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Oppress   /əprˈɛs/   Listen
Oppress

verb
(past & past part. oppressed; pres. part. oppressing)
1.
Come down on or keep down by unjust use of one's authority.  Synonyms: crush, suppress.
2.
Cause to suffer.  Synonym: persecute.



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"Oppress" Quotes from Famous Books



... for Louis XVI., I will let him pass, but for Pichegru, Moreau, and Cadoudal,—that is altogether another thing. Pichegru surrendered his troops to the enemy, Moreau fought against France, and George Cadoudal was an assassin,—three kinds of ambitious men, who asked for nothing but to oppress us, and all three deserved their fate. That is what ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... during the four rainy months, fills the earth with water, so a king should replenish his treasury with money. As Surya the sun, in warming the earth eight months, does not scorch it, so a king, in drawing revenues from his people, ought not to oppress them. As Vayu, the wind, surrounds and fills everything, so the king by his officers and spies should become acquainted with the affairs and circumstances of his whole people. As Yama judges men ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... is worth remarking that whenever a race is greatly looked down on by another from the stand-point of mere color, as in America, or mere religion, as in Mahometan lands, it always contains proportionally a larger number of decent people than are to be found among those who immediately oppress it. An average Chinese is as a human being far superior to a hoodlum, and a man of color to the white man who cannot speak of him or to him except as a "naygur" or a "nigger." It is when a man realizes that he is superior in nothing else save race, color, religion, family, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... oppress the stranger; for ye know the heart of the stranger, seeing that ye were strangers in the land ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... uncle spoke of as a tool lay there only; and with a horrible feeling of dread beginning to oppress him, Tom turned back to the heap of blanket lying upon the floor, stooped over it, but feared to remove it—to lift it up ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... instrument, With old ancestral lumber blent— This is thy world! a world! alas! And dost thou ask why heaves thy heart, With tighten'd pressure in thy breast? Why the dull ache will not depart, By which thy life-pulse is oppress'd? Instead of nature's living sphere, Created for mankind of old, Brute skeletons surround thee here, And dead men's ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... me. I have had her come and sit upon my chest and oppress me greatly with her torments. Have I not been turned into a beast and ridden through thorns and briars at night and awoke ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... and I said I would send my servant for the carriage, which was at the Town Major's, if she would see anybody to get horses, and I was ready. She said she would offer to go with me, but she knew it would oppress me. ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey

... and realms (that whilom flower'd In honour, glory, and rule, above the rest) He overwhelm'd, and all their fame devour'd, Consumed, destroy'd, wasted, and never ceased, Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd: His face forhew'd with wounds; and by his side There hung his targe, with ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... sold; that there are no reciprocal advantages in the treaty; that the benefits are all on the side of Great Britain; and, what seems to have had more weight with them than all the rest, and to have been most pressed, that the treaty is made with the design to oppress the French, in open violation of our treaty with that nation, and contrary, too, to every principle of gratitude and sound policy? In time, when passion shall have yielded to sober reason, the current may possibly turn; but, in the meanwhile, this government, in relation ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. This mournful truth is every where confess'd, Slow rises worth, by poverty oppress'd. ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... Thomas lay their hands upon his purse;—and so he drinks whilst his tradesman goes to gaol and his family to ruin. Let us pity the misfortunes of genius, and conspire against the publishing tyrants who oppress men of letters." ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... oppress me never cease; Not for a moment dare I rest, Nigh to despair. I think with fond regard of those, Who in their posts at court remain, My friends of old. Fain would I be with them again, But fierce reproof return would cause. This ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... while they bloat it, blast, As from the first its lot was cast. 40 For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed By unexhausted power to bless, I gaze below on hell's fierce bed, And those its waves of flame oppress, Swarming in ghastly wretchedness; Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win If not love like God's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. 50 Priest, doctor, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... that while this mighty king Was hunting in the forest, that he heard The sound of female voices raised in cry Of supplication. Then he turned and said, Leaving the deer to fly unheeded: "Stop! Who art thou, full of tyranny and hate, That darest thus oppress the earth; while I, The tamer of all evil, live and rule?" Then, too, the fierce Ganeša,—he who blinds The eyes, and foils the wills of men,—he heard The cry, and thus within himself he thought: "This surely is the great ...
— Mârkandeya Purâna, Books VII., VIII. • Rev. B. Hale Wortham

... other is an unexpiable offence. The worst of these has the popular current in its favor, and uses its triumph with all the unprincipled fury of faction; while the other is waiting, with all the impatience of revenge, for the time when its turn may come to oppress and punish by the popular favor. But my choice is made. If I cannot hope to give satisfaction to my country, I am at least determined to have the approbation ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... side, but in every war there has always been the side that fought to protect its loved ones and its homes from the brutality of conquerors. There is hideous wrong in every war, but the wrong is in the hearts of those who would rob and oppress those weaker than themselves, not in the patriots and heroes who resist. But I didn't mean to deliver a lecture. I'd rather tell you about the brave boy who wielded ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... Robin in scorn. "You are the Bishop of Hereford, and does not the whole countryside speak of your oppression? Who does not know of your cruelty to the poor and ignorant—you who should use your great office to aid them, instead of oppress? Have you not been guilty of far greater robbery than this, even though less open? Of myself, and how you have pursued me, I say nothing; nor of your unjust enmity against my father. But on account of those you have despoiled and oppressed, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... a master of the art of clothing my thoughts in elegant and illuminating phrases, because stammering, stuttering, and all the other misfortunes that oppress the timid, are to ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked down from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with them and tries to grasp their significance. One is reminded of the solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life seems awful . . . full of ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... day passed without event. The loneliness did not oppress her. She busied herself with preparing delicacies for the sick man, which Beelzebub could take on the following day. Beelzebub had had smallpox, and ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... by nature, the temptation is strong, I allow; but no generous mind delights to oppress the weak, but rather ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... of New Ireland close their report by expressing their hope that Europeans, panting after the sweets of Liberty and Independence will flock thither. "Here," say they, "are no griping and racking Landlords to oppress you; no avaricious Priests to extort from you the Tenth of all your increase and labors and whom you must pay for the liberty to come into the world, of being married, of having children and likewise of leaving the world. * * * Send here the frugal and industrious; no half Gentlemen ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... passionately on the palm of his left hand. But his humor had grown savage, and with his eyes glowing like hot coals in his blackened visage he went on, his tone rising to a hoarse, hysteric yell: "Thou shalt oppress the poor, and forbid to teach the gospel in the schools, lest they learn to cry unto their God, and He hear them, and they turn ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... of the people still more, they were debarred from participating in the political affairs of their own States. Non-residents, and aliens in sympathy and common interest, were appointed to rule over them, if not to oppress them. Is it to be wondered at if some refused to bow and kiss the hands that were uplifted against them? Among such was Father Ryan. All honor to the man and those who stood by him! Instead of attempting to cast obloquy upon their ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... teaches us that if we transgress certain natural laws we shall be punished. But it teaches no certain judgement either in this life or in any future life which will overtake the transgression of moral laws. A man may defraud, oppress, and seduce, and yet live a prosperous life, and die a ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... sentimental frippery, not ending in a maudlin reconciliation of love and glory—but the whole truth, naked, cold and fatal as a patriot's blade; a poet who dares show these bedizened courtiers they are no freer than the peasants they oppress, and tell the peasants they are entitled to the same privileges as their masters!" He paused and drew back with a supercilious smile. "But doubtless, sir," said he, "I offend you in thus arraigning ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... not oppress you, my dearest friend, with further reflections of this sort. I will take them all into myself. Surely I have a mind that has room for them. My afflictions are too sharp to last long. The crisis is at hand. Happier times you bid me hope ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... danger?" I asked. "Why, progress is in deeds of love, in fulfilling the moral law; if you don't enslave anyone, if you don't oppress anyone, what further ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... their Strength in this celestial Bow; Sir Richard may be said indeed to have shot farthest, but too often beside the Mark; He will permit me the Liberty of owning my Opinion, that he is too minute, and particular, and rather labours to oppress us with every Image he cou'd raise, than to refresh and enliven us, with the noblest, and most differing. He is also too unmindful of the Dignity of his Subject, and diminishes it by mean, and contemptible Metaphors. Speaking of the Skies, he says ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill

... — with the design of presenting them to the men of Ireland, in the hope of thus securing their friendship; for they believed that they might thus succeed in surreptitiously fixing a grasp upon the Irish soil, and might be enabled to oppress the Irish people again . . . . The three captains, therefore, coming from the ports of Norway, landed in Ireland with their followers, as if for the purpose of demanding peace, and under the pretext of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... v 14.—"Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of the strangers that are in ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... very pleasant companion, I know," said Mowbray, smiling; "my own thoughts oppress me; but if I cannot be merry with you, I may at least forbear to wound ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... divides his store with the needy, and there are none suffered to be poor," said Atta-Kulla-Kulla, the famous chief. "The white men wrangle and quarrel together, even brother with brother; with us the inner tribal peace is ever unbroken. The white men slay and rob and oppress the poor, and with many cunning treaties take now our lands and now our lives; then they offer us their religion;—why does it seem so ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... savage life, where labor does not oppress, nor luxury enervate the human frame, and where harassing cares are unknown, we are led to expect that disease and suffering should be comparatively rare, and that the functions of nature should not reach the close of their gradual decay till an extreme old ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... close upon three miles away. How could he hope to reach it without being overtaken by the men who were so keenly pursuing him? Instinctively came to his memory the words he had so often heard in the village church—"The wicked oppress me—compass me about. They now compass me in my footsteps." And the cry of the Psalmist rose to ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... a Raven that was in great distress, being pursued by an Eagle, which would have swallowed him up in no time. "See," thought Avenant, "how the stronger oppress the weaker! What right has an Eagle to eat up a Raven?" So taking his bow and arrow, which he always carried, he shot the Eagle dead, and the Raven, delighted, perched in safety on an ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... for stealing of victuals, compelled peradventure by necessity of that intolerable cold, hunger, and thirst, to save himself from starving: but a [333]great man in office may securely rob whole provinces, undo thousands, pill and poll, oppress ad libitum, flea, grind, tyrannise, enrich himself by spoils of the commons, be uncontrollable in his actions, and after all, be recompensed with turgent titles, honoured for his good service, and no man dare find fault, or [334] ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... judgment; and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother. Oppress not the widow nor the fatherless, the stranger nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in his heart. Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor; execute the judgment of Truth and Peace in your gates; and love no false oath; for ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... Pindar, Empedocles, and Democritus. The centre of this splendid group was Pericles, of whom the truthful pen of Thucydides records that he never did anything unworthy of his high position, that he did not flatter the people or oppress his adversaries, and that with all his unlimited command of the public purse, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... eventually returning penniless. Farmers always had the right to evict their native tenants. (A voice: "But we could go elsewhere.") Because some old laws which had been repealed had now been re-enacted, let them not think that there was a desire to oppress. "They may have been unjust, as you say, but understand that this law is not the last thing said by Parliament. A final settlement must depend on the recommendations of the Commission, and such action will be taken as will be to the lasting interests of white and black. The Lands Commission ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... We cannot attack the Hindoo or Mohammedan religions. If, therefore, we took this ground, we should simply have a conspiracy of four or five dominant sects, each denouncing the others as false, but all agreeing to worry and oppress all outsiders. Such a position is impossible for us. The real objection to the bill was simply that it recognised the fact that many persons had abandoned their religion; and also recognises the fact that they had a ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... that Pitt is guilty in this merely of special pleading, that he is putting forward excuses for his hero. I think that in those days there was a good deal to oppress Peter Blood. There was the thought of Arabella Bishop—and that this thought loomed large in his mind we are not permitted to doubt. He was maddened by the tormenting lure of the unattainable. He desired Arabella, yet knew her beyond his reach irrevocably and for ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... is said that those of us who demand the gold standard, or paper money always equal to gold, are the representatives of capital, money-changers, bondholders, Shylocks, who want to grind and oppress the people. This kind of argument I hoped would never find its way into the Senate Chamber. It is the cry of the demagogue, without the slightest foundation. All these classes can take care of themselves. They are ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... be indeed so, and if my eyes are indeed full of tears, I am sorrowful only at the sadness which seems to oppress your majesty." ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... threw it hastily aside, exclaiming as she went towards an open window, "O! this interminable drought! It makes me feel so miserable and restless. Does it not oppress you, ma ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... carried over to every child they meet. As if the caterpillar were in better estate than the butterfly, each boy is seeing his best days. Yet there is not a child in the world but is pursued by cares. His desk-mate's marbles oppress him more than will forcemeat-balls and turtle-soup when he becomes an alderman; there are lessons to learn, terrible threats of telling the teacher to brave, and many a smart to suffer. Childhood is beautiful in truth, but not therefore blest,—that is, for the little bodiless cherubs of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... credit (a Jeweller or silversmith for instance), and the journeyman, who really does the fine work, is in the background, in our work the world gives all the credit to us, whom they consider as their journeymen, and therefore do they hate us, and cheat us, and oppress us, and would wring the blood of as out, to put another sixpence in their mechanic pouches! I contend that a bookseller has a relative honesty towards authors, not like his honesty to the rest of the world. Baldwin, who first engaged me ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... belongs to the realm of infinities—whether or no his personality involves any element which can survive bodily death. In this direction have always lain the gravest fears, the farthest reaching hopes, which could either oppress or stimulate mortal minds.... The method of modern science—that process which consists in an interrogation of Nature entirely dispassionate, patient, systematic ... has never yet been applied to the all-important ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... floating tides: While melting music steals upon the sky, And soften'd sounds along the waters die; 50 Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay. All but the Sylph—with careful thoughts oppress'd, The impending woe sat heavy on his breast. He summons straight his denizens of air; The lucid squadrons round the sails repair; Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, That seem'd but zephyrs to the train beneath. Some to the sun their insect-wings ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... advantage in the benefits of presents and protection, it procures to them from the French government. In short, it is chiefly to the conduct of this English themselves, we are beholden for this favorable aid of the savages. If the English at first, instead of seeking to exterminate or oppress them by dint of power, the sense of which drove them for refuge into our party, had behaved with more tenderness to them, and conciliated their affection by humoring them properly, and distributing a few presents, they might easily have made ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard

... dreams. In such spheres Chopin delighted. He once remarked to a friend, an artist who has since been frequently heard: "I am not suited for concert giving; the public intimidate me; their looks, only stimulated by curiosity, paralyze me; their strange faces oppress me; their breath stifles me: but you—you are destined for it, for when you do not gain your public, you have the force to assault, to overwhelm, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt

... the Beacon to read my book on the warm turf, the sight of an engine coming through the cutting is an emphasis of my selfish enjoyment. I say "There goes the Brighton train", but the image of Brighton, with its Anglo-Saxons and its Vision of Empire, does not oppress me; it is a far-off thing; its life ebbs and flows along that belt of iron to distances ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... own self-love; from thence their passions sharpen, they grow angry, quarrels are provoked, they hate each other, and end by reciprocal injury. It is thus, that for opinions, which no man can demonstrate, we see the Brahmin despised; the Mahommedan hated; the Pagan held in contempt; that they oppress and disdain each with the most rancorous animosity: the Christian burns the Jew at what is called an auto-de-fe, because he clings to the faith of his fathers: the Roman Catholic condemns the Protestant to the flames, and makes a conscience of massacring him in cold blood: this ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... little Foal of an oppressd race! I love the languid patience of thy face: And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread, And clap thy ragged coat, and pat thy head. But what thy dulled spirits hath dismay'd, 5 That never ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... path of necessary social reform. If the vast majority of women did not want votes it was undemocratic to force votes upon them. Also, if rich men had oppressed poor men all through the course of history, it was exceedingly probable that rich women would also oppress poor women. Both in What's Wrong With the World and in debating on the subject, Chesterton brushed aside as absurd and irrelevant the suggestion that women were inferior to men and what was called the physical force argument. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... may be governed. Lo! the way A Woman teaches who doth ne'er demean Her office high. Hark! how her people pray For blessings on the head that doth impart So wise a rule. For them no wrongs do smart, No cruelties oppress, no insults sting, Nor does a despot hand exaction wring; Though governed, Britain's subjects still are free. Gaze then—ye unwise rulers wondering— Victoria's children sing ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow

... Rome, when that she oppressed* was *ravished Of Tarquin? for her thought it was a shame To live, when she hadde lost her name. The seven maidens of Milesie also Have slain themselves for very dread and woe, Rather than folk of Gaul them should oppress. More than a thousand stories, as I guess, Could I now tell as touching this mattere. When Abradate was slain, his wife so dear Herselfe slew, and let her blood to glide In Abradate's woundes, deep and wide, And said, 'My body at the leaste way There shall no wight defoul, if that ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... of the). The Druses, a semi-Mohammedan sect of Syria, being attacked by Osman, take refuge in one of the Spor'ades, and place themselves under the protection of the Knights of Rhodes. These knights slay their sheiks and oppress the fugitives. In the sheik massacre, Dja'bal is saved by Maae'ni, and entertains the idea of revenging his people and leading them back to Syria. To this end he gives out that he is Hakeem, the incarnate god, returned to earth, and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... that sic as you and I, Wha drudge an' drive thro' wet and dry, Wi' never-ceasing toil; Think ye, are we less blest than they, Wha scarcely tent us in their way, As hardly worth their while? Alas! how aft in haughty mood, God's creatures they oppress! Or else, neglecting a' that's guid, They riot in excess! Baith careless and fearless Of either heaven or hell; Esteeming and deeming It's a' ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... December, 1823, declared that we should consider any attempt on the part of the allied monarchs "to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety," and any interposition by them to oppress the young republics or to control their destiny, "as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." This, in kernel, is the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... MYSIS. How! oppress'd with wretchedness. To-day supremely wretched, as to-day Was formerly appointed for your wedding. And then she fears ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... and these old story- tellers meant it to be something more than a fairy tale. They saw around them many wicked things. They saw men fighting for the mere love of fighting. They saw men following pleasure for the mere love of pleasure. They saw men who were strong oppress the weak and grind down the poor, and so they told the story of the Quest of the Holy Grail to try to make them a ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... sustenance to the younger scions of nobility; taxed directly in the shape of place and sinecure, indirectly in various ways, but in no way so heavily as by the monopoly of the East India Company, which has so long been permitted to oppress the nation, that these detrimentals (as they have named themselves) may be provided for. It is a well-known fact, that there is hardly a peer in the upper House, or many representatives of the people in the lower, who are not, or who anticipate to be, under some obligation to this ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... in fact. The second objection is that the people do not understand their own interest, and to this his answer is more remarkable. If the doctrine be true, he says, we are in 'deplorable' position: we have to choose between evils which will be designedly produced by those who have both the power to oppress and an interest in oppression; and the evils which will be accidentally produced by men who would act well if they recognised their own interests.[98] Now the first evil is in any case the worst, for it supposes ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen

... liberty, of law, of labor and religion, we may not easily imagine how universal the enumerated evils are in many portions of Europe. The existence of these evils is in some degree owing to institutions which favor a few, and oppress the masses; but it is also in a measure due to the fact that Europe is both old and multitudinous. America, though still young, is even now multitudinous. Hence, both here and there, crime is social and local. The truth of this statement is proportionate to the ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... it is absurd. I am convinced on this point. I am the man of the people: if the people really wish for liberty let them have it. I have acknowledged their sovereignty. It is just that I should lend an ear to their will, nay, even to their caprices I have never been disposed to oppress them for my pleasure. I conceived great designs; but fate 'has been against me; I am no longer a conqueror, nor can I be one. I know what is possible and what is not.—I have no further object than to raise up France and bestow on her a government suitable to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... and did not pretend to be, the Cardinal Richelieu. He had not his character, nor his ambition, nor his superior gifts. He did not even envy them. Had he been quite different in this regard, to repress and annul his king, to oppress the daughter of Louis XVI. and the widow of the Duke of Berry, to exile from France the new Gaston d'Orleans, and his numerous family, to bring down the heads of the court pygmies,—more dangerous, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... retained the old regal power over parliaments in its full extent. He was left at liberty to convoke, adjourn, prorogue, and dissolve them at his pleasure. He was enabled to influence elections, and oppress corporations. He possessed the right of choosing his own council; of nominating all the great officers of the state, and of the household, of the army, the navy, and the church. He reserved the absolute command ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... secret I would not; yet do I grieve that it should oppress you so heavily as evidently it does. It must, indeed, be one of awe to bear down ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... travel and gossip, by the way, comes amiss to us, from Cook's voyages round the earth to Count De Maistre's journey round his chamber. When the cark and care of daily life and homely duties, and the weary routine of sight and sound, oppress us, what a comfort and refreshing is it to open the charmed pages of the traveler! Our narrow, monotonous horizon breaks away all about us; five minutes suffice to take us quite out of the commonplace and familiar regions of our experience: we are in the Court of the Great Khan, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various

... pen to paper in a literary way in a long time. How I thirst to do so, — how I long to sing a thousand various songs that oppress me, unsung, — is inexpressible. Yet the mere work that brings me bread gives me no time. I know not, after all, if this is a sorrowful thing. Nobody likes my poems except two or three friends, — who are themselves poets, and can supply themselves!" And yet he writes, "It gives ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide. If ye find that the Bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed Sambhur can gore; Ye need not stop work to inform us: we knew it ten seasons before. Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother, For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother. "There is none like to me!" says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill; But the ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... Price has spoken of it; and Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, has spoken in the same manner; that is, merely as opinion without data. "The progress," says Smith, "of the enormous debts, which at present oppress, and will in the long run most probably ruin, all the great nations of Europe [he should have said governments] has been pretty uniform." But this general manner of speaking, though it might make some impression, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... energy—so to speak—of the cloud, were writhing in every fold, and their fantastic and fiery volumes have a peculiar horror—an awful life—shadowed out in their strange, swift, fearful outlines, which oppress the mind more than even the threatening of their gigantic gloom. The white lightning, not as it is drawn by less observant or less capable painters, in zigzag fortifications, but in its own dreadful irregularity of streaming fire, is brought ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... intrusted with extensive funds. He speculated in articles of the first necessity, and made himself very unpopular by buying up grain, honey, wines, and other produce, till there was a scarcity, when he sold it again at enormous profit. Strong in the royal favour, he did not hesitate to oppress the poor by continual acts of forestalling and monopoly. As there is no enemy so bitter as the estranged friend, so of all the tyrants and tramplers upon the poor, there is none so fierce and reckless ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... And, as to personal wrongs; it is well observed by Mr Locke[q], "the harm which the sovereign can do in his own person not being likely to happen often, nor to extend itself far; nor being able by his single strength to subvert the laws, nor oppress the body of the people, (should any prince have so much weakness and ill nature as to endeavour to do it)—the inconveniency therefore of some particular mischiefs, that may happen sometimes, when a heady prince comes to the throne, are well ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... right, purchased to them by the blood of Christ, by an act of parliament, 1712, the above act, 1690, is repealed, and patrons fully restored to all their former anti-christian powers over the heritage of the Lord; which yoke still continues to oppress the people of God. While again, this church, as if more careful to please the court, and court parasites, than Christ and his people, have not only peaceably fallen in with this change, daily practicing it in planting vacant congregations, but, as fond of this child of Rome, have further ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery

... misgivings to whisper treason in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he were already defeated. He loses his feeling of innocence; his mind is at variance with itself; the old divinity no longer presides there; but wild Desires and wild Repentance alternately oppress him. Ere long, too, he has committed himself before the world; his character for sobriety, dear to a Scottish peasant as few corrupted worldlings can even conceive, is destroyed in the eyes of men; and his only refuge consists in trying ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... are hurtful, again, because they keep alive in the heart of the black man the feeling that the white man means to oppress him. The only safe way out is to set a high standard as a test of citizenship, and require blacks and whites alike to come up to it. When this is done, both will have a higher respect for the election laws, and for those who make ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... see from this assize that a law sometimes effects the opposite of that which was intended, and unreasonable provisions oppress the patient instead of the physician. Amalrick I fell sick, and felt that he needed an aperient, but the Syrian physicians refused to prescribe such. He sent for the European physicians, and they also declined to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... Royal, determined to be economical, almost descends to parsimony; and perhaps depresses his subjects, by labouring not to oppress them; for his intentions always seem to be good—yet nothing can give a more forcible idea of the dulness which eats away all activity of mind, than the insipid routine of a court, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... thought I, with a little self-flattery, that I, accustomed to the agreeable society of intelligent men and charming women, and of books, should find such perfect contentment here! But I congratulated myself too soon. The profound silence began at length to oppress me. It was not like the forest, where one has wild birds for company, where their cries, albeit inarticulate, have a meaning and give a charm to solitude. Even the sight and whispered sounds of green leaves ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson

... however, could not give full vent to his agitation. The loathing sense of disgust which had begun to oppress him on his way to the old woman's house had now become so intense that he longed to find some way of escape from the torture. He reeled along the pavement like a tipsy man, taking no notice of those who passed, but bumping against them. On looking round he saw a dram shop near at hand; steps ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... oppress the boy. It frightened him. He felt an uncontrollable desire to look out into the room and establish the identity of the mysterious entrant. He glided his hand towards the window-frame in the hope that he might find a chink ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine

... things shall pass away, and all things become new, and I shall forget the very names of Parent, Englishman, Citizen,—the very existence of that strange Babel of man's building, whose roar and moan oppress me every time I walk the street. Oh, for solitude, meditation, penance! Oh, to make up by bitter self-punishment my ingratitude to her who has been leading me unseen, for years, home to her bosom!—The all-prevailing mother, daughter of Gabriel, spouse of ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... the first book, is wearied of dreams. Even in his solitude, the limits of life begin to oppress him. Time fleets, fate is tardy, life will be over before he lives. Then an accident ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... with a saddened and downcast look. A heaviness had fallen upon her with the first sight of old Mr. Harrington on the bank. True he had gone now, but his shadow seemed to oppress ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens

... she considered herself, and was, an advance in delicacy and civilisation upon the coarse and candid Elizabethan woman to whom we are now returning. We are never oppressed by old things; it is recent things that can really oppress. And in accordance with this principle modern England has accepted, as if it were a part of perennial morality, a tenth-rate job of Walpole's worst days called the Censorship of the Drama. Just as they have ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... whether it be one or the other, interrupted Miss Temple, with a logic that contained more feeling than reason; I know Natty to be innocent, and thinking so I must think all wrong who oppress him. ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... say to myself. Old sorrows and wrongs oppress me and I grow harsh. My heat only helps to convince you that my position is not based on the rational rightness you hold so essential and that therefore it is unlivable. I will state calmly, then, that it is wrong to marry without love. "For the perpetuation ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... that Austrian imperialism is responsible for the war with Serbia. But is it not equally criminal on the part of Serbs to refuse autonomy to Macedonia and to oppress smaller and weaker nations? ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... misery of his blindness recurred to Milton himself at that same instant. A cloud of grief descended upon his countenance. He experienced one of those poignant feelings of regret which, in our own day, occasionally oppress the heart of Augustin Thierry—for with the sensibility of a poet he knew that the hour was beautiful. Never had Cagliostro seen human face express such exquisite but patient suffering; it seemed to be listening to the loveliness of the earth; it seemed to be inhaling ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... Parliament and by maintaining a standing army. The country squires who had sold their plate for the royalist cause back in the 'forties and were now suffering from hard times, thought the court was too extravagant; to this feeling was added fear that Charles might hire foreign soldiers to oppress Englishmen. Consequently Parliament grew more parsimonious, and in 1665-1667 claimed a new and important privilege—that of devoting its grants to specific objects and ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... exhibiting, in the most imposing if less intelligible way, their superior knowledge, were probably the mixed causes which led such distinguished scholars as Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardan, and Campanella to oppress themselves and their readers with a mass of unintelligible rubbish and cabalistic mysticism.[112] Slow and gradual as are the successive advances in the knowledge and improvement of mankind, it would not ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... reason to praise old times. Here, for instance, though you are a landowner now, and just as much a landowner as your grandfather was, you have not the same power—and, indeed, you are not yourself the same kind of man. Even now, some noblemen oppress us; but, of course, it is impossible to help that altogether. Where there are mills grinding there will be flour. No; I don't see now what I have experienced ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... the best representative practicable of society itself; and if the constitution secures to minorities and dissenting individuals their natural rights and their equal rights as citizens, they have no just cause of complaint, for the majority in such case has no power to tyrannize over them or to oppress them. But the theory under examination denies that society has any rights except such as it derives from individuals who all have equal rights. According to it, society is itself conventional, and created by free, ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... Zee, there lived a wicked man named Nicholas Snyders. He was mean and hard and cruel, and loved but one thing in the world, and that was gold. And even that not for its own sake. He loved the power gold gave him—the power to tyrannize and to oppress, the power to cause suffering at his will. They said he had no soul, but there they were wrong. All men own—or, to speak more correctly, are owned by—a soul; and the soul of Nicholas Snyders was an evil soul. He lived in the old windmill which still is standing on ...
— The Soul of Nicholas Snyders - Or, The Miser Of Zandam • Jerome K. Jerome

... no! amid sorrow and pain, When the world and its facts oppress my brain, In the world of spirit I ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... who took the first steps. According to the young lady, the Spaniard was the living picture of Wagner in his youth. Smiling at the pleasant memory, Febrer contemplated the prominent brow which seemed to oppress his imperious, small, ironic eyes. His nose was sharp and aquiline, the nose common to all the Febrers, those daring birds of prey who haunted the solitudes of the sea. His mouth was scornful and receding, his lips and chin prominent and covered by the soft growth of the beard ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... of the counties, who had by reason of Henry's administrative reforms, risen to be officers of greater importance and wider jurisdiction, and who had taken advantage of their positions to oppress the people during the king's prolonged absence abroad, were also made to feel the power of the crown. A blow struck at the sheriffs was calculated to weaken the nobility and the larger landowners—the class from ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... considering her own littleness might appear to them despicable; but from them she had nothing to fear, as they were too well bred to attend any meeting to ridicule it. 'Tis true when they did grace a public entertainment they kept chiefly together, and never so far forgot their consequence as to oppress a humble flower, or stoop to notice a forward insignificant one even ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... dentist's), a cold furnace, the evening paper, and Doctor Prance. Olive and Verena were present at another of her gatherings before the winter ended; it resembled the occasion that we described at the beginning of this history, with the difference that Mrs. Farrinder was not there to oppress the company with her greatness, and that Verena made a speech without the co-operation of her father. This young lady had delivered herself with even finer effect than before, and Olive could see how much she ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... In the first part of the play, though no hint of the terrible revenge which he was to execute on her father has escaped, the looks and anxiety of Talma discover to her that her fate is in some degree connected with the emotions which so visibly oppress him, and she makes him at last confess the insurmountable barrier which separates them for ever. Nothing can be greater than the acting of Talma during this difficult scene, in which he has to resist the entreaties of the woman whom he loves, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... speech, declaring that it might disrupt the peace of Europe, but there were many others who thought that the sooner peace secured at such a cost was disturbed the better. It was but natural for those who wrongfully claimed the sovereign right to oppress their own subjects, to denounce all interference in the affairs ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... let such a man tell me whether a rich animal diet is more easily procured or incites less to irregular passions and appetites than a light vegetable diet! But if neither he, nor a physician, nor indeed any reasonable man whatsoever, dares to affirm this, why do we oppress ourselves with animal food, and why do we not, together with luxury and flesh meat, throw off the incumbrances and snares ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... which we call humanity, the genuine philanthropy, would have placed any nation that had practised it at a disadvantage. To eat or to be eaten—that was the alternative in the epoch of cannibalism; to oppress or to be oppressed, in ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... the few oppress the many, and in that case spoliation is none the less undermined, for, if it has force as an agent, as in war and slavery, it is natural that force in the end should be on the side of the greater number. And if deception is the agent, as with superstition and monopoly, it is natural that the ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... his beloved avenues! Thompson did not cleave to the North as a woodsman might. But the natural phenomena of unbroken silences, of vast soundlessness, of miles upon miles of somber forest aisles did not oppress him now. What a man understands he does not fear. The unknown, the potentially terrible which spurs the imagination to horrifying vision, is what bears heavy on ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... are opposed to such spirit and management of any corporation or enterprise as tends to oppress the people, and rob them of their just profits. We are not enemies to capital, but we oppose the tyranny of monopolies. We long to see the antagonism between capital and labor removed by common consent, and by an enlightened statesmanship worthy of ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... alwayis hes manifestlie bene done;) bot quhan we remember quhat aith we have maid to our commun-welth, and how the dewatie we aucht to the same compellis us to cry outt, that hir Grace, be wickit and ungodlie counsall, gais maist craftelie about utterlie to oppress the same, and ancient lawis and libertieis thairof, alsweill aganeis the King of Francis promeise, hir awin dewatie, in respect of the heich promotionis that sche resavit thairby, quhilk justlie sould have caussit hir to have bene indeid that quhilk ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... all the joy of winning Martha, and the sickening disappointment of losing his money, the shame and anguish of the mystery that hangs over his origin oppress him; and, having once experienced the horror of suspecting that Martha's father might also be his, he suffers hardly less torture when the highwayman, on the day of his conviction, sends to ask an interview with him. But ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... a test of the highest art—the poignant desire to explain, to reason, to comfort, to relieve; even if one cannot help, one longs at least to utter the yearning of the heart, the intense sympathy that one feels for the multitude of sorrows that oppress this laden spirit; to assuage if only for a moment, by an answering glance of love, the fire that burns in those stricken eyes. And one must bear away from the story not only the intellectual satisfaction, the emotional excitement, but a deep desire to help, as far as a man can, the woes of spirits ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... up and down. The loneliness of the place began to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my nerves. After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came to a positive conclusion at last. I determined to try if a ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... prolong a mystery that must already oppress the reader, Mr. Bilkins's cook had, after the manner of her kind, stolen out of the premises before the family were up, and got herself married—surreptitiously and artfully married, as if matrimony were an ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... hot, and the road was over a very heavy sandy country; but by eleven o'clock we had accomplished a distance of seventeen miles, and had reached the furthest point from which I turned back on the 1st December. I walked alternately with the boy, so as not to oppress the riding horses, but the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... Catholic; not in the high sense of the word,—for "the noble folk" could "oppress and spoil the prelates of the Church of Christ of their possessions and liberties" without particular scruple,[323]—but the country was covered with churches and monasteries in a proportion to the population far beyond what would have been found in any other ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... are wrongs to be redressed, so long as the strong oppress the weak, so long as injustice sits in high places, the voice of the orator will be needed to plead for the rights of man. He may not, at this stage of the republic, be called upon to sound a battle cry to arms, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... thou soft restorer, come, And close these wearied eyes, by grief oppress'd; For one short hour, be this thy peaceful home, And bid the sighs that rend ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent

... from his purposed vengeance On Athens, famed for arms; the fatal field Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood, Sufficed not: that defeat he thought to avenge, And pulled this hideous ruin on his head! Ah me! what sorrows for our ruined host Oppress my soul! Ye visions of the night, Haunting my dreams, how plainly did you show These ills! You set them ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... course of life you will not see any large part of the real fruits of your labors; for to build a university needs not years only, but generations; but though 'deeds unfinished will weigh on the doer,' and anxieties will sometimes oppress you, great privileges are nevertheless attached to your office. It is a precious privilege that in your ordinary work you will have to do only with men of refinement and honor; it is a glad and animating sight to see successive ranks of young men pressing year by ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner

... one. When a charming girl can't waltz, she ought to learn how to sit down charmingly, and not oppress innocent people. As for Miss Maliphant!" throwing out his large handsome hands expressively, "she certainly should not dance. Her complexion doesn't stand ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... me from your door. Not oppress me with this ridiculous burthensome care and attention, all out of the family pride you still keep up in the ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the longing of my heart was answered, was I satisfied? For a time I gazed, and drew a deep delight from the gratification of my vain and impious craving. But at length the still, cold presence of forms no longer of this earth began to oppress me. I grew cold and numb beneath their moveless aspect; and constant gazing upon eyes lighted up by no varying expression, pressed upon my tired senses with a more than nightmare weight. I felt a sort of dull stagnation through every limb, which held me bound where I sat, pulseless and moveless ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... render these mountains beautiful in summer; the purity and deep-blue color of the sky are singularly beautiful; the days are sunny and bright, and even warm in the noon hours; and if we could be free from the many anxieties that oppress us, even now we would be delighted here; but our provisions are getting fearfully scant. Sleighs arrived with baggage about ten o'clock; and leaving a portion of it here, we continued on for a mile and a half, and encamped at ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... and I have the utmost confidence in your management. Do by me as you would do for yourself, and I shall be satisfied.... In regard to any honorable propositions made in the Board be conciliatory and compromising, but any scheme to oppress the smaller stockholders for the benefit of the larger resist to the death. I prefer to sacrifice all my stock rather than have such a stigma on my character as such mean, and I will add villainous, conduct would be sure to bring ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... this is taught, that may be familiar to every careful reader of the Scriptures, the following may be selected for illustration:—"Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them. And their nobles (NOBLE ONE) shall be of themselves, and their GOVERNOR shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... and the German spirit are to march victorious through the world, not to oppress other peoples, but to aid them in their own development, an essential preliminary will be the spread of the German language. For only he who knows the German language, and can read the works of our spiritual heroes in the original, can really penetrate into the German spirit, and feel ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... well-meaning people are deceived by these appearances, strengthened with great pretences to loyalty: and these occasions the fanatics lay hold on, to revile the doctrine and discipline of the Church, and even insult and oppress the clergy wherever their numbers or favourers will bear them out; insomuch, that one wilful refractory fanatic hath been able to disturb a whole parish for many years together. But the most moderate and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... seemed to give it height and consistency; the sky, in short, looked really like a vault, as poets have sometimes called it, and not like mere limitless air, but a vault so vast and full of light that it did not in any way oppress the spirits. It was the sort of afternoon that Tennyson must have been thinking about, when he said of the Lotos- Eaters' land that it was a land where ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... unwise; all error of judgment at the worst. But they had no right to tyrannise over others, and tie them down to their own Procrustean bed. Abhorring what they considered oppression in the masters, why did they oppress others? Because, when men get excited, they know not what they do. Judge, then, with something of the mercy of the Holy One, whom we ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... parting! How they oppress the heart! How all the past and all the future seem crowded together into one moment, and one knows not how to set about anything rightly, and only a look or a touch must ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... the strong oppress me, and my sins be visited harshly on my own head, if I forget your honesty, however slow it has been in showing itself," cried Middleton, hastening to the side of the weeping Inez, the instant he was released; "and, friend, I pledge you the honour of a soldier, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... submission is their appointed lot in life,—these are the women and mothers of our wealthy classes, in whose hands, more than in those of any one else, lies the salvation of the men of our sphere in society from the miseries that oppress them. ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... the Hermit spied, With answering care oppress'd; And, "Whence, unhappy youth," he cried, "The sorrows ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... downwards. Manua, one of my men, who is a twin, said, in Nguru, one of the sister provinces to Unyanyembe, twins are ordered to be killed and thrown into water the moment they are born, lest droughts and famines or floods should oppress the land. Should any one attempt to conceal twins, the whole family would be murdered by the chief; but, though a great traveller, this is the only instance of such brutality Manua had ever witnessed in ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... with less terror, and disorder less, The Gascoigns kept array, and kept their ground, Though most the loss and peril them oppress, Unwares assailed they were, unready found. No ravening tooth or talon hard I guess Of beast or eager hawk, doth slay and wound So many sheep or fowls, weak, feeble, small, As his sharp sword ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... to have entered the King's service under another name, and, of course, there is every probability of his being alive and well at this moment. Now she is comparatively tranquil and composed; but consider what anxiety, what suspense, what doubts, must ever fill her mind, must oppress her waking hours, must haunt her in her dreams, after she is made acquainted with his possible existence. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; and her existence would be one of continued tumult, of constant anticipation, and I may say of misery. He may be dead, and then ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... 'Tis nothing, child.—But in the state You know what daily cares oppress all those Who govern this precarious commonwealth; Now suffering from the Genoese without, And malcontents within—'tis this which makes me More pensive and less tranquil ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... you, doubtless you would readily comprehend and sympathize with the peculiar difficulties that surround me; but unfortunately I am bound by a promise which prevents me from placing all the facts in your possession. Occasionally ministers involuntarily become the custodians of family secrets that oppress their hearts and burden them with unwelcome responsibility, and just now I am suffering from the consequences of a rash promise which compassion extorted from me years ago. While I heartily regret it, my conscience will not permit me to fail ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... formally before his judgment-seat, he declared to be an offence to the Kingly Majesty. Was a Prince, he exclaims, to submit himself to a creature whom God had made subject to him; to humble himself before a man who, in opposition to God and Right, wished to oppress him? It would be a reversal of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... reality tyrants. They rule by tyranny—the oppression of the weak by the strong, whether that strength be physical or mental,—a trait as common in animals as in man. Among the animals it takes the commonest form, and they not only oppress the weak, but actually kill and eat them, even though they oftentimes are members of the same family. They are exactly like human cannibals, ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon



Words linked to "Oppress" :   torment, reduce, repress, dun, suppress, quash, subjugate, frustrate, keep down, rag, crush, bedevil, purge, crucify, subdue



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