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Tyrannize   Listen
verb
Tyrannize  v. i.  (past & past part. tyrannized; pres. part. tyrannizing)  To act the tyrant; to exercise arbitrary power; to rule with unjust and oppressive severity; to exercise power over others not permitted by law or required by justice, or with a severity not necessary to the ends of justice and government; as, a prince will often tyrannize over his subjects; masters sometimes tyrannize over their servants or apprentices.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tyrannize" Quotes from Famous Books



... they who live in the administration of the petty despotism of a slave community, whose minds have been warped and polluted by that contamination, should not lose that respect for their fellow creatures over whom they tyrannize, which is essential in the nature and moral being of man, to rescue them from the abuse of power over their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... no religious sect can tyrannize over another in this country, so long as they all respect the Federal Constitution. Until we see, then, the Catholics treating that instrument with disrespect, it is madness to entertain fears of them and worse than madness ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow

... the Harewood boys set him on. And what I thought of was sending Adrian here to be schooled at Mrs. Edgar's, boarded by you, mothered by Anna, and altogether saved from being made utterly detestable, as he will inevitably be if he remains to tyrannize over ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... youth, and I awoke and found it true. My silver bride they called her just now. The frost is upon my head, indeed; hers winter has not touched with its softest breath. Her footfall is the lightest, her laugh the merriest in the house. The boys are all in love with their mother; the girls tyrannize and worship her together. The cadet corps elects her an honorary member, for no stouter champion of the flag is in the land. Sometimes when she sings with the children I sit and listen, and with her voice there comes to me as an echo of the long past the words in her letter, ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... become so strong as that they love bloodshed and war. But these few, when they once get weapons into their hands, trample recklessly and mercilessly upon the rest. One ferocious human tiger, with a spear or a bayonet to brandish, will tyrannize as he pleases over a hundred quiet men, who are armed only with shepherds' crooks, and whose only desire is to live in peace with their wives ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott

... gentleman says, he is the last man in the world to tyrannize over a daughter's affections. So long as she marries the man of his choice, he don't ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... long." He was not a model boy, as those who have read his early history, in "The Young Outlaw," are aware; but, on the other hand, he was not extremely bad. He liked fun, even if it involved mischief; and he could not be called strictly truthful nor honest. But he would not wantonly injure or tyrannize over a smaller boy, and there was nothing mean or malicious about him. Still he was hardly the sort of boy a merchant would be likely to select as an office boy, and but for a lucky chance Sam would have been compelled to remain a bootblack or newsboy. One day he found, in an uptown street, ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger

... allies," so called, had no feeling for men smaller and weaker than themselves. From this gang, you could seldom get a civil answer. Their yells, and whooping, more like savages than white men, were very troublesome. The conduct of these, proved that it was natural for the strong to tyrannize over the weak. I have often thought that our assemblage of prisoners, resembled very much the Grecian and Roman democracies, which were far, very far, beneath the just, rational, and wisely guarded democracy of our dear America, for whose existence and honor we are all still ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... There must be many persons who had known her as a prisoner, and could identify her now. She had certainly been fortunate with the fear of discovery always haunting her. Carl could not understand how she could carry her head so high, and attempt to tyrannize ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger

... not know how ruthlessly women will tyrannize when they are let to domineer? and who does not know how useless advice is? I could give good counsel to my descendants, but I know they'll follow their own way, for all their grandfather's sermon. A man gets his own experience ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... the despotic monarch of above twenty thousand miles of sea-coast, and yet you suppose he cannot procure sailors for the invasion of Ireland." Ireland is still the burden of the song. Conciliate Ireland and all will be well. Tyrannize over her and we ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... the mind like a fixed purpose. I felt as if I had heaved a thousand weight from my heart; the atmosphere seemed lightened; and, if I execrated the institutions of society, which thus enable men to tyrannize over women, it was almost a disinterested sentiment. I disregarded present inconveniences, when my mind had done struggling with itself,—when reason and inclination had shaken hands and were at peace. I had no ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... while Cromwell ruled that Bunyan began this ministry. But in spite of all the battles that had been fought for religious freedom, there was as yet no real religious freedom in England. Each part, as it became powerful, tried to tyrannize over every other party, and no one was allowed to preach without a license. The Presbyterians were now in power; Bunyan was a Baptist, and some of the Presbyterians would gladly have silenced him. Yet during Cromwell's ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... for what? my miseryes Requyer no searche, they playnlye shewe themselves, And in theire greatnes crowne what made them greate. The power of Fortune, which by theym beinge crownd Doth tyrannize uppon me. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... believe it. He'll go shopping with them. He's wild over the boy, and he doesn't care a straw what people might think who saw the three together. He'll tyrannize over Ellen—and she'll let him, for the pleasure of being ruled by a ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond

... his secret sins— He trembles on the precipice of fate. Fall'n guilty tyrant! murder'd by thy rage, How many an innocent victim's blood has stain'd Fair freedom's altar! Sylla-like thy hand Mark'd down the virtues, that, thy foes removed, Perpetual Dictator thou might'st reign, And tyrannize o'er France, and call it freedom! Long time in timid guilt the traitor plann'd His fearful wiles—success embolden'd sin— And his stretch'd arm had grasp'd the diadem Ere now, but that the coward's heart recoil'd, Lest France awaked, should ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... king; then addressing Sir Oliver and the attendants, "Harm not the urchin; for he has taught my son a good lesson, if Heaven do but give him grace to profit by it. Hereafter, should he be tempted to tyrannize over the stubborn race of Englishmen, let him remember little Noll Cromwell, and his ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... carrier, who brought him home here. But though Bass's bark is so terrific, he is the best natured and most playful dog I ever saw; so much so indeed, that the small King Charles's spaniel, Raith, used to tyrannize over him for many months after he came here from abroad. I have seen the little creature run furiously at the great animal when gnawing a bone, who instantly turned himself submissively over on his back, with all his legs in the air, whilst Raith, seizing the bone, would make the most absurd ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... authors, rather than those authors themselves, who generally write only for the learned, and appeal solely to reason. In fact, the real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over. ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert, that this artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannize, and gives birth to cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them to play off those contemptible infantile airs that undermine esteem even whilst they excite desire. Do not foster these prejudices, and they will naturally ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... a set of men in whose countenances fierce passions of every name were so strongly marked as in the overseers and managers who were assembled at the station-houses. Trained up to use the whip and to tyrannize over the slaves, their grim and evil expression accorded with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... surpass, "beat." O.N. kuga, to compel to something, to tyrannize over. Dan kue, underkue, suppress, oppress, Norse kua, press down, also put into subjection. The more general meaning in the modern diall. is "to beat." "To cow a'," in Barrie, to beat everything; cow'd, ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom

... exercise an authority that is appalling. When you think of the blood that has been shed in the name of Jesus, when you think of the Holy Roman Empire, "neither holy nor Roman nor imperial," of the constitutional phrases that cloak all sorts of thievery, of the common law precedents that tyrannize over us, history begins to look almost like the struggle of man to emancipate himself from phrase-worship. The devil can quote Scripture, and law, and morality and reason and practicality. The devil can use the ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... a melancholy arising from reflection, "never tyrannize over a wife—never behave too haughtily or imperiously towards your own. A woman unwillingly convinced ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... legitimate Monarch of the kingdom of France would have ensured that security to all other legitimate Sovereigns, the want of which they themselves, or their children, will feel and mourn in vain, as long as unlimited usurpations tyrannize over my wretched country. It is to be hoped, however, that the good sense of the Count will point out to him, before it is too late, the impolicy of his present connections; and that he will use ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... hangers respectably. To this day, I can no more spell than old Ned Skene can. What was a worse sort of ignorance was that I had no idea of fair play. I thought that all servants would be afraid of me, and that all grown-up people would tyrannize over me. I was afraid of everybody; afraid that my cowardice would be found out; and as angry and cruel in my ill-tempers as cowards always are. Now you'll hardly believe this; but what saved me from going ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... in this voyage, some of which have been of no small value subsequently. But the best lesson was the optimism and contentment of one's fellows, who had apparently so few of the things that only tyrannize the lives of those who live for them. They were a simple, kindly, helpful people, living in a country barren and frigid beyond all others, with no trees except in one extreme corner of the island. The ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... asleep. Now we have played our game, but we have nearly been made the bigger fools ourselves, for he intended to tyrannize over us, so that we must either have spoiled our trick, or else have let ourselves be mauled by the rude yokel, from whose conduct one can learn how haughty and overbearing such people become when they suddenly rise from the mire to ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg

... lest Will and Almy wouldn't notice the child," she said, one afternoon, to Mrs. Stethaway, as they watched the three children crossing the opposite field. "Next I thought they would tyrannize over her, and that Will ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... terminates his discussion of the theory of government. Let us grant all that he claims for it, and see to what it conducts us. Observe that his grand position is, that a "numerical majority," like all other sovereign powers, will certainly tyrannize if it can. His remedy for this is, that a local majority, the majority of each State, shall have a veto upon the acts of the majority of the whole country. But he omits to tell us how that local majority is to be kept within bounds. According ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... and Steve Dagg air what he is! Sergeant Mathew Coffin air what somebody or other called somebody else in that thar old history book you used to make us learn! He air 'a petty tyrant.' He air that, and Thunder Run don't like that kind. He air not going to tyrannize much longer over Billy Maydew. And don't you be comparing me to Steve Dagg. I ain't like that, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... sits ugly Barbarisme, And brutish Ignorance, ycrept of late Out of dredd darknes of the deep abysme, Where being bredd, he light and heaven does hate: They in the mindes of men now tyrannize, 191 And the faire ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... burst into tears. "Oh, well, have your own way! I knew that you would tyrannize, you always do whenever you get the chance, and very foolish I have been to give you the opportunity. To speak in that way to your father's wife—and all because she had to take a little something for her nerves, and because of her neuralgia! ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... tranquil. It is the shallow stream only, which dashes, and sparkles, and deafens us by its noise. If you ever know the power of genuine love, you will find it as calm as it is intense. It will be in harmony with your other pure sentiments. Never will it subjugate, and tyrannize over, and do violence to, your ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... from the Senate, but was in Rome when Antony attacked him. We learn from a letter to Cornificius that Antony left the city shortly afterward, and went down to Brundisium to look after the legions which had come across from Macedonia, with which Cicero asserts that he intends to tyrannize over them all in Rome.[204] He then tells his correspondent that young Octavius has just been discovered in an attempt to have Antony murdered, but that Antony, having found the murderer in his house, had not dared to complain. He seems to think that Octavius had been right! ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... enormous. The Valerians seem to have a genuine love for their Army—largely, I fancy, because the Army is not permitted to tyrannize over the citizen. Because a man wore the King's uniform gave him no privilege to insult or to maltreat those who did not; and conferred no immunity from proper and adequate punishment if he did. The Dalberg principle is similar to the American; that the Army is the guardian of the civilian, ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... I suffered not any man to take from any of the nations so much as a pina (pineapple) or a potato root without giving them contentment, nor any man so much as to offer to touch any of their wives or daughters; which course, so contrary to the Spaniards, who tyrannize over them in all things, drew them to admire her Majesty, whose commandment I told them it was, and also wonderfully to honour our nation. But I confess it was a very impatient work to keep the meaner sort from spoil and stealing when we came to their houses; which because in all I ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh

... the clergy to the state in which they previously were; of having afterwards proposed war, merely to hasten the approach of his deliverers; of having been in correspondence with men who wrote to him— "War will compel all the powers to combine against the seditious and abandoned men who tyrannize over France, in order that their punishment may speedily serve as an example to all who shall be induced to trouble the peace of empires. You may rely on a hundred and fifty thousand men, Prussians, Austrians, and Imperialists, and on an army of twenty thousand emigrants;" ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... age; and they ordained that, in levying that tax, the opulent should relieve the poor by an equitable compensation. This imposition produced a mutiny, which was singular in its circumstances. All history abounds with examples where the great tyrannize over the meaner sort; but here the lowest populace rose against their rulers, committed the most cruel ravages upon them, and took vengeance for all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... placed herself in the most comfortable arm-chair the room afforded, and having secured her victim, began instantly to tyrannize over her. ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade

... Bertram, "now you view this matter in a rational light. I do not say that the wisest, the richest, or the strongest man in this world has any right to tyrannize over his neighbour, because he is the more weak, ignorant, and the poorer; but yet if he does enter into such a controversy, he must submit to the course of nature, and that will always give the advantage in the tide of battle ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... to tyrannize over his superior officer in this fashion, but stern necessity compelled him to become the real captain. The intention of the mate when he first followed his friend was to dig up the pearls and give him his share, ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... India, Canada, of Egypt and of South Africa to point to. No person unless steeped to the eye-brows in pro-Germanism can, in the face of that record, assert that Great Britain ever used her military power to oppress the weak, or tyrannize over the people she, of necessity, had to conquer. Why then should Britain be asked to disarm and turn over the business of maintaining the world's peace to the Hun and the Turk? To preach anti-militarism to a British people is to insult their intelligence. Britain alone of all nations ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... how old people that think themselves wise may be imposed upon! But it is fit that they should take their turn, for I am sure, while they can keep poor girls close in the nursery, they tyrannize over us in a very shameful manner, and fill our imaginations with tales of terrour, only to make us live in quiet subjection, and fancy that we can never be safe but by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... his account of himself was so fresh and even humorous, that Scott let him off the penalty, and made him his shepherd. He discharged these duties so faithfully that he came to be his master's forester and factotum, and indeed one of his best friends, though a little disposed to tyrannize over Scott in his own fashion. A visitor describes him as unpacking a box of new importations for his master "as if he had been sorting some toys for a restless child." But after Sir Walter had lost the bodily strength requisite for riding, and was ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton

... prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the mysteries of a profound soul, associated with destiny; the stream, the plain, the forest, the hill, summoned, and in a manner, forced to obey, the despot going even so far as to tyrannize over the field of battle; faith in a star mingled with strategic science, elevating but perturbing it. Wellington was the Bareme of war; Napoleon was its Michael Angelo; and on this occasion, genius was vanquished by calculation. On both sides some one was awaited. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... self, and of all things for self. It makes men self-worshippers, and if fortune permits them, causes them to tyrannize over others; it is never quiet when out of itself, and only rests upon other subjects as a bee upon flowers, to extract from them its proper food. Nothing is so headstrong as its desires, nothing so well concealed as its designs, ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... ameliorating the condition of the people, and in repressing the turbulence of the lower classes of the great towns; and of the robber chieftains who, like John of Gischala, took advantage of the relaxation of authority, caused by the successful rising against the Romans, to plunder and tyrannize over ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty

... because he wholly despised philosophy, and out of a kind of pride, scoffed at the Greek studies and literature; as, for example, he would say, that Socrates was a prating seditious fellow, who did his best to tyrannize over his country, to undermine the ancient customs, and to entice and withdraw the citizens to opinions contrary to the laws. Ridiculing the school of Isocrates, he would add, that his scholars grew old men before they had done learning with him, as ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... is making rapid advances to an absolute concentration of the supreme power, and the convention, while they are the instruments of oppressing the whole country, are themselves become insignificant, and, perhaps, less secure than those over whom they tyrannize. They cease to debate, or even to speak; but if a member of the Committee ascends the tribune, they overwhelm him with applauses before they know what he has to say, and then pass all the decrees presented to them more implicitly than the most obsequious Parliament ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... aspect, Phoebus smiles upon The tender buds and blooms that hang thereon; At this tree's root Astrea sits and sings, And waters it, whence upright Justice springs, Which yearly shoots forth laws and liberties That no man's will or wit may tyrannize. Those birds of prey that sometime have oppressed And stained the country with their filthy nest, Justice abhors, and one day hopes to find A way, to make all promise-breakers grind. On this tree's top hangs ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... to retain the sovereignty of Guienne, and the Duke of Vendome to secure the sovereignty of Brittany." One wanted to be constable, another admiral, a third to be governor of a province, in order to tyrannize and enrich themselves like Roman proconsuls. Every outrage was shamelessly perpetrated by them with impunity, because they were too powerful to be punished. They assassinated their enemies, filled the cities with their armed retainers, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... ill-disposed husband becomes jealous or discontented with his wife, he has too many opportunities of treating her cruelly; he may tyrannize over her without control; no one can go to her assistance, for no one is authorized to enter his harem without permission. Jealousy or hatred rises so high in the breast of a Moor, that death is often the consequence to the wretched female, who has ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... They were not the friends of the Emperor who recommended a system calculated to rouse the indignation of Europe, and which could not fail to create reaction. To tyrannize over the human species, and to exact uniform admiration and submission, is to require an impossibility. It would seem that fate, which had still some splendid triumphs in store for Bonaparte, intended to prepare beforehand the causes which were to deprive him of all his triumphs at ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... over; for the fairer, feebler sex Has determined every College in succession to annex; And before another decade has elapsed, our eyes shall see College Tutors wearing thimbles o'er convivial cups of tea. For 'golden-haired girl-graduates,' with 'Dowagers for Dons,' Shall tyrannize in Trinity, and domineer in 'John's.' Then, instead of May Term races in the science grand of rowing, There'll be constant competition in the subtle art of sewing. Soon the modern undergraduate, with a feather in her hat, Shall parade the streets of Cambridge, followed by her faithful ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling

... civilized society. I told him it was partly his own fault that such a state of things existed. I said, 'It is owing to the ignorance and degradation of you poor whites that a barbarous system is allowed to flourish and tyrannize over ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... faithful, he had to dispense with the complicated Flemish system of combined melodies in counterpoint, and to employ his scientific resources of fugue and canon with parsimony, so that in future they should subserve and not tyrannize over expression. He determined to write for six voices, two of which should be bass, in order that the fundamental themes should be sustained with dignity and continuity. But what he had principally in view, what in fact he had been called on to initiate, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... a very happy summer. We had never lived in the country before, and we liked the change. It was endless fun to explore the mill; to squeeze into forbidden places, and be pulled out by the angry miller; to tyrannize over the mill hands, and be worshipped by them in return; to go boating on the river, and discover unvisited nooks, and search the woods and fields for kitchen herbs, and get lost, and be found, a hundred ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... of tyranny could scarcely be excited in the individual; the power to tyrannize would certainly not be delegated by a society neither frenzied by inebriation nor rendered impotent and irrational by disease. Pregnant, indeed, with inexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of instinct, as it concerns ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... My hostile feeling grew. My critical feeling grew. My longing to tyrannize increased, till I was almost afraid of it, so cruel did I feel it to be. 'Down! Down under my feet!' That was what my soul was secretly saying now to the man whose will had been as law to me. And one night, as if he heard that ugly voice of my soul, he abruptly ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... protestations, setting forth that subject nationalities were intended by the Creator to be subject nationalities. A large pamphlet, The Hungarian Nation, was issued at Buda-Pest in February 1920. It displayed a very touching solicitude for the Croats, whom the Serbs would be sure to tyrannize most horribly. If only Croatia would remain in the Hungarian State, says Mr. A. Kovacs, Ministerial Councillor in the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, then the Magyars would instantly bestow on her both Bosnia (which belonged to the Empire as ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... passion, which began in prosperity, was soon darkened. Whether he took offence at the haughtiness of Isabel's lover, or whether he desired to retain about him an object which he could torment and tyrannize over, no sooner did the General discover the attachment of his young relation than he peremptorily forbade its indulgence, and assumed so insolent and overbearing an air towards the lover that the latter felt he could no longer repeat his visits to or even continue ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Slope had at first endeavoured to tyrannize over her father, but how he had latterly come round and done all he could to talk the bishop over in Mr. Harding's favour. "But my father," she said, "is hardly inclined to trust him; they all say he is so arrogant to the old clergymen ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... or pleasure. It can not be said that he is simply responsible to society—to mere conventions of human opinions and human governments—for then "right" becomes a mere creature of human legislation, and "justice" is nothing but the arbitrary will of the strong who tyrannize over the weak. Might constitutes right. Against such hypotheses the human mind, however, instinctively revolts. Mankind feel, universally, that there is an authority beyond all human governments, and a higher law above all human laws, from whence all their powers are derived. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... great scales hung for weighing the silk; and here weavers and winders gave in or took out their work from the "scale-foreman," whose name was Bashley—one of those bad men who, with a bullying pretence of candour and honesty, contrive to impose even on the victims over whom they tyrannize, and at the same time, as it were, wrest from their superiors the acknowledgment that they are ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer

... mean that sort of right; that goes for nothing. What right in the nature of things can you have to tyrannize ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... disfavour by the small states, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, which were so situated that they never could expand in any direction. They looked forward with dread to a future in which New York and Virginia might wax powerful enough to tyrannize over their smaller neighbours. But of these protesting states it was only Maryland that fairly rose to the occasion, and suggested an idea which seemed startling at first, but from which mighty and unforeseen consequences were soon to follow.[5] It was ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... her influence over the boy strengthened so rapidly that before she had been a month in the house he yielded implicit obedience to her wishes, and could not bear for her to leave him, even for a moment. When more than usually fretful, and inclined to tyrannize over Hattie, or speak disrespectfully to his mother, a warning glance or word from Edna, or the soft touch of her hand, would suffice to restrain the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... fictitious semblance which you have termed Politeness: politeness, which consists in a certain ceremonious jargon, more ridiculous to the ear of reason than the voice of a puppet. You have invented sounds, which you worship, though they tyrannize over your peace; and are surrounded with empty forms, which take from the honest emotions of joy, and add to the poignancy of misfortune." "Sir!" said Harley—his friend winked to him, to remind him of the caution he had received. ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie

... country were making the same progress, and these form the great mass of the deputies of that order. But they are found to be where they were centuries ago, as to their disposition to keep distinct from the people, and even to tyrannize over them. They agree, indeed, to abandon their pecuniary privileges. The clergy seem at present much divided. Five-sixths of that representation consists of the lower clergy, who, being the sons of the peasantry, are very well with the Tiers-Etat. But the Bishops are intriguing, and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Seth had grown bitter and even reckless of late. Ever since his quarrel with Ruth about Jim Tumley Seth had been boiling with temper. Old poisons that had spoiled his life in many ways and that he thought he had conquered crept back to tyrannize over him. Poor Seth had had so much discipline in his youth that the least hint of pressure threw him into a state of vicious rebellion. Seth had a fine mind, could think quicker and straighter to the point than a ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... Ireland the speaker was, to be too hypothetical. To many Englishmen the case seemed to be one of two hostile factions contending in Ireland for the last sixty years, and that the gift of self-government might enable one of them to tyrannize over the other. True, that party was the majority, and, according to the principles of democratic government, therefore entitled to prevail. But it is one thing to admit a principle and another to ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... the heart of serfs. Tyrants tyrannize only over people of a certain cast of mind. Tyrants are men who have stolen power—convicts who have wrested guns from their guards. Watch them, and in a little while they will again shift places. Henry George was a very great man: great in his economic, prophetic insight; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard

... with which he is endowed, to him the great universe always opens her treasure house. The supply is always equal to the demand,—equal to the demand when the demand is rightly, wisely made. When one comes into the realization of these higher laws, then the fear of want ceases to tyrannize ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

... hurt—they can't believe what they once believed. What is the justice of driving them out—or leaving them starved—forever? They were born in the Church; baptized in the Church! They love the old ways, the old buildings, the old traditions. 'Comfort our consciences!' they say; 'we will never tyrannize over yours. Give us the teaching and the expression we want; you will always have what you want! Make room for us—beside you. If your own faith is strong it will only be the stronger because you let ours speak and live—because you give us our bare rights, as free ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... better," he agreed. "But you would have to be careful after you were married or he might fancy you were using your money to tyrannize over him. I've noticed that the poor husbands of rich women are ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... hitherto despised young women. It almost enraged him to remember that this stately beauty had ever been an impudent little schoolgirl, with a turned-up nose and a red pigtail. In days gone by, Miss Sarah had actually fought and scratched the spoilt boy, who tried to tyrannize over his playmate as he tyrannized over his mother and his aunts. On the other hand, the recollection of those early days also became precious to Peter ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... what he could do, Sankey," Tom Room, a quiet, sensible boy, replied. "If we were in a desert island it would be all well enough, he could not tyrannize over us then: but here it is different. He would just put on his hat and go into the town, and in ten minutes he would be back again with the six constables, and if that wasn't enough he could get plenty of other ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... to his Empire tyrannous: A mightie Hunter thence he shall be styl'd Before the Lord, as in despite of Heav'n, Or from Heav'n claming second Sovrantie; And from Rebellion shall derive his name, Though of Rebellion others he accuse. Hee with a crew, whom like Ambition joyns With him or under him to tyrannize, Marching from Eden towards the West, shall finde 40 The Plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge Boiles out from under ground, the mouth of Hell; Of Brick, and of that stuff they cast to build A Citie & Towre, whose top may reach to Heav'n; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... of stone. They stand on the mud of pavements, these degraded sea-dogs, with long lines of railway-trucks clanking their couplings behind their backs, and run malevolent glances over your ship from headgear to taffrail, only wishing to tyrannize over the poor creature under the hypocritical cloak of benevolence and care. Here and there cargo cranes looking like instruments of torture for ships swing cruel hooks at the end of long chains. Gangs of dock- labourers swarm ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... approbation of the Assembly. At the head of the Ministry were the brothers Andrada—men who in earlier days had rendered great services to Dom Pedro, but who had grown somewhat arbitrary, overbearing, and impatient, and now presumed on their past services in establishing the Empire to tyrannize over both the Emperor and the Assembly. In the end the members of the Assembly forced the brothers to resign, at which the people rose and drew Jose Bonifacio in triumph through the streets of Rio to his ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... the contrary, long before she met him, she spoke with ardent enthusiasm, though she knew that he would gladly have made Egypt a Roman province. The greatest deed which she expected from the energetic Julius was that he would abolish the republic, which she hated, and soar upward to tyrannize over the arrogant rulers of the world—only she would fain have seen Antony in his place. How often in those days she used magic art to assure herself of his future! Her father was interested in these things, especially as, through them, and the power of the mighty Isis, he expected ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to expect miracles, and neglect the use of the human means with which Providence has blessed them. I repeat it—Our avowed object is the re-establishment of peace on fair and honourable terms of security to our religion and our liberty. We disclaim any desire to tyrannize over ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... to thy mighty powre Perforce subdude my poor captived hart, And raging now therein with restlesse stowre*, Doest tyrannize in everie weaker part, Faine would I seeke to ease my bitter smart 5 By any service I might do to thee, Or ought that else might to thee ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... testimony of seamen is not to be received in favor of one another, or too great a deduction is made on account of their being seamen, their case is without remedy; and the captain, knowing this, will be strengthened in that disposition to tyrannize which the possession of absolute power, without the restraints of friends and public opinion, is too ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... dissertation by Mller [1] we learn, on the authority of Cluverius and Dannhaverus (Acad. Homilet. p. ii.), that a certain Albertus Pericofcius in Muscovy was wont to tyrannize over and harass his subjects in the most unscrupulous manner. One night when he was absent from home, his whole herd of cattle, acquired by extortion, perished. On his return he was informed of his loss, ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... make? Isn't it a fair fight? Don't you want anybody to sit down or stand up till you tell them to? Is it your view you shall tyrannize, browbeat, batter, and then that everybody you love, or pretend to love, shall bow down before you as though you were eternal law? I'm glad I didn't. I'm making my own life. You gave me a chance in your business, and I tried it, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... God will cut off the name of Stuart, because they have stated themselves against religion, reformation, and the thriving of Christ's kingdom and kingly government in these lands; and although men idolize them so much now, yet ere long there shall none of them be to tyrannize ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... Alene thought a very unfeeling manner; but she learned later that Laura's seeming harshness toward Ivy was only a cloak to hide her sympathy, and that it gave her an influence over the child who would otherwise use her infirmity to tyrannize ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne

... that manly boys generally do like children, and I haven't much respect for those who will tease or tyrannize over them. ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr

... he accused of treating woman much too well. He declared woman, by virtue of her birth, to be made as man's inferior and his slave, and would tolerate no other construction of the relation of the sexes. According to Napoleon, women tyrannize over us Americans, whereas we should tyrannize over them. It was plain, in his conception, that the main province of woman is ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize and force him to hope or fear beyond the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various

... imagine a war of giants until one has seen some men more robust than the others tyrannize over their fellows. The first Brahmins must either have experienced violent discords, or at least have ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... got them to do anything. The missionaries solicited their permission to do what they did, and this was the very way to make them show off their airs, for they are so disobliging; if they perceive any one in the least dependent upon them, they immediately begin to tyrannize. A more mean and selfish vice certainly does not exist in the world. I am trying a different plan with them. I make my presence with any of them a favor, and when they show any impudence, I threaten to leave them, and if they don't amend, I put my threat into execution. ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... Sydney Smith, remarked: "They, too, are Pharisees. They would do the Good Samaritan, but without the oil and twopence. How has it come to pass that the Jews without an official delegate commanded the support—the militant support—of the Supreme Council, which did not hesitate to tyrannize eastern Europe for ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... do myself, I can tell instantly which is the girl for you, and thus we solve both problems at one stroke. You need a wife who will take you in hand. You need one who will not put up with your tantrums, who will be cheerful, and who will make a man of you. Kitty Bartlett is the girl. She will tyrannize over you, just as her mother does over the old man. She will keep house to the queen's taste, and delight in getting you good things to eat. Why, everything is as plain as a pikestaff. That shows the benefit of talking over ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... hoary tale that England is keeping one hundred fifty thousand troops in Ireland to tyrannize over the poor Irish, while the States soldiers are sent to France ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat

... and roads swarm with beggars. Under lay governments the poor either receive succour in their own homes, or are admitted to houses of public charity; they are not allowed to obstruct the public thoroughfares, and tyrannize over the passengers. But we are in an ecclesiastical country. On the one hand, poverty is dear to God; on the other, alms-giving is a deed of piety. If the Pope could make one half of his subjects hold out their hands, and the other half put a halfpenny into each extended palm, he would effect ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... usually present when the husband dominates the wife. He is almost invariably bony and she is either Alimentive or Cerebral. And other women say, "I'd like to show such a husband what I would do if he tried to tyrannize over ME as he does over her!" But such a woman often prefers a husband who relieves her of the responsibility of decisions, and two such people sometimes lead surprisingly ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... disgrace, not only to the administration of the country, but to the character of the age to suffer a malignant fiend to have the control over the liberties of persons sentenced to be confined in a prison! How much have those magistrates and sheriffs to answer for who suffer these devils in human shape to tyrannize over and torture the victims consigned to their custody! How necessary is it for sheriffs (high sheriffs I mean), to visit their prisons in person, and see in what manner their prisoners are treated! I do not mean a formal visit, when the gaoler has notice of his coming, that he may be ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... The old bachelor whose property the heirs are waiting for, who fights to his last breath with his nurse for a spoonful of drink, is blest in comparison with a married man. I'm not speaking of all that will happen to annoy, bore, irritate, coerce, oppose, tyrannize, narcotize, paralyze, and idiotize a man in marriage, in that struggle of two beings always in one another's presence, bound forever, who have coupled each other under the strange impression that they ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... the arrest of progress, because the majority will surely tyrannize over the small ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... shout, sank to a whisper, ran up and down the gamut of conversational melody.... In his own study or drawing-room, what he loved was to capture the visitor in a low arm-chair's "sofa-lap of leather", and from a most unfair vantage of height to tyrannize, to walk round the victim, in front, behind, on this side, on that, weaving magic circles, now with gesticulating arms thrown high, now grovelling on the floor to find some reference in a folio, talking all the while, a redundant turmoil of thoughts, fancies, and reminiscences flowing ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... unprincipled ambition contended for the mastery. The young man was unscrupulous and vindictive and he obeyed no law save that of his own unbridled will. He was a type of a class of Russian aristocrats whose social position and wealth enable them to tyrannize ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith



Words linked to "Tyrannize" :   domineer, tyrant, push around, hector, bully, tyrannise, bullyrag, dictate



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