Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Tyrannical   Listen
adjective
Tyrannical, Tyrannic  adj.  Of or pertaining to a tyrant; suiting a tyrant; unjustly severe in government; absolute; imperious; despotic; cruel; arbitrary; as, a tyrannical prince; a tyrannical master; tyrannical government. "A power tyrannical." "Our sects a more tyrannic power assume." "The oppressor ruled tyrannic where he durst."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Tyrannical" Quotes from Famous Books



... the United States, and all have failed in the end, for all have ignored the one essential point of character, without which we shall continue to reproduce what we have at present; a thing as insolent, offensive and tyrannical as the old aristocracies at their worst, with none of the constructive and beneficent qualities of the old ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram

... him!" said Franklin. His son always continued to say this, but Franklin himself came to see that he who discrowns kings may be greater than kings, and that it became the duty of a people to discrown tyrannical kings, and to make a king ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... noble victim of the tyrannical Royal Commission was praised by all the writers of his time, and pitied by all Europe. Burleigh lived to be ashamed of his part in his death; and in his "Life" one can still read in the index "On the Case of Arden" an explanation which has ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes

... that they were afraid of me at home. Heaven knows why! for I should have thought that pompous, heartless, rigid, tyrannical wretch, my husband, was the one to be afraid of; and not a warm-hearted ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau

... panted the boy huskily, with a sensation akin to that which he had felt when hurt in his last school fight, when, reckless from pain, he had dashed at a tyrannical fellow-pupil who was planting blow after blow upon him ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... cattle, trade and other acts of a similar nature, should be caused to be carried on by many persons on the principle of division of labour.[255] If a person engaged in agriculture, cattle-rearing, or trade, becomes inspired with a sense of insecurity (in consequence of thieves and tyrannical officers), the king, as a consequence, incurs infamy. The king should always honour those subjects of his that are rich and should say unto them, 'Do ye, with me, advance the interest of the people.' In every kingdom, they that are wealthy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... for four years, she cherished the foolish hope of prolonging this impossible and aimless way of life in which her persistence would only be the ruin of the man she thought of as her child. This contest between her instincts and her reason made her unjust and tyrannical. She wreaked on the young man her vengeance for her own lot in being neither young, rich, nor handsome; then, after each fit of rage, recognizing herself wrong, she stooped to unlimited humility, infinite tenderness. She never could sacrifice to her idol till she had asserted her power by blows ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... in the use of the skillet was the one most highly appreciated about the fire, and as tyrannical as a Turk; but when he raised the lid of the oven and exposed the brown-crusted tops of the biscuit, animosity subsided. The frying-pan, full of "grease," then became the centre of attraction. As the hollow-cheeked boy "sopped" his biscuit, his ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... and many individual voters condemned it as an act of bad faith—as the abandonment of the accepted "finality," and as the provocation of a dangerous antislavery reaction. But public opinion in that part of the Union was fearfully tyrannical and intolerant; and opposition dared only to manifest itself to Democratic party organization—not to these Democratic party measures. The Whigs of the South were therefore driven precipitately to division. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... Judah, though by birth an Idumean, by descent an Edomite or one of the posterity of Esau, all of whom the Jews hated; and of all Edomites not one was more bitterly detested than was Herod the king. He was tyrannical and merciless, sparing neither foe nor friend who came under suspicion of being a possible hindrance to his ambitious designs. He had his wife and several of his sons, as well as others of his blood kindred, cruelly murdered; and he put to death nearly all of the great ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... has brought me a large number of letters,—last week I received sixty-one!—and besides replying to some of these letters, I have many lessons to learn, among them Arithmetic and Latin; and, you know, Caesar is Caesar still, imperious and tyrannical, and if a little girl would understand so great a man, and the wars and conquests of which he tells in his beautiful Latin language, she must study much and think much, and study ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... the sea, or as a stagnant lake in which idlers fish. Time, social circumstances, education and a thousand and one factors determine whether one shall be a "Village Hampden," quarreling in a petty way with a petty autocrat over some petty thing, or a national Hampden, whose defiance of a tyrannical king stirs a nation ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... counterbalance of every youthful sin. Did she remember the day in which that fairy dower of beauty had first taught her to be selfish and cruel, indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others, cold-hearted and capricious, greedy of admiration, exacting and tyrannical with that petty woman's tyranny which is the worst of despotism? Did she trace every sin of her life back to its true source? and did she discover that poisoned fountain in her own exaggerated estimate of ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... most objected—their fury knew no bounds. They cursed the king, the pope, and the French Canadians with as much violence as any temporal or spiritual rulers had ever cursed heretics and rebels. The 'infamous and tyrannical ministry' in England was accused of 'contemptible subservience' to the 'bloodthirsty, idolatrous, and hypocritical creed' of the French Canadians. To think that people whose religion had spread 'murder, persecution, and revolt throughout the world' were to be entrenched ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood

... city. The latter was now in a condition to carry out all those exalted notions of political life which he had sought to instil into the mind of Dionysius. He seems to have contemplated some political changes; but his immediate and practical acts were tyrannical, and were rendered still more unpopular by his overbearing manners. His unpopularity continued to increase, till at length one of his bosom friends—the Athenian Callippus—seized the opportunity to mount to power by his murder, and caused ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... said of the oppression woman suffers; man is reproached with being unjust, tyrannical, jealous. I do not so read human life. The exclusion and constraint woman suffers, is not the result of purposed injury or premeditated insult. It has arisen naturally, without violence, simply because woman has desired ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... followed each other somewhat as people do in a dream; they were not there, and then they were there; but, however the new one came, the boys were some time in getting used to his authority. It appeared to them that several of his acts were distinctly tyrannical, and were encroachments upon rights of theirs which the other teacher, with all his severity, had respected. My boy was inspired by the common mood to write a tragedy which had the despotic behavior of the new teacher for its subject, and which was ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... the Caribbean islands to be colonized by Europeans, due chiefly to the fierce resistance of the native Caribs. France ceded possession to Great Britain in 1763, which made the island a colony in 1805. In 1980, two years after independence, Dominica's fortunes improved when a corrupt and tyrannical administration was replaced by that of Mary Eugenia CHARLES, the first female prime minister in the Caribbean, who remained in office for 15 years. Some 3,000 Carib Indians still living on Dominica are the only pre-Columbian population remaining ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... said, holding out her hand to him with easy, audacious grace, "let us try then. I own I was aggravating—own in your turn that you were tyrannical now and then! You witness that he owns up, Janetta—why, the girl's gone! Never mind: give me a kiss now we are alone, Wyvis, and take me to the Riviera to-morrow if you want to save ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... produce of Russia and Prussia. As soon as they had accumulated to about 500, and the wind came fair, they sailed from Hano under convoy to the Belt, where a strong force was always kept to protect them from the attacks of the Danish gun-boats. The tyrannical decrees of Buonaparte were thus rendered null and void on this part of ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... least, Lucie, you might have confided this; you would not have found me arbitrary or tyrannical, and methinks, the advice of an experienced friend would not have been amiss on a ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... Nice, from the land of the olive to that of the palm, is a long and wearisome journey. That tyrannical monopoly, the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee Railway Company, gives only slow trains, except to travellers provided with through tickets; and these so inconveniently arranged, that travellers unprovided with ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... generous, however, as well as brave. They took the part of the weak and the oppressed against the tyrannical and the strong in the rustic contentions that they witnessed; they interposed to help the feeble, to relieve those who were in want, and to protect the defenseless. They hunted wild beasts, they fought against robbers, they rescued ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... to the coloured races in South Africa, and the treatment of the latter, have been a cause of much offence and misunderstanding. It is generally, though mistakenly, held that the Boers ill-treated the natives, and that in the most brutal and tyrannical manner. Such unwarranted assertions had furnished one of the various flimsy excuses for war in South Africa. The natives had to be protected! They were slaves, and must be liberated. Therefore—war! That natives have sometimes ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald

... attachment which the greyhound may form, he has not always or often the opportunity to acquire or to exhibit it. The keeper exercises over him a tyrannical power, and the owner seldom notices him in the manner which excites affection, or scarcely recognition; but, as a plea for the seeming want of fondness, which, compared with other breeds, he exhibits, it will be sufficient to quote the testimony of the younger ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... weather the marks of their feet were visibly impressed on it at every step. With the exception of liberty to go and come, pure air, and the light of the blessed day, they might as well have dragged out their existence in a subterraneous keep belonging to some tyrannical old baron of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... conceive of the Titan "unsaying his high language, and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary." He therefore, approached the theme of liberation from a wholly different point of view. Prometheus in his drama is the human vindicator of love, justice, and liberty, as opposed to Jove, the tyrannical oppressor, and creator of all evil by his selfish rule. Prometheus is the mind of man idealized, the spirit of our race, as Shelley thought it made to be. Jove is the incarnation of all that thwarts its free development. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... give them a new year's gift and a present at some other period, but can it all amount to a just indemnity for their labour? The treatment of servants in most countries, I grant, is very unjust, and in England, that boasted land of freedom, it is often extremely tyrannical. I have frequently, with indignation, heard gentlemen declare that they would never allow a servant to answer them; and ladies of the most exquisite sensibility, who were continually exclaiming against the cruelty of the vulgar ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... were no law-courts to enforce contracts of sentiment or passion; but so curiously are men made, that perhaps you will be shocked when I tell you that there is no code of public opinion which takes the place of such courts, and which might be as tyrannical and unreasonable as they were. I do not say that people don't judge their neighbours' conduct, sometimes, doubtless, unfairly. But I do say that there is no unvarying conventional set of rules by which people are judged; no bed of Procrustes to ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... Mrs. Hawthorne was weeping bitterly. She loved John as her own son, but no one ever dreamed of disputing the tyrannical dictates of the master of Hollywood, however unjust ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... canoes dashed to pieces against piers and breakwaters, and of gay, beflagged steam-launches swamped by the newly-risen sea miles from shore: the toll of fickle, superheated August. But in the late autumn the immense, savage creature was more frankly itself: rude, blustery, tyrannical,—no more a smiling, cruel hypocrite. It warned you, often and openly, ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... Enderby and the Countess of Enderby. When Charles was told how matters had gone between the younger two, he gave vent to a mock indignation; and in consequence he made Sir Richard Mowbray an earl also, that, as he said, they might both be at the same nearness to him; for etiquette was tyrannical, and yet he did not know which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... happiest of maidens, light of heart and foot, bubbling over with harmless, sparkling mirth and life. If Salome could only walk like other women, Judith told herself that she would not hate the great tyrannical Power. ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... vain to attempt to explain this, which at the same time everybody can understand. The school-boy with his master, the soldier with his officer—every subordinate knows instinctively if it is of any use "trying it on." Not that he looked like one who would be harsh or tyrannical. On the contrary, his face was lit up by a courteous smile as ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... temperament one dislikes is a mischievous one. It is not necessarily mischievous to be quarrelsome, though a peaceable person may dislike it. There is no reason whatever why two quarrelsome people, if they enjoy it, should not have a good set-to. What is mischievous is if a man is brutal and tyrannical, and prefers a tussle with an inoffensive person who is no match for him. That is a piece of cowardice, and protest is more than justifiable. There is a fine true story of a famous head-master, who disliked a weakling, putting on a stupid, shy, and ungainly boy to construe, and making ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... "careering about Switzerland" with Montanelli. But positively to forbid a harmless botanizing tour with an elderly professor of theology would seem to Arthur, who knew nothing of the reason for the prohibition, absurdly tyrannical. He would immediately attribute it to religious or racial prejudice; and the Burtons prided themselves on their enlightened tolerance. The whole family had been staunch Protestants and Conservatives ever since Burton ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... kisses and mingling tears, there began to come over Philip a feeling of weakness, of fainting courage, a disposition to cry out, "Nothing can be so terrible as this. I will not bear it; I will not go." By a tyrannical effort of will, against which his whole nature cried out, he unwound her arms from his neck and said ...
— An Echo Of Antietam - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... is a violent, tyrannical, sensual man; his perceptions are his pulses. That he is handsome, clever, resolute, and sings well, I ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... his lonely way back to the house of his tyrannical employer in the early morning he could not help wishing that he was already a man and his days of thraldom were over. He was barely sixteen. Five long, weary years ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... hands of William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, as chancellor.(143) With him was associated in the government, Hugh de Puiset, or Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, but Longchamp soon got the supreme control of affairs into his own hands, and commenced to act in the most tyrannical fashion. He increased the security of the Tower of London, which had been committed to his charge, by surrounding it with a moat,(144) and having got himself nominated papal legate, made a progress through the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... pride of WEAK PRINCES, or sustain the avarice and false calculations of their WICKED MINISTERS. Even in justifiable wars of self-defence, such as the resistance to the unprincipled invasion of William the Norman, or of the English people against the tyrannical Charles, the church of Christ ought only to mourn at the unhappy price ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... tyranny and the tyrannical man. Democratic license develops into sheer anarchy. Jack is as good as his master. The predatory population becomes demagogues; they squeeze the decent citizens, and drive them to adopt oligarchical methods; then the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... such treatment, you are absolved from implicit obedience to his rigorous, cruel, and stern commands.—It will therefore be considered a duty you owe to your preservation, if you suffer me to remove you from the tyrannical severity with which ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... protectors of dreadful "young persons," invades the very citadel of civilisation itself, and pours its terrible "pure" scum and its popular sentimental mud over the altars of the defenceless immortals. No one asks that these tyrannical young people and their anxious guardians should read the classics or should read the works of such far-descended inheritors of the classical tradition who, like Remy de Gourmont, seek to keep the sacred fire alight. Let them hold their hands ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys

... bedrooms with a family likeness to Dairies. And now the Swiss marksmen were for ever rifle-shooting at marks across gorges, so exceedingly near my ear, that I felt like a new Gesler in a Canton of Tells, and went in highly-deserved danger of my tyrannical life. The prizes at these shootings, were watches, smart handkerchiefs, hats, spoons, and (above all) tea-trays; and at these contests I came upon a more than usually accomplished and amiable countryman of ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... persecution—hardy chiefs of a poverty-stricken people—leaders as sensible of the obligations of power as their followers were faithful in their allegiance of duty. Political freedom and worldly prosperity made the office of President a luxurious sovereignty, easily tyrannical, fortified in its religious absolutism by its irresponsible power of finance, and protected in its social abuses, from the interference of the nation, by an alliance with the commercial rulers of the nation and by a duplicity ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... in Howard's office, when he had greeted her gruffly, and the memory of his rugged features and small red eyes, like live coals, had remained. And she saw now the drama that had taken place before Ethel's eyes. The capitalist, overbearing, tyrannical, hearing a few, simple truths in his own house from Peter—her Peter. And she recalled her husband's account of his talk with James Wing. Peter had refused to sell himself. Had Howard? Many times during the days that followed she summoned her courage to ask her husband that question, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... slight touch of sarcasm in her tone: "It is, no doubt, inconceivable to you that my mind should be occupied with matters of even greater importance than six ball dresses for one lady. Still, I must be tyrannical enough to request you to believe so, and not to allow me to be molested again. At all events," she added, her good-humor returning, "I venture to hope that I have not often subjected you ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... to get on a war-footing with most of his neighbors,—as the late Professor Boyesen recorded from his own observations at the time, explaining that "a small town, where everybody is interested in what his neighbor has for dinner, is invariably more intolerant of dissent, more tyrannical toward social rebels, than a city of metropolitan rank." And even when Ibsen removed to Christiania he did not get out of this atmosphere of pettiness. As Professor Boyesen remarked, again from personal ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... goes to a door and looks out into the darkness. Yes, she hears it now, quick and regular,—the beat of many horses' feet coming in hot haste along the road. Surely the few servants whom she has sent cannot make all this noise! and she trembles with vague affright. Perhaps it is a tyrannical message, bringing imprisonment and death. She calls a maid, and bids her bring lights into the reception-hall. A few moments more, and there is a confused stamping of horses' feet approaching the house, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... Orantes was likewise furnished with letters from Cortes to all his friends in New Spain, and to the treasurer and contador, although he knew they were not of that description, desiring them all to use their utmost diligence in displacing the present tyrannical usurpers. Having favourable weather, Orantes soon arrived at his destination; and disguising himself as a labourer, set forward on his journey, always avoiding the Spaniards, and lodging only among the natives. When questioned by any one, he called himself Juan de Flechilla; and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... my faithful friends, and you, my earliest readers, what were the sentiments of hatred, love and fidelity, that inspired the letters which I addressed to you nearly eighteen years ago—the violence of my hatred for the most tyrannical, and at the same time, the most dangerously vindictive, of European statesmen, viz. ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... though I am, I shall not care to meet MacDougall in the morning. However, since this wilful girl wills it, what can I do? I have been her instructor since she was a child; and instead of being a docile and obedient pupil, she has been a tyrannical master to me; and I have been so accustomed to do her will in all things that I cannot say her nay now. I held out as long as I could; but what can a poor priest do against sobs and tears? So at last I have given in and consented to risk the MacDougall's ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... They trooped in bright and early, considerably augmented by fresh recruits who came to share the benefits of my innocuous prodigality, and if I live to be a thousand I shall never again experience such a noisome half hour as the one I spent in listening to their indignant protests against my tyrannical oppression of the poor and needy. In the end, I agreed to pay them, one and all, for a full day's work, and they went away mollified, calling me a true gentleman to my face and heaven knows what ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... government can be formed without the consent of the governed," etc. In a few days an official brought back a large package, saying, "Such sentiments are not allowed to pass through the post office." Probably nothing saved her from arrest as a socialist, under the tyrannical police regulations, but the fact that she was the guest of the Minister Plenipotentiary of ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the primary distribution of justice, or in the preservation of order and execution of law at least throughout the country! Yet some men never seem to have thought of it for one moment, but as connected with brewers, and barristers, and tyrannical Squire Westerns! From what I saw of Homer, I thought him a superior man, in real ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... for it, so I resolved to make the best of it by meeting the disagreeable old pantaloon on his own ground. I lit one of his cigars and sat down to tell the curious old freak what I thought of him. Ordinarily I would have avoided doing this, but his tyrannical exercise of his temporary advantage made me angry to the very core ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... to quicken the pace of the drama, to bring out the impetuous and somewhat tyrannical nature of Oedipus, and to prepare ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles

... whose legal reforms English-speaking peoples receive benefit even to-day, was followed by his son, Richard, the Lion-hearted crusader. [6] After a short reign Richard was succeeded by his brother, John, a man so cruel, tyrannical, and wicked that he is usually regarded as the worst of English kings. In a war with the French ruler, Philip Augustus, John lost Normandy and some of the other English possessions on the Continent. [7] In a ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... re-entered the house, and sought Mr. Saunderson junior in his own room. He found that young gentleman still up, and reading an eloquent tract on the Emancipation of the Human Race from all Tyrannical ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... patriot continued to prance his gay steed over the heads of the foot-soldiers—to do his own business faithfully, in the belief that, because others did wrong by firing at him, it would be no excuse for him to do wrong by sparing the hireling bullies of a tyrannical government. At length, a vigorous charge of the bayonet drove the old man, and the party with which he was acting, far from the main body of the British. Hezekiah was also out of ammunition, and was compelled to ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... to have a lease like any that I have seen," replied Job. "We had one once in our family, and we keep it as a curiosity. It is ten skins long, and more tyrannical nonsense was never engrossed ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... demanded almost fiercely, "why can't a child's life be her own to do with what she chooses? Why has any human being a right to say to another, whether young or old, 'You shall live here and not there'? Oh, it is tyrannical—it is tyranny of the worst kind, and what haven't I had to suffer from it all! It is like Hell ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... of your Country for Liberty, as you hope your Infant will outlive you, and share in the Event. Your native Town which I am perswaded is dear to you, is now suffering the Vengeance of a cruel and tyrannical Administration; and I can assure you she suffers with Dignity. She scorns to own herself the Slave of the haughtiest nation on earth; and rather than submit to the humiliating Terms of an Edict, barbarous beyond Precedent under the most absolute monarchy, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams

... you can appreciate being well used, that you can appreciate those who put themselves to trouble that they may do you good; and beware lest, by want of sympathy, you drive the best of the employers out of the business, and retain those alone who are despotic and tyrannical. Cease to follow those who are actuated by self-interest, or by blind impulse; who do not care a bit if they get you into trouble, provided only they serve their own selfish ends. Such men are but blind leaders of the blind, and if you follow them you will eventually ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... founded on the mere arbitrary will and pleasure of the prince. On the contrary, they all prove that the interest and aggrandizement of France entered alone into the views of Napoleon, and that instead of being under a tyrannical government, the people never enjoyed the benefits of distributive justice with greater equality, and were never protected more completely against the oppressions of public functionaries, and of the higher ranks. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... that Prince Travann is contemplating some tyrannical or subversive use of such power?" Count Tammsan, ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper

... Diaz Guiral, whom Acuna highly commends. The governor complains that the archbishop has been meddling with his appointments of chaplains for the galleys. He also asks for money to maintain galleys for the defence of the islands. In a third letter Acuna complains of the unjust and tyrannical conduct of the auditor Maldonado, and asks for redress from the king. This evil conduct has been especially noticeable in Maldonado's efforts to secure the hand and property of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various

... then, let me apply it to the particular case in question. In numberless instances had not only the implied but the specified conditions of the articles been violated on the part of the ship in which I served. The usage on board of her was tyrannical; the sick had been inhumanly neglected; the provisions had been doled out in scanty allowance; and her cruises were unreasonably protracted. The captain was the author of the abuses; it was in vain to think that he would either remedy them, or alter his conduct, which was arbitrary and ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... danced, and shouted till they were hoarse. They were like crazy people, but with them it was pure joy because of the thought that they were to be free, to be their own masters, independent of a tyrannical king. They had reason ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox

... different words; their passions are the same; their thoughts, which they consider original, are scintillations and reflections of other remote thoughts; and all acts which were held to be good or bad are considered as such because they have been thus classified by the dead, the tyrannical dead, those whom man would have to kill again if he desired to be ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... by Wallach, and three of the new guards, or turnkeys, were very gentlemanly persons, and neither I nor the other prisoners had any reason to complain of the change. Of the fourth turnkey I cannot say as much. He was violent, overbearing and tyrannical, and he was frequently guilty of conduct towards the prisoners which made him very unfit to serve under such a marshal, and ought to have caused his speedy removal. But, unfortunately, the marshal was under some political obligations to him, which made the turning him out not so easy a matter. ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton

... and taking his hand he turned to those present and said: "That your worships may see how important it is to have knights-errant to redress the wrongs and injuries done by tyrannical and wicked men in this world, I may tell you that some days ago passing through a wood, I heard cries and piteous complaints as of a person in pain and distress; I immediately hastened, impelled by ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... himself on the defeat and death of the great warrior king; but Egypt would, perhaps, have suffered less had the invasion, which was sure to come, been conducted by the noble, magnanimous, and merciful Cyrus, than she actually endured at the hands of the impulsive tyrannical, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... the Sailor, on the mats, Varua motioned the captain to one of the boxes, and then told him a tale that moved him—rough, fierce, and tyrannical as was his nature—to the ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... religion which demands that we should do to others as we would that others should do to us, and whose principles, the governor, the nobles, and the soldiers, were ruthlessly trampling beneath their feet. Don Pedro, when measured by the standard of Christianity, was proud, perfidious and tyrannical. The course he pursued upon his arrival in the country was impolitic ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott

... some popular mandate; the unconventional authority does not. The Puritan who forbids soldiers on Sunday is at least expressing Puritan opinion; not merely his own opinion. He is not a despot; he is a democracy, a tyrannical democracy, a dingy and local democracy perhaps; but one that could do and has done the two ultimate virile things—fight and appeal to God. But the veto of the new educationist is like the veto of the House of Lords; it does not pretend to be representative. These innovators are always ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... this strange and tyrannical disposition of their daughter, and in vain did every thing they could think of to break her of it. Her mother, in particular, continually enforced on her mind, that such children never procured the esteem of others; and that a girl, who set up her own opinion ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin

... Emperors more and more adopted Chinese ways, and lost their tyrannical vigour. Their dynasty came to an end in 1370, and was succeeded by the pure Chinese Ming dynasty, which lasted until the Manchu conquest of 1644. The Manchus in turn adopted Chinese ways, and were overthrown by a patriotic revolution in 1911, having contributed nothing notable ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... fruitless opposition to a corrupt and tyrannical government, many of us have, like you, sought freedom and protection in the United States of America; but to this we have all been principally induced, from the full persuasion, that a republican representative government, was not merely best adapted to promote human ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith

... suburb of Berlin is Koepenick, in the chateau of which the youthful Frederick the Great was tried for his life by court-martial, by order of his tyrannical father; and in the same direction, an hour from Berlin by express-train, is Cuestrin, whose strong castle was the scene of his subsequent imprisonment, and where, in sight from his window, his noble friend, Lieutenant von Katte, was beheaded on the ramparts for no other ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton

... simple truth. Throughout his journey from the cradle to the grave, the Manxman paid tithe on all he inherited, on all he had, on all he did, on all his wife did, and on all he left behind him. We have the equivalent of this in England at the present hour, but it was yet more tyrannical, and infinitely more ludicrous, in the Isle of Man down to the year 1839. It is only vanity and folly and vexation of spirit to quarrel with the modern English taxgatherer; you are sure to go the wall, with humiliation ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine

... revenue; settle its quantity; define its objects; provide for its collection; and then fight, when you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob; if you kill, take possession; and do not appear in the character of madmen as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But may better ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... combination than of momentary inspiration, derived from circumstances, in the resolutions and conduct of political chiefs, kings, senators, or great men. From the time that discord and corruption had turned the Roman Republic into a bloody and tyrannical anarchy, the Roman Senate no longer meditated grand designs, and its members were preoccupied only with the question of escaping or avenging proscriptions. When Caesar procured for himself the government for five years of the Gauls, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... it seems as if these woods here must be swarming with them. I should not wonder, too, if it was Hudibras' own daughter that has run away. Not unlikely, for the king is well known to be a tyrannical old fellow. H'm! we will search for her also. If we find them all, I shall have more than enough of wives—the king's daughter, and Gadarn's daughter, and this run-away-lad, whoever she may be! ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... mate such a union would be for life—it could not be otherwise. And the man holding his mate by the excellence that was in him, instead of by the aid of the law, would be placed, loverlike, on his good behavior, and be a stronger and manlier being. Such a union, freed from the petty, spying and tyrannical restraints of present usage, must come ere ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a general favourite in the factory. Nevertheless, as this young man was in the eye of the law not a man, but a thing, all these superior qualifications were subject to the control of a vulgar, narrow-minded, tyrannical master. This same gentleman, having heard of the fame of George's invention, took a ride over to the factory, to see what this intelligent chattel had been about. He was received with great enthusiasm by the employer, who congratulated him on possessing so ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various

... thought there was no better way towards the restoration of doctrinal purity and unity. And we thought that Rome was not committed by her formal decrees to all that she actually taught: and again, if her disputants had been unfair to us, or her rulers tyrannical, we bore in mind that on our side too there had been rancour and slander in our controversial attacks upon her, and violence in our political measures. As to ourselves being direct instruments in improving her belief or practice, I used to say, "Look at home; ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... source of tyranny by certain individuals over others. Orthodox Socialism believes that the individual will become free if the State becomes the sole capitalist. Anarchism, on the contrary, fears that in that case the State might merely inherit the tyrannical propensities of the private capitalist. Accordingly, it seeks for a means of reconciling communal ownership with the utmost possible diminution in the powers of the State, and indeed ultimately with the complete abolition of the State. It has arisen mainly within the Socialist ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell

... the fascinating manners of the courtly Spaniard. All these things caused him to sorrow, and this sorrow so fed upon his heart that he resolved to get to Madrid with all speed and rescue her from so tyrannical a parent, though it cost him his life. But he was suddenly taken sick of a fever, which, in addition to well-nigh carrying him to the grave, left his intellect in a deranged state, and so reduced him in body that his friends ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... in silence; then he said, "It's like almost everything else—it's a weighing of claims! I don't want you fellows to be either tyrannical or slavish. It's tyrannical to bully, it's slavish to defer. The thing is to have a firm opinion, not to be ashamed of it or afraid of it; to say it reasonably and gently, and to stick to it amiably. ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Ebers; the abnormalities and precocity of De Quincey, and the steady, healthful growth of Patterson; the simultaneity of a fleshly and spiritual love in Keller and Goethe, and the duality of Pater, with his great and tyrannical intensification of sensation for nature and the sequent mysticity and symbolism. In some it is fulminating but episodic, in others gradual and lifelong like the advent of eternal spring. Fourth, in their subjective ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... differently assisted her to hold to her resolution. Harry was inclined to be angry, not with her, that seemed impossible, but with his cousins for advising her as they had done. He considered his father tyrannical and unjust in the matter, and he was even less disposed than ever to obey him. May endeavoured to soothe him. She succeeded at last. She spoke of the future when there might be no impediment to their happiness. They ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... and resolution. Before they left the house that night they had sworn a solemn oath to stand by the cause they had adopted, and the land of their birth through good or evil, and to spurn as deadliest insult the proffered amnesty of their tyrannical foe. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... In those days the people were ruled by different kinds of lords. There were not a few who, remembering God, treated their slaves in a humane manner, and not as beasts of burden, while there were others who were seldom known to perform a kind or generous action; but the most barbarous and tyrannical of all were those former serfs who arose from the ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... freedom and progress must henceforth be intrusted to some more faithful champion. The revolt of Northern Europe, led by Luther and Henry VIII. was but the articulate announcement of this altered state of affairs. So long as the Roman Church had been felt to be the enemy of tyrannical monarchs and the steadfast friend of the people, its encroachments, as represented by men like Dunstan and Becket, were regarded with popular favour. The strength of the Church lay ever in its democratic instincts; ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... though Christian in name, issued cruel and tyrannical edicts. Valens embraced Arianism, and bitterly persecuted the Orthodox party. Justinian established Catholicism by arms. Theodosius proscribed Paganism by the infliction of severe penalties. Marcian and Leo "enforced, with arms and edicts, the symbols of their ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... of scholars, wild lads from every part of Germany and Switzerland, some wan and pinched with hardship and privation, others sturdy, selfish rogues, evidently well able to take care of themselves. There were many rude, tyrannical-looking lads among the older lads; and, though here and there a studious, earnest face might be remarked, the prospect of Germany's future priests and teachers was not encouraging. And what a searching ordeal was awaiting those careless lads when the voice of one, as yet ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in every capacity. He was a thorough sailor, and strict disciplinarian; fearless and arbitrary, he had but little sympathy with the crew; his main object being to get the greatest quantity of work in the shortest possible time. Stories were afloat that he was unfeeling and tyrannical; that fighting and flogging were too frequent to be agreeable in ships where he was vested with authority. There were even vague rumors in circulation that he indulged occasionally in the unique and exciting amusement of shooting at men on the yards when engaged in reefing topsails. These rumors, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... brewers in the Lords and Commons; and for Church matters, parishioners should have some control over their pastors. If ever our Establishment is overthrown, that catastrophe will be due to clerical faults and defaults, rather than to lay apathy or hostility. If rectors were less tyrannical, congregations would love them better; and if curates were more inclined to Luther than to Rome, the Protestant heart of England would the gladlier appreciate their zeal and capabilities. As to the social mischief of Trades' Unions, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... According to the statement in this Psalm (Ps. 14, 7) and the example of the Apostle Paul in Rom. 9, 1, we ought rather to feel a profound and cordial pity for them and always pray for them. . . . By their tyrannical bearing these wicked people, who are nominally Christians, cause not a little injury, not only to the cause of Christianity, but also to Christian people, and they are responsible for, and sharers in, the impiety of the Jews, because by their ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... between those who have no doors to close behind them. For such stand shoulder to shoulder facing the barrier Law, which bars them from the food and warmth behind the doors. To those in a house the Law is scarcely more than an abstraction; to those without it is a tyrannical reality. The Law will not even allow a man outside to walk up and down in the gray mist enjoying his own dreams without looking upon him with suspicion. The Law is a shatterer of dreams. The Law is as eager as a gossip to misinterpret; ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... even tranquil and unsuspecting, face of a husband has a wonderful power of repression. One is embarrassed to love under the glance of an eye that darts flashes as bright as steel; and a calm, kindly look is more terrible yet, for all jealousy seems tyrannical, and tyranny leads to revolt; but a confiding husband is like a victim strangled in his sleep, and inspires, by his very calmness, the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet



Words linked to "Tyrannical" :   dictatorial, domineering, undemocratic, autocratic, oppressive, authoritarian, tyranny, tyrannic, despotic, tyrannous



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com