'infame," and the battle-cry of Gambetta, "Le clericalisme, voila l'ennemi." Nor is he less bitter against the Socialists. Bismarck and the Kaiser opposed the encroachments of the Social Democracy in a succession of anti-Socialist repressive measures. Treitschke may have disapproved of some of the Sozialisten Gesetze because they defeated their purpose. But he shares the Kaiser's hatred against those irreconcilable enemies of Prussian greatness. ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... heart that that kind of pacification, based upon principles operating equally all over the land, which lovers of their country yearn for, and which our arms, though signally triumphant, did not bring about, and which lawmaking, however anxious, or energetic, or repressive, never by itself can achieve, may yet be largely aided by generosity of sentiment public and private. Some revisionary legislation and adaptive is indispensable; but with this should harmoniously work another kind of prudence, not unallied with entire magnanimity. Benevolence and policy—Christianity ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... spirit. For it must be remembered that I am writing not of the American farmer and laborer of this democratic age, but of men who were separated but by a generation or two from the peasant serfs of England, and who under the stern and repressive rule of the untitled aristocracy of the colonies, had enjoyed little opportunity for ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... instigated or insisted upon by a powerful orthodox priesthood. But a despotic administration which undertakes to control and circumscribe all forms and manifestations of superstition in a vast polytheistic multitude of its subjects, is inevitably driven to repressive measures of the utmost severity. Neither Christianity nor Islam attempted to regulate polytheism, their mission was to exterminate it, and they succeeded mainly because in those countries the State was ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... life!" he had said. The phrase was hateful to her. It stirred within her all the antagonism of her generation to the creed of her people, to the Puritan ideal, cold, narrow, repressive. And yet Renault was far from being a Puritan. But he, too, believed in the "discipline of life." And again when she had confessed her ambitions for "a broad life," "for experience," he had said: "Egotism is the pestilence of our day,—the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... promised the people a constitution. But when the strike had been called off and the disturbances subsided, it soon became evident that the promises were not to be fulfilled. More than that, the police now began such a series of repressive measures that again the fires on the revolution were lighted. Most notable of these was the uprising in Moscow in December, 1905, when the people and the soldiers fought bloody battles in the streets. But the revolutionary forces ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... sedition, but happily acquitted; and public opinion was justified in regarding Socialism rather as destructive and disorderly than as constructive, and, as is now often said, even too favourable to repressive legislation. In these commotions the Society as a whole took no part, and its public activities were limited to a meeting at South Place Chapel, on December 18th, 1885, addressed by ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease

... blood if, annually, the chief men of the city took a flogging for the community (senseless arrogance that sensible, and even kindly, men will sometimes be tempted to utter, and prompted to act on, in that deteriorating state of a perpetual repressive force).—Emilia looked at him till she caught his eye: "I hope I shall never meet you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... may have caught at a fact. From another foreign sojourner I heard that the Catholicism of Spain, in spite of all newspaper appearances to the contrary and many bold novels, is still intense and unyieldingly repressive. But how far the severity of the church characterizes manners it would be hard to say. Perhaps these are often the effect of temperament. One heard more than one saw of the indifference of shop-keepers to shoppers in Madrid; in Andalusia, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... unnaturally low. The 40,000 men collected in Paris by the construction of the fortifications are supposed to have mainly contributed to the revolution of 1848. What is to be expected from this addition of 100,000? Then the repressive force is differently constituted and differently animated. In England you have an army which has chosen arms as a profession, which never thinks of any other employment, and indeed is fit for no other, and never expects any provision ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville

... there was little of it left outside the court and the army and navy, and even they were subjected to incessant inroads— until, finally, it came to pass that the Emperor was doubtful whom to trust. Thereupon, of course, the season for energetic repressive measures ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... it relates to our story:—That this most intense and vital sentiment should find expression whenever the repressive power of the conquering people was removed was most natural; that it would be fanned into a white heat by the freedman's enfranchisement was beyond cavil; and that Red Wing should escape such manifestations of the general abhorrence of ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... advice of William I. and Andrassy, and signed an unfavourable reply to the Czech address on October 30, 1871. Czech opposition was now openly directed against the dynasty. Hohenwart resigned on October 27. In November, Baron Koller was again appointed Governor of Bohemia and repressive methods of ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... which has come to stand for repression founded on an almost angry distrust of human nature, is in fact "the most encouraging, the most joyous, the least repressive, and the least forbidding of all the religions of the world." It does not fear the world, it masters it. It does not seek to escape from life, it develops a truer and more abundant life. It places itself at ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... that has been thrown on the events of the Champ de Mars has not been confined solely to the fact of proclaiming martial law; the repressive measures that followed that proclamation have been ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... stands out in bold relief as a system built up and maintained by fraud and force, bound in the course of nature to last only as long as the deception could be carried on and the repressive force kept up to sufficient strength. Its maintenance required that the different sections be isolated from each other so that there could be no growth toward a common understanding and cooeperation, and its permanence depended upon keeping the people ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... that the repressive policy, pursued during the last few years by the "Jewish Committee," had thrown a large part of the Jewish people "into utmost disorder," and had made the Jews "shiver and shudder at the thought that a general Jewish statute had been drafted ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... fact that it is not the load but the harness that is too heavy. The harness is more exhausting and burdensome than the load appointed. The destination sought and the course to be followed in the lesson preparation are very many times not clearly indicated, lest the discipline, negative and repressive though it be, should be extracted from the struggle. The fact is that discouragement and failure are too often the best of testimony that teachers are not much concerned about how the pupil employs his time or books in studying a lesson. The point is illustrated admirably by the report ...
— The High School Failures - A Study of the School Records of Pupils Failing in Academic or - Commercial High School Subjects • Francis P. Obrien

... digestive energy of all, as the breeze the fire, as the clearing sky the low spirits from the gloom of chill and fogs. The eyes that do not glisten with higher life, the lines upon the face that are not alive with cheerful, kindly emotions, the frowning look, the word that cuts deeply, have their repressive effects upon digestive energy within ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... then, first of all, calls men to repentance, bids them turn away from their natural selves, and, to find that other and realer self, enter the straight and narrow gate. The call is not an arbitrary command, born of a negative and repressive spirit. It is a profound exhortation based upon a fundamental law of human progress, having behind it the inviolable sanction of the truth. Such preaching would have the authentic note. It is self-verifying. It stirs ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... rat-proofed her buildings, and thus, at one stroke, eliminated all fear of bubonic plague. She began to take interest in the public schools, and soon trebled their advantages. She concerned herself with the revision of repressive tax laws. She secured one of the best street railway systems in the country. But, perhaps most striking of all, she set to work to build scientifically toward the realization of a gigantic dream. This dream embodies the resumption by New Orleans of her old place as second seaport city. To this ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... from him without answering—not in fear, but because her code of ethics, the repressive conventions of her whole existence urged her to do so in the face of a sudden yearning to draw his bloody face up close to her and kiss it. The very thought, the swift surge of the impulse frightened her, shocked her. She could not understand it, and so she took refuge ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... James V., died (1542), she was only a few days old. Her mother, Mary of Guise, became regent. The Reformation had then begun to gain adherents in Scotland. On the accession of Elizabeth, at a time when the religious wars in France were about to begin, the Scottish regent undertook repressive measures of increased rigor. The principal agent in turning Scotland to the Protestant side was John Knox, an intrepid preacher, honest, and rough in his ways, deeply imbued with the spirit of Calvinism, and free from every vestige of superstitious deference for human ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... being that is above the driving force of impulse, that does not experience vacillating moods or conflicting desires, that is never harassed by doubts or misled by ignorance.... Theism is in essence repressive, prohibitory, ascetic. The outcome of its influence is that expertness in practical living and expertness in evaluating life, instead of uniting to take advantage of a common opportunity, are set against each other. ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... disagreeable to live in as any that history records; not only were the physical conditions of life hard, but its inquisitorial intolerance overmatched that which it escaped in England. It was a theocratic despotism, untempered by recreation or amusement, and repressive not only of freedom of expression but of freedom of thought. But it had an unconquerable will, a mighty sense of duty, a faith in God, which not only established its grip upon the continent but carried ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... sat erect and nervous amid these explosive ingredients, attentive to Mr. Eager, repressive towards Miss Lavish, watchful of old Mr. Emerson, hitherto fortunately asleep, thanks to a heavy lunch and the drowsy atmosphere of Spring. She looked on the expedition as the work of Fate. But for it she ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... Lord Salisbury's famous prescription, 'twenty years of resolute government,' they made it what its author would have been the last man to consider it, a sufficient justification for a purely negative and repressive policy. Such an attitude was open to somewhat obvious objections. No one will dispute the proposition that the government of Ireland, or of any other country, should be resolute, but twenty years of resolute government, in the ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... has been more carefully studied by his fellow-beings. Some have studied him as a monster and believed him to have the heart of a beast; others have studied him as a man and had faith in his possibilities. The former have noticed the failure of repressive methods, such as flogging and other penal severities, and have in despair been led to advocate that the only possible remedy is that of extermination. The latter have discovered that the failure of these repressive methods ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... said, "as far as I resent anything now, I resent the conversion of so much religion from an inspiring force into a repressive force. One learnt as a child to think of it, not as a great moving flood of energy and joy, but as an awful power apart from life, rejoicing in petty restrictions, and mainly concerned with creating an ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... word. The Radical begins by demanding a greater extension of political rights, but he soon sees that the breath of liberty leads to the uplifting of the proletariat, and then he turns round, changes his opinions, and reverts to repressive legislation and government ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... his 70th birthday. I like to think that his genius, a continuing influence over a long generation, did more than anything else to convert the parents. The schools, always more royalist than the King, professionally bleak, professionally dull, professionally repressive rather than educative, held on to a tradition which, though it had to be on the sly, every intelligent mother and nurse had done her best to evade. The schools made a boy's life penitential on a system. They discovered athletics, as a safety-valve for high spirits they could ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... "Also, the situation has other possibilities. The government of Earth is obviously repressive. That argues the existence of underground resistance groups on Earth itself. You may be able to contact those groups. A revolt both here and on Earth would give the government something ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... insufficient by the Danish Liberals, and during the last years of Frederick VI. and the whole reign of his successor, Christian VIII. (1839-1848), the agitation for a free constitution, both in Denmark and the duchies, continued to grow in strength, in spite of press prosecutions and other repressive measures. The rising national feeling in Germany also stimulated the separatist tendencies of the duchies; and "Schleswig-Holsteinism," as it now began to be called, evoked in Denmark the counter-movement known as Eiderdansk-politik, i.e. the policy of extending ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... only be counteracted by opinions and ideas," Vignon continued. "By sheer terror and despotism, and by no other means, can you extinguish the genius of the French nation; for the language lends itself admirably to allusion and ambiguity. Epigram breaks out the more for repressive legislation; it is like steam in an engine without a safety-valve.—The King, for example, does right; if a newspaper is against him, the Minister gets all the credit of the measure, and vice versa. A newspaper invents a scandalous ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... in Brittany, France had outposts which, if well defended, might long keep the English power away from her vitals. Unluckily for his side, Philip was harsh and raw, and threw these advantages away. In Flanders the repressive commercial policy of the Count, dictated from Paris, gave Edward the opportunity, in the end of 1337, of sending the Earl of Derby, with a strong fleet, to raise the blockade of Cadsand, and to open the Flemish markets by a brilliant ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... a candid and complete renunciation. It was not as though my divinity had a penny of her own, or I could earn an honest one. I had explained to Raffles that she was an orphan, who spent most of her time with an aristocratic aunt in the country, and the remainder under the repressive roof of a pompous politician in Palace Gardens. The aunt had, I believed, still a sneaking softness for me, but her illustrious brother had set his face against me from ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... though "Simple Susan," "Lazy Lawrence," and others have their admirers. In judging her work the student should keep in mind (1) that she wrote at a time when, unlike the present, the best authors thought it beneath their dignity to write for children, (2) that the too repressive and dogmatic attitude towards children which one now and then feels in her stories was due to a conscious effort to offset the undisciplined enthusiasms and sentimentalisms of her day, and (3) that she has been a living influence ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... thousand pounds for the same object. I propose to go inland, north of the territory which the Portuguese in Europe claim, and endeavour to commence that system on the East which has been so eminently successful on the West Coast; a system combining the repressive efforts of H.M. cruisers with lawful trade and Christian Missions—the moral and material results of which have been so gratifying. I hope to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river North of Cape Delgado, and, in addition to my other work, shall strive, by passing along the Northern ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... Earl of Strafford, was borne in London in 1593, and was executed there in 1641. He was privy councilor to Charles I, and was Lord Deputy of Ireland. On account of his repressive measures to uphold the absolute power of the king he was impeached by the Long Parliament and was executed for treason. The essence of his defence is in the sentence quoted by De Morgan, to which Pym replied that taken as a whole, the acts tended to show an intention ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... woman, thin and aristocratic-looking, with a repressive manner that inspired her domestic staff with awe and her acquaintances with a nervous anxiety to ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... which bade fair to make goods hard to get, customers would be wise to make their purchases before the supply became exhausted. Boyd's prediction was sound. The Boston Tea Party of the previous December had evoked from Parliament a handful of repressive measures, the Intolerable Acts, and at the time of Boyd's advertisement, the first Continental Congress in session was soon to declare that all imports from Great Britain should ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen

... them drive us into panic or narrow isolation. In many areas of the world where the balance of power already rests with our adversaries, the forces of freedom are sharply divided. It is one of the ironies of our time that the techniques of a harsh and repressive system should be able to instill discipline and ardor in its servants—while the blessings of liberty have too often stood for privilege, materialism ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... we had better drop the subject, as Mr. Blake will be here directly,' retorted Audrey, in her most repressive tones. 'Father, do you know you have forgotten to wind up the drawing-room clock? I think it ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... had taken place in October 1865. The severity of the repressive measures excited indignation in England; and discussions arose conducted with a bitterness not often paralleled. The Gordon case was the chief topic of controversy. Governor Eyre had arrested Gordon, whom he considered to be the mainspring of the insurrection, and sent ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... suggest itself to my reader—How could such a man be so unequally yoked with such another as Turnbull?—To this I reply that Marston's greatness had yet a certain repressive power upon the man who despised him, so that he never uttered his worst thoughts or revealed his worst basenesses in his presence. Marston never thought of him as my reader must soon think—flattered himself, indeed, that poor John was gradually improving, coming to see things more and more as he ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... and Galileo, that the efforts of Science to burst from the thraldom in which she was fettered became uncontrollable. In all countries the political power of the Church had greatly declined; her leading men perceived that the cloudy foundation on which she had stood was dissolving away. Repressive measures against her antagonists, in old times resorted to with effect, could be no longer advantageously employed. To her interests the burning of a philosopher here and there did more harm than good. In her great conflict with astronomy, a conflict in which Galileo stands as the central ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... nation would have solved half of its industrial problems. Our courts are free from the vexatious litigation that fosters criticism and they are trusted as never before in history. It has been a factor of no small importance that enabled our state to uphold the sovereignty of the law without repressive measures directed against freedom of ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris

... mistakes of his antagonists. However, he kept the ship steadily on her course. He had grown accustomed to the complaints of the agitators, and thought they would not go beyond agitation. When pressed to take some repressive measure, he answered that you must wait for the tortoise to put its head out before you hit it, and he appeared to think it would keep its head in. He is one of the most interesting figures of our ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... difficulty in selecting phrases repressive enough to be artistic, in which to tell her that he would ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... the Grand Duchess of Baden, Emperor William was shot at by a half-witted youth named Hoedel. Three weeks later Dr. Karl Nobiling fired at the Emperor from an upper window overlooking the Unter den Linden. These assaults were made to serve as the pretext for a series of brutally repressive measures against the German socialists, although the authorities were unable to connect either Hoedel or Nobiling with the anarchists or with the socialists. An excellent opportunity, however, had arrived to deal a crushing blow to socialism, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... mamma; but her voice was very sweet, her ways of speaking and moving very graceful, and she took us up in her lap and let us play with her beautiful hands which seemed wonderful things, made of pearl and ornamented with strange rings." It appears she was a faithful mother, though a little severe and repressive. Henry Ward Beecher said of her: "She did the office-work of a mother if ever a mother did"; she "performed to the uttermost her duties, according to her ability"; she "was a woman of profound veneration rather than of a warm loving nature. Therefore ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... four friends approaching, followed by a sergeant with a dozen men. He rubbed his eyes, doubting if he really saw before him Athos and Aramis; and forced at last to yield to evidence, he was on the point of breaking forth in exclamations when he encountered a glance from the eyes of Porthos, the repressive force of which he was ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to Galileo, as from the Church's early martyrs to its latest victims, runs the same story of conflict between the free human spirit and the repressive environment of custom acting through personal ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... Despite all efforts of repressive legislation, games of chance are in vogue all over the country. Gambling is practiced everywhere. Tourists to and from Europe engage in draw-poker and other games of chance, while they make pools and lay wagers on the distance sailed per day, or the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... education of the germs of traits; it does not provide such germs. In the absence of the germs the traits can not develop. On the other hand, it is possible with difficulty, if possible at all, by means of the strongest repressive measures merely, to prevent the development of undesirable hereditary traits. Society can treat the delinquent individual more reasonably, more effectively, and more humanely, if it knows the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... France had been thrown by the capture of its king increased rather than diminished. Among all classes men strove in the absence of a repressive power to gain advantages and privileges. Serious riots occurred in many parts, and the demagogues of Paris, headed by Stephen Marcel, and Robert le Coq, bishop of Leon, set at defiance the Dauphin and the ministers and lieutenant of the king. Massacre ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and wanted to have Parliament specially summoned in order to carry through repressive legislation. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... shopkeeper, or a merchant, he would have passed for an excellent man of business and a good, solid, sober, intelligent citizen. But he inherited with his crown a system of government too antiquated for the times, too repressive for the popular temper to endure, and was not statesman enough to remodel it to suit the requirements of his people. It was not his fault that he was not a great man; and a great man—a man of large grasp, wide ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott

... attention was entirely confined to its rugged shores. After that the trade fell into the hands of selfish and unprincipled monopolists, who wilfully misrepresented the nature of this island, and prevailed on the British Government to enact repressive laws, which effectually prevented colonisation. Then prejudice, privileges, and error perpetuated the evil state of things, so that the true character of the land was not known until the present century; its grand interior ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Repressive" :   repressing, inhibitory, restrictive, repress



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