"Duress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... potentates and chieftains of the realm, by which he should bind himself, under the most awful sanctions, to keep his word. Harold made no objection to this either. He considered himself as, in fact, in duress, and his actions as not free. He was in William's power, and was influenced in all he did by a desire to escape from Normandy, and once more recover his liberty. He accordingly decided, in his own mind, that whatever oaths ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... bet it is!" Matt Peasley struck in. "And I want you to lay off on Skinner, because what he did was done in fear and trembling, and under duress. We were both afraid you'd block the purchase; so we agreed to keep our plans secret from you, because—Well, somehow I did want that bully big boat the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Strong. He walked over and patted the cadet on the shoulder sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Tom," he said gently. "Your story is just too fantastic and you haven't even the slightest shred of evidence. Just a few words an unreliable witness said under duress." ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... comment a mere list of these:—maugre, 'sdeath, eke, erst, deft, romaunt, pleasaunce, certes, whilom, distraught, quotha, good lack, well-a-day, vermeil, perchance, hight, wight, lea, wist, list, sheen, anon, gliff, astrolt, what boots it? malfortunes, ween, God wot, I trow, emprise, duress, donjon, puissant, sooth, rock, bruit, ken, eld, o'ersprent, etc. Of course, such a word as "lady" is made to do good service, and "ye" asserts its well-known superiority to "you." All this the author evidently considers highly meritorious, although ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... poured out for thee there; the freedom of thy descendants and thy race forever,[2] free of tribute, free of rent, without constraint to encamp or take part in our expeditions, [LL.fo.81b.] without duress for [3]thy son, or for thy grandson, or for thy great-grandson, till the end of time and existence;[3] [4]this leaf-shaped golden brooch of mine shall be thine, wherein are ten-score ounces, and ten-score half ounces, and ten-score scruples, and ten-score quarters;[4] Finnabair, [5]my ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... bestowed his frequent smiles. The young men of the Clover Leaf Club pinned not their faith to the graces of person as much as they did to its prowess, its achievements in hand-to-hand conflicts, and its preservation from the legal duress that constantly menaced it. The member of the association who would bind a paper-box maiden to his conquering chariot scorned to employ Beau Brummel airs. They were not considered honourable methods of warfare. The swelling biceps, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... on similar grounds that the *death-penalty for murder* can be justified. The life of the very worst of men should be sacrificed only for the preservation of life; for if it be unsafe to leave them at liberty, they may be kept under restraint and duress, without being wholly cut off from the means of enjoyment and improvement. The primeval custom of the earlier nations required the nearest kinsman of the murdered man to kill the murderer with his own hand, and in ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... found many of these hours of duress far from unpleasant; for among the prisoners in the Tower was none other than the Princess Elizabeth, sister to the Queen (and her successor on the throne); and we are told, on what authority does not appear, that there ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... Executive will no longer be what the framers of the Constitution intended—an equal and independent branch of the Government. It is clearly the constitutional duty of the President to exercise his discretion and judgment upon all bills presented to him without constraint or duress from any other branch of the Government. To say that a majority of either or both of the Houses of Congress may insist upon the approval of a bill under the penalty of stopping all of the operations ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... by her fair-weather friends, bereft of her looks, poverty-stricken, and ravaged by an insidious illness, the situation of Lola Montez was, during that winter of 1860, one to excite pity among the most severe of judges. Under duress, even her new found trust in Providence began to falter. Was prayer, she wondered forlornly, to fail her like everything else? Suddenly, however, and when things were at their darkest, a helping hand was offered. One bitter evening, as she sat brooding in ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... these presents that I, Hugh Noland, being of sound mind and memory, not acting under duress, menace, fraud, or undue influence of any person whatsoever, do make, publish, and declare this my last will ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... temper and his stubbornness when crossed. She merely shrugged her white shoulders and watched him closely. The monarch had not scrupled once to break his covenant with Charles, holding that treaties made under duress, by force majeure, were legally void, while now— But the king was composed of contradictions, or—was ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... others went to prison, without the option of a fine. About forty of the rank and file who refused to pay their fines, or give surety for good behaviour, accompanied their leaders into duress. The country rang with the scandal of what had happened, and with angry debate as to how to stop the scandal in the future. The Daughters issued defiant broadsheets, and filled the Tocsin with brave words. And the Constitutionalists who had pinned their hopes on the Suffrage Bill before the House, ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "She should have left that to me—and she will be sorry ere it is all over. This man has thwarted me twice already. Coming over on the steamer from America the scoundrel disappeared from the ship most remarkably, just when I had all arranged to put him into duress in Liverpool. I have yet to learn the secret of it. He must be ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... been unavailingly attempted, the refractory combatants were taken into custody, after an obstinate resistance, and conducted to "duress vile," in the Watch-house. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Must fall, from having not your hosts for base. O thrice must one be you, to see them shift Along their desert flats, here dash, there drift; With faith, that of privations and spilt blood, Comes Reason armed to clear or bank the flood! And thrice must one be you, to wait release From duress in the swamp of their increase. At which oppressive scene, beyond arrest, A darkness not with stars of heaven dressed, Philosophers behold; desponding view. Your Many nourished, starved my brilliant few; Then flinging ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The contumacious jurors did not long remain in duress. The pertinacious Bushel, being a man of substance, took steps to legally rescue himself and fellows, and soon succeeded. The affair had an important after echo at the trial in New York, of John Peter Zenger, the Palatine Printer, in 1735, for libelling Governor William ...
— The Tryal of William Penn and William Mead • various
... moment's rest, they turned southward to where the lean brown road went paving a deep corridor, straight, silent, its black walls towering. Distance and gloom lent these a grim symmetry, suggestive of duress; above, a grey ribbon of sky issued a stony comfort, such as prisoners use.... With a shiver, Every turned away his head. To the north the ground fell sharply, and the cut of the road vouchsafed a glimpse of what it led to—woods, woods, woods, swelling, rising, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... drudgery, "gray angel of success;" Enduring purpose, waiting long and long, Headache or heartache, blent with sigh or song, Forever delving mid the strife and stress: Within the bleak confines of your duress Are laid the firm foundations, deep and strong, Whereon men build the right against the wrong,— The toil-wrought monuments that ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... whole thing in the head, by the strong arm; as he might have done, and would have been perfectly justified in doing. The Kannakas were now at his command, and, in truth, a majority of the electors were with him; but political jugglery held them in duress. A majority of the electors of the state of New York are, at this moment, opposed to universal suffrage, especially as it is exercised in the town and village governments, but moral cowardice holds them in subjection. Afraid ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... mind, After some little search the East Tennessee woman was found in camp, somewhat the worse for the experiences of the day before, but awaiting her fate content idly smoking a cob-pipe. She was brought to me, and put in duress under charge of the division surgeon until her companion could be secured. To the doctor she related that the year before she had "refugeed" from East Tennessee, and on arriving in Louisville assumed men's apparel and sought and obtained employment as a teamster in the quartermaster's ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... up thoughtfully. Tom's reply to his last question about Mirov having "friends around town" had convinced Ames that the young inventor was a prisoner, speaking under duress. Moreover, it had seemed as if someone else's breathing was faintly audible in the background, close to ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... greater part of his rule as duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold was at war with Louis XI of France, notwithstanding the treaty of Peronne, 1468, which the French monarch accepted under duress. Meanwhile it was the constant aim of Charles to enlarge his dukedom, and when, in 1475, he had made another peace with Louis, the Duke turned anew to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... was equally guilty with his old partner, Montgomery. But the latter had benefited more largely from the crime, and Gordon had been a party to it under duress. ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the Lady Blanchefleur from the duress which Sir Clamadius places upon her, I believe thou wouldst have as great credit in courts of chivalry as it is possible to have. For, since Sir Tristram is gone, Sir Clamadius is believed by many to be the best knight in the world, except Sir ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... the custom. The Dharna is sometimes carried to very violent lengths and may either be executed on the Prince or his minister indifferently, with the same effect; as the Chief always makes it a point of honour not to eat or drink while his Diwan is in duress; sometimes the Dharna lasts for many days, during which time the party upon whom it is exercised is not suffered to eat or drink or wash or pray, or in short is not permitted to move from the spot where he sits, which is frequently bare-headed in the sun, until the money or security be given; ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... across in direct line to where these are standing. At sight of Oswald, little Jack, speedily waiving payment, cuts across Broadway, down Exchange Alley, where he jostles reveries of that brass-buttoned official, and, through official duress, pilots him back to the street. Here Michael Patrick O'Brien hastily fits Jack's description of Oswald to that dazed old man, whom he pompously arrests and valiantly escorts toward "Old ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... dropped the yawning wood into its place, picked up his handkerchief and restored it to his pocket; and then, with some curiosity, began to examine the nature of that place of duress which had caused so much painful emotion to its rescued victim. "Man is a very irrational animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquizing, "and is frightened by strange buggaboos! 'T is but a piece of wood! how little it really injures! And, after all, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... under such circumstances, even if given, be any thing but a forced consent, a consent given under duress, and therefore invalid? Nothing can be inferred from one's silence, for he may have many reasons for being silent besides approval of the government. He may be silent because speech would avail nothing; because to ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... knelt before her to make the pretence of suing for the pardon which they extorted by force of arms and duress. When each in his turn had made the brief pleading oration he had prepared, she dried her eyes and ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini |
