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Autocratic   /ˌɔtəkrˈætɪk/   Listen
Autocratic

adjective
1.
Offensively self-assured or given to exercising usually unwarranted power.  Synonyms: bossy, dominating, high-and-mighty, magisterial, peremptory.  "Autocratic behavior" , "A bossy way of ordering others around" , "A rather aggressive and dominating character" , "Managed the employees in an aloof magisterial way" , "A swaggering peremptory manner"
2.
Characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule; having absolute sovereignty.  Synonyms: authoritarian, despotic, dictatorial, tyrannic, tyrannical.  "Autocratic government" , "Despotic rulers" , "A dictatorial rule that lasted for the duration of the war" , "A tyrannical government"






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"Autocratic" Quotes from Famous Books



... independent of the King. It gave them the important privilege of holding great quarterly meetings or assemblies, where all matters relating to the government of the colony could be openly discussed. Still Virginia remained under the autocratic rule ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the world of Washington was at the ball. The President and his wife in a flag-draped box, she in black with a turquoise fan, he towering a little above her, more than President in these autocratic days of war. They looked down on men in the uniforms of the battling world—Scot and Briton and Gaul—in plaid and khaki and ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... more years before because there were always those who wanted to attempt assassination. Officers of the World Police had not enjoyed great popularity during the reconstruction period after the Holocaust. The petty potentates who had set themselves up as autocratic rulers in various spots over the Earth had quite often decided that the best way to get the WP off their backs was to kill someone, and quite often that someone was a Police officer. Disgruntled nationalists and fanatics of all kinds had tried at various times ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... terribly, not only her physical presence in the house, but the exercise of his influence over her, which in old times had been perhaps a trifle autocratic. He had hated being told what Joe thought and said; yet he could hardly object to her docility. That was the way he had brought her up. He did not reckon pliancy in a woman as a weakness; or if he had had any temptation to do so, it had vanished in the period when Joe ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... inseparable from it, are establishing in other European countries, have driven the rural inhabitants of entire districts, and even provinces, into habits of drunkenness stronger and more general than those which existed before the autocratic creation of ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... power of a federation of noble clans, and still later by the Burmese kings for the same reason. The acceptance of Buddhism by rulers in the Far East always meant also an attempt to create a more autocratic, absolutistic regime. Mahayana Buddhism, as an ideal, desired a society without clear-cut classes under one enlightened ruler; in such a society all believers could strive to attain the ultimate ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... been a power in his day, a splendid, audacious, autocratic person, successful as a pioneer, a miner, a speculator, proud of a beautiful and pampered Southern wife and a nurseryful of handsome children. These were the days of horses and carriages, when the Eddy Street mansion was built, when a score of servants waited upon Ma and the ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... to have been angry with them because they wished to be nothing of the sort. He did not understand that this passionate individualism, this sense of personal responsibility, this claim to private judgment, is what no modern State, be it democratic, bureaucratic or autocratic, can tolerate. Men long for the ease and assurance of conformity and so soon as they are sufficiently organized enforce it. Truth is the enemy—ecrasez l'infame! Poor, silly old Stockmann in An Enemy of the People blurts it out, blurts out that the water-supply ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... Queen, since we had given up trying to reach a particular spot we found ourselves able to travel with comparative ease. We inspected Slafe's activities with interest and responded readily to his autocratic gestures indicating positions and poses we should take in order to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... be noted that this international co-operation is not by any means always with similar and racially allied nations. Republican France finds itself, and has been for a generation, the ally of autocratic Russia. Australia, that much more than any other country has been obsessed by the yellow peril and the danger from Japan, finds herself today fighting side by side with the Japanese. And as to the ineradicable hostility of races preventing ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... of some of the masters at St Austin's, Mr MacArthur,' said Miss Beezley. She habitually spoke as if she were an examination paper, and her manner might have seemed to some to verge upon the autocratic, but the Babe was too thankful that the question was not on Browning or the higher algebra to notice this. He reeled ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... girl just returned from years of study and travel in Europe, had something of that same spirit which made her brother's will a thing of adamant, but she had not done well to begin her new life by measuring lances with the autocratic Hamilton. Probably at the moment she was being reprimanded, perhaps rebuked into tears which, since she was young and beautiful, became a disquieting thought. Carl Bristoll felt the discomfort of the outsider in the ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck

... 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in 1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names but those ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... school for the neighborhood. I should have preferred to have it more cosmopolitan. The boy was rubbing up against only his own kind and this was making him soft, both physically and mentally. He was also getting querulous and autocratic. Ruth saw it, but with only one.... Well, on Sundays I took the boy with me on long cross-country jaunts and did a good deal of talking to him. But all I said rolled off like water off a duck. He lacked energy and initiative. He was becoming distinctly more middle-class than either of us, ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... as conquerors. Once emperor of China, the Mongol Kublai Khan could not but remember his purely Chinese education. Moreover it was quite the Tartar custom to extend their conquests to administrative organization, by establishing a hierarchy of functionaries. The conception of a supreme and autocratic State, paternal in its absolutism, intervening even to the details of private life in order to assure the happiness of the people,—this idea, dear to the literary conservators of the Confucian School during the Sung period, was also too similar ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci

... Dan," I added, "you ought to be more autocratic. Knowing that two is company and three otherwise, you have been guilty of allowing many a young couple who have trusted in you to begin house-keeping with an inevitable third person. We see it ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... down a Republican majority by contesting votes and throw the matter into the hands of the legislature—that was the Republican prophecy and the Republican fear. Manufacturers, merchants, and ministers pleaded for a fair election. An anti-autocratic grip became prevalent in the hills. The Hawns and Honeycutts sent word that they had buried the feud for a while and would fight like brothers for their rights, and from more than one mountain county came the homely threat that if those ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... in 1658, it was an easy matter for the Stuarts to return to their old kingdom. Indeed, they were welcomed as "deliverers" by the people who had found the yoke of the meek Puritans quite as hard to bear as that of autocratic King Charles. Provided the Stuarts were willing to forget about the Divine Right of their late and lamented father and were willing to recognise the superiority of Parliament, the people promised that they would be ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... to make the universe safe for democracy, this continual warring against Heaven because Heaven clung to a tyrannical form of autocratic government, sounded both logical and magnanimous, and was, of course, the only method of insuring any general triumph for democracy: yet it seemed rather futile to Jurgen, since, as he knew now, there was certainly something ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... I should be in autocratic command over myself when we marry.... It is difficult for me to explain to you.... Do you remember that I wrote you once that I was—afraid to marry you—not ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... shattered the attempt of England to wield an autocratic power over her Colonies had shattered the attempt of its king to establish an autocratic power over England itself. The Ministry which bore the name of Lord North had been a mere screen for the administration ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... Church of France independence in the choice of her chief officers, was replaced by a concordat, whereby the King allowed the papacy once more to drain the wealth of the Church of France, while the Pope allowed the King almost autocratic power over it. He was to appoint to all benefices, with exception of a few privileged offices; the Pope was no longer to be threatened with general councils, while he should receive again the ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre

... crowd as an interesting man. Madame Sennier made an upward movement of her head, full of will. She put out her hand, and laid it on Heath's arm. Now they all seemed to be talking together. Madame Sennier looked radiant, triumphant, even autocratic. She pointed toward the stage emphatically, made elaborate descriptive movements with her hands. A bell sounded somewhere. Heath got up. In a moment he and Max Elliot had left the box together. The two women were alone. They leaned toward each ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... the Lithuanians, and the Poles. He succeeded in defeating them all. He had powerful rivals within the domain of Russia. These also he overcame. He made Moscow all-powerful, imitated the tyranny of the Tartars, and founded the autocratic rule of the czars which has ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... traitorous circular had been issued. A large contingent of the selective draft boys had just been ordered away to the cantonment and the day before they left all their parents received a circular saying that the draft was unconstitutional and that their sons were being sacrificed by autocratic methods to further the political schemes of the administration. "Mr. Wilson," it ended, "is trying to make for himself a place in history, at the expense of the flesh and blood of ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... uinicil, the real man, the true man, is a common idiom for governor or ruler, he being the only "real man" in an autocratic ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various

... frowned and looked intently at the fifty-sixth page of his volume. A step paused outside his door, and he knew that the person, whoever it might be, was considering the placard, and debating whether to honor its decree or not. Certainly, policy advised him to sit still in autocratic silence, for no custom can take root in a family unless every breach of it is punished severely for the first six months or so. But Ralph was conscious of a distinct wish to be interrupted, and his disappointment was perceptible when he heard ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... administration was honeycombed with corruption. Except under similar political conditions could such a man attain to so responsible an office in a great city as that of chief of the detective force—a position which at that time invested him with all but autocratic power. An old rounder and barroom loafer, without one attribute of true manliness and not possessed of any quality which would point him out as a fit man for the place. Nevertheless, when the position became vacant his political pull caused his selection. From being a mere detective on the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... "Incredible!" "Don't tell me!" Indeed I, with many, could find a parallel in the great old Doctor for almost everything he said. Even when there was a smile at his vehemence, he would unconsciously repeat the Doctor's autocratic methods. ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... stadholders. They were stung to fury against Spain and against Barneveld by the waspish effusions of the daily press. The magistrates remained calm, and took part by considerable majorities with Barneveld. That statesman, while exercising almost autocratic influence in the estates, became more and more odious to the humbler classes, to the Nassaus, and especially to the Calvinist clergy. He was denounced, as a papist, an atheist, a traitor, because striving for an honourable peace with the foe, and because admitting the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... In the same way the unlimited franchises of the lords of the Welsh march, the almost regal authority which the treaty of Shrewsbury gave to the Prince of Wales, the rejection of his claims as feudal overlord of Scotland, were abhorrent to his autocratic disposition. True son of the Church though he was, he was the bitter foe of ecclesiastical claims which, constantly encroaching beyond their own sphere, denied kings the fulness ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... place she was deficient in that pleasant smiling softness which should belong to any keeper of a house of public entertainment. In her general mode of life she was stern and silent with her guests, autocratic, authoritative and sometimes contradictory in her house, and altogether irrational and unconciliatory when any change even for a day was proposed to her, or when any shadow of a ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope

... particularly outspoken in the town meetings they held. In the older colonies the opposition was still more emphatic. An Act which hemmed them in to the seacoast, established on the American continent a Church they feared and hated, and continued an autocratic political system, appeared to many to be the undoing of the work of Pitt and Wolfe and the revival on the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi of a serious menace to ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... then one of a group of semi-popular, semi-autocratic monarchies. The rights of the people were asserted by the States General which met from time to time, usually at much longer intervals than the German Diets or the English Parliaments, and by the Parlements of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... latitude north, with the upper point of the lozenge resting on the modern Peking, and the lower on Si-an Fu in Shensi, whither the late Empress Dowager fled for safety during the Boxer rising in 1900. The ancient autocratic Imperial system had recently been disestablished, and a feudal system had taken its place. The country was divided up into a number of vassal states of varying size and importance, ruled each by its own baron, who swore allegiance to the sovereign of the Royal State. The relations, however, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... interesting characters in our village; human nature varies so delightfully that just as with faces so each individual character has something to distinguish it from the rest of the world. The old-fashioned autocratic farmer of the old school is there of course, and a rare good specimen he is of a race that has almost disappeared. Then we have the village lunatic, whose mania is "religious enthusiasm." If you go to call on him, he will ask you "if you are saved," and explain to you how his own salvation was brought ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... future delays to come, modern life is not all hideous. There are many things, no doubt, such as the Black Country and the suburbs of our cities, on which the eye cannot rest with pleasure. But Paris is not hideous. There may be in the long lines of buildings too much of the autocratic monotony of the Empire, but the city, as a whole, is the perfect image of a brilliant civilization. From London beauty is almost banished by smoke and fog, which deny to the poor architect ornament, colour, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James I. ascended the throne with the highest notions of kingly prerogative and of a church establishment; but the progress of the English people in education and intelligence, the advance in arts and letters which had been made, were vastly injurious to the autocratic and aristocratic system which James had received from his predecessor. His foolish arrogance and contempt for popular rights incensed the people thus enlightened as to their own position and importance. They soon began to feel that he was not only unjust, but ungrateful: he had come from a rustic ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... autocratic gait, Tread down their tyrant and erect their state; Their state secured, they deem it wise and brave That every freeman should command a slave, And, flusht with franchise of his camp and town, Rove thro the world and hunt the nations down; Master and man the same vile spirit gains, Rome chains ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... in a published statement has since declared that she signed the Constitution unwillingly. The history of her short reign shows that it was her unaltered purpose to restore autocratic government. In short, she was determined to govern as well as ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs

... take place will be no sudden and wholesale amalgamation—a thing certainly not to be expected, and hardly to be desired. If it were held desirable, and one could imagine a government sufficiently autocratic to enforce its behests, it would be no great task to mix the races mechanically, leaving to time merely the ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... do that. He had all trust in his sister's judgment, he knew her dislike of interference, her love of autocratic supervision, so he asked no questions, but in grateful ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... urged the workers to boycott the Duma and to refuse to participate in the elections in any manner whatever. At a time when only a united effort by all classes could be expected to accomplish anything, and when such a victory of the people over the autocratic regime as might have been secured by united action would have meant the triumph of the Revolution, Lenine preached separatism. Unfortunately, his influence, even at that time, was very great and his counsels prevailed with a great many Socialist ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... explanatory solicitor. Some were white and earnest, some flustered beyond measure at their opportunity. Some of them begged and prayed to be taken up. My uncle chose what he wanted and left the rest. He became very autocratic to these applicants. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... Though there is a council, upon which the principal heads of departments and one unofficial member have seats, it meets irregularly and its functions are largely ornamental, the governor exercising virtually autocratic power. Unfortunately, there is no imperial official, as in Rhodesia, to supervise the company's activities. As was the case with the East India Company, the minor posts in the North Borneo service are filled by cadets nominated by the board of directors, a system which provides a considerable ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... mystery and the deadly fear of unknown assassins; Markheim, a brilliant example of this author's skill in laying bare the conflict of a soul with evil and its ultimate triumph; The Sire de Maletroit's Door, a vivid picture of the cruelty and the autocratic power of a great French noble of the fifteenth century, and A Lodging for the Night, a remarkable defense of his life by the vagabond poet, Villon. Other short stories by Stevenson are worth careful study, but if you like these I have mentioned you will need ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... that neither theory has ever been definitely adopted in England. The Utilitarians desired to recast institutions for the greater happiness of all citizens, but they were averse to investing the State with autocratic powers of interference. The Tories, on the other hand, were awakening to the conviction that the Government must do more for the people; but their fear of change and their own 'sinister interests,' persuaded them that this ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... The government was autocratic, largely by military leaders sometimes (particularly in peace) advised by the elders and priests; the leadership was determined primarily by ability—prowess in war and the chase and wisdom in ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee

... at that dark period of our religious history to which you have referred. They have now a standard by which to judge of themselves and of each other as members of society. Without that standard no law but the law of autocratic power could have ruled them. Its absence would have rendered the gift of free institutions, such as they now enjoy, a worse than useless act of magnanimity on the part of my predecessors. The commerce and intercourse with other countries ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV

... a man called John Ford, about seventy, and seventeen stone in weight—very big, on long legs, with a grey, stubbly beard, grey, watery eyes, short neck and purplish complexion; he is asthmatic, and has a very courteous, autocratic manner. His clothes are made of Harris tweed—except on Sundays, when he puts on black—a seal ring, and a thick gold cable chain. There's nothing mean or small about John Ford; I suspect him of a warm heart, but he doesn't let you know much about him. He's a north-country ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Austria-Hungary is primarily a dynastic estate, for the crown was always its supreme political driving force, although at present the Habsburgs are mere slaves of their masters, the Hohenzollerns. It is this characteristic which justifies us in concluding that Austria is an autocratic state par excellence. If there were no other reason, this should be sufficient to make every true democrat an enemy of Austria. Furthermore, it is this characteristic which makes us comprehend why the Habsburg monarchy is fighting side by side with German ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... introduced. It is assumed that a thriving and expanding colony of white men neither can nor ought to be taxed and governed without their own consent, obtained in some form or other; and that it would be both unwise and unjust to attempt a permanently autocratic government. This is a most serious question, and the Act 31st George III., under which Canada was governed until 1841, would appear to solve the difficulty. The general scheme of government of that Act might operate so soon as the new Colony had a population ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... the sake of Wuerttemberg. Having come to his ducal throne prematurely, through the influence of the King of Prussia, he began well, but after a few years shook off the restraints of good advice and entered upon a course of autocratic folly that made Wuerttemberg a far-shining example of the evils of absolutism under the Old Regime. Early in his reign he married a beautiful and high-minded princess of Bayreuth, but his profligacy soon drove ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... It is dependent on contributions levied through the high officials on the several provinces, subject always to the will of the people, and without their concurrence and co-operation nothing can be done.[30] The power of the purse and the power of the sword are thus exercised mediately, and the autocratic power is in practice transferred to the general body of high functionaries, or to that clique which for the time being has the ear of the emperor, and is united enough and powerful enough to impose its ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... would have introduced some of the most ferocious tortures which for centuries have been characteristic of the Land of the Dragon. We were absolutely helpless and completely in his hands. He knew this full well and consequently, being a despot, he wielded autocratic power according to his peculiar lights as ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... peremptory, arrogant, controlling, imperative, positive, authoritative, despotic, imperious, supreme, autocratic, dictatorial, irresponsible, tyrannical, coercive, dogmatic, lordly, unconditional, commanding, domineering, overbearing, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... unhappy art of doing the right thing in the wrong way. Restless and irascible, passing from self-confidence to gloom, he would find relief for nerve tension in a peevishness which was the last quality one in his difficult position should have shown. An autocratic official amid little rough, dissatisfied communities of hard-headed pioneers was a king with no divinity to hedge him round. Without pomp, almost without privacy, everything he said or did became the property of local gossips. A ruler so placed must have ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... Autocratic Russia and its Asiatic colonies have more woman suffrage than England. Finland, a constitutional monarchy, was ceded to the Emperor of Russia in 1809. Women there have all except the parliamentary suffrage. The Governor-General of the Senate is nominated ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... pioneers of agricultural co-operation, a new market opening in the country for things which the townsman can produce. Does not this suggest new productive urban enterprises? Does it not favor an evolution of manufacturing industry, so that democratic control may finally replace the autocratic control of the capitalist? The trades unions cannot do this alone by following up any of their traditional policies. They cannot go into trade on their own account with any guarantee of success unless they are associated with agencies of distribution. But if co-operators—urban and ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell

... remark about his father's Tory prejudices, was a Tory of the old school, a member of the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, and a firm ally and stiff upholder of the Provincial Executive, who had earned for themselves, by their autocratic rule, the rather sinister designation of "the Family Compact." As a trusted friend and loyal supporter of the oligarchy of the day, whom a well-known radical who figured prominently in the later history of the Province ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... difficult to find a flaw in, were never wanting on which to ground a fresh absorption of territory. And seeing behind this advance a vast country—almost a continent—which was not merely a great Asiatic Power, but a great European State, under autocratic, irresponsible rule, with interests touching ours at many points, it is not to be wondered at that we watched with anxiety her progress as she bore steadily ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough

... came when she induced the King to close the University for a year—an autocratic step which aroused the anger not only of every student but of the whole country. The streets were paraded by mobs crying, "Down with the concubine!" and "Long live the Republic!" Barricades were erected and an influential deputation waited on the ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... risen in revolution once more and had proclaimed the Second Republic. She then, in the space of a few months, passed through all the phases of political thought which Thiers, Blanc, Lamartine and Michelet had glorified—the democratic, the bourgeois, the autocratic republic, and finally the relapse into the ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... States, especially if he has spent his time in the great cities of the East, may go away with the idea that democracy is a spent force. He will see great inequalities in wealth and position. He will be struck by the fact that autocratic powers are wielded which would not be tolerated in many countries of Europe. He will notice that it is very difficult to give direct expression to the ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... throughout the whole country. It showed in the growing confidence expressed by the organs of the Church authorities in Utah. It showed in the cheerful predictions of the Prophets that the Lord would overrule in Apostle Smoot's behalf. It showed in Smoot's exercise of an autocratic leadership in the ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... appeared at the Revolution! She, who will foresee Napoleon, was rudely shocked by the fall of the Bastille. The Revolution touched her in her tenderest point. With every year, in spite of her sentiments and cosmopolitan culture, this Princess of Zerbst became more and more fervently autocratic and Russian. She had jestingly asked her doctor to bleed away the last drop of her German blood. No one ever had a more fanatical hero-worship for the Russian himself, or a deeper enthusiasm for the greatness ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... to the office of Chairman, Sir Ralph, it is said, accepted the position on the understanding that he should have autocratic power. In the task he undertook this was very likely desirable, and once acquired he was not the man to let such power slip from his grasp. His strong hands would firmly retain whatever they ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow

... a service, do you think, if it lent its authority to the special preservation in special hands of trinkets only to be used for vanity and ornament? Is that a kind of property over which an owner should have a power of disposition more lasting, more autocratic, than is given him even in regard to land? The land, at any rate, can be traced. It is a thing fixed and known. A string of pearls is not only alterable, but constantly altered, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... the war ought to go on so long as Germany persists in its policies of world empire, dynastic rule, autocratic bureaucracy, and the use of force in international dealings. If the war stops before Germany sees that those policies cannot prevail in twentieth-century Europe, the horrible wrongs and evils which we are now witnessing will recur; and all the nations will have to continue the destructive process ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... public room, the people of Togarog assembled night after night, and discussed, as far as the autocratic government of the Czar Nicholas would allow, the political news of the day. Poor souls! They enjoyed little latitude in this direction. Items of information concerning the acts of the central government in St. Petersburg were few and vague. The newspapers, owing to an extremely ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... Southerners. We asked them to dine the next night and were able to get a few interesting people to meet them, Comte et Comtesse de Sartiges, and one or two deputies—bien-pensants. Sartiges was formerly French ambassador in Rome to the Vatican, and a very clever diplomatist. He was very autocratic, did exactly what he liked. I remember quite well some of his small dances at the embassy. The invitations were from ten to twelve, and at twelve precisely the musicians stopped playing—no matter who was dancing, the ball was over. His wife was an American, ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... a human origin. It claims to be accredited supernaturally. The sovereign pontiff is the Vicar of God upon earth. Infallible in judgment, it is given to him to accomplish all things by miracle if need be. He had exercised an autocratic tyranny over the intellect of Europe for more than a thousand years; and, though on some occasions he had encountered the resistances of disobedient princes, these, in the aggregate, were of so little moment, that the physical, the political power ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... Kedah, the two latter being lieutenants in Acor's corps. They were all fine, upstanding men, of distinctly imperious and haughty bearing— Acor perhaps exhibiting those characteristics most markedly, as was only natural, considering the exalted position which he occupied at Court, and the almost autocratic authority which he wielded; nevertheless, at the sight of Earle's talisman, they suddenly subdued their haughty demeanour to one of deep reverence, and bowed low before the American, with their hands crossed upon their breasts, while they murmured a few words, which sounded ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... this explanation of the apparitions; such was infinitely more comforting to him than the conception that they had been in truth spirits from ghostland. As the doubt grew the wisdom of propitiating this powerful Moonspirit became apparent; yet was present the dread of loosing what remained of his autocratic power. The problem now was to enlist the white and discover some means of controlling him and ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... when the Salvation Army began to acquire strength and to grow from the grain of mustard seed until now, when its branches overshadow the whole earth, we have been constantly warned against the evils which this autocratic system would entail. Especially were we told that in a democratic age the people would never stand the establishment of what was described as a spiritual despotism. It was contrary to the spirit of the times, it would ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented economic development ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... like dew beneath his sunrise—sooth, But glittered dew-like in the covenanted And high-rayed light. He was a despot—granted, But the [Greek: autos] of his autocratic mouth Said 'Yea' i' the people's French! He magnified The image of the ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... autocratic or democratic, are passing through a great transformation, social, religious, and political. The process is full of embarrassments, difficulties, and perils. These are the dominant marks of our era. To set them all down to popular government is as narrow, as confused, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... theoretical statement of a wise disciplinary method that I know is Herbert Spencer's. "Let the history of your domestic rule typify, in little, the history of our political rule; at the outset, autocratic control, where control is really needful; by and by an incipient constitutionalism, in which the liberty of the subject gains some express recognition; successive extensions of this liberty of the subject; ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... adapted to their peculiar needs. In this as in all else, persuasion is an essential element in bringing about conviction. With the developments in industry what they are to-day there is sure to come a progressive evolution from autocratic single control, whether by capital, labor, or the state, to democratic cooeperative control by all three. The whole movement is evolutionary. That which is fundamental is the idea of representation, ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... fearful state of activity, and many times when ruin threatened from every side. But in the midst of all this there was one steady process—one end being always approached—a consolidation and a centralization of authority before which European monarchies would pale! The process commenced with the autocratic purposes of Andrew Bogoliubski. And it was because his boyars instinctively knew that the success of his policy meant their ruin that ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... huge, overwhelming town any one could desire to make their acquaintance was in itself a surprise; but in the interview that followed Diane felt as though she had been caught up in a whirlwind and carried away. Mrs. Wappinger's autocratic breeziness was so novel in character that she had no more thought of resisting it than of resisting a summer storm. She could only let it blow over her and bear her whither it listed. In the end she felt like some wayfarer in ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... down in a chair and groaned aloud. It was desperately hard for him to accept the strange truth that he could not order every one on the place, his niece included, to do just what pleased him. Never had an autocratic potentate been more completely nonplussed; but his sister's words, combined with events, brought him face to face with his impotence so inexorably that for a time he had nothing ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... industrial state under socialism might conceivably take: The official directors of industry might be either an autocratic bureaucracy, or they might else be subject to elected politicians representing the knowledge and opinions prevalent ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock

... "They've had my account for over ten years—ten years. Well, it seems they've got some autocratic rule that you have to keep over five hundred dollars there or they won't carry you. They wrote me a letter a few months ago and told me I'd been running too low. Once I gave out two bum checks—remember? that night in Reisenweber's?—but I made them good the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... gained by the Germans may be ascribed to the strikingly prompt mobilization of their armies, one of the most noticeable features of their perfect military system, devised by almost autocratic power; their later successes were greatly aided by the blunders of the French, whose stupendous errors materially shortened the war, though even if prolonged it could, in my opinion, have had ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... When the autocratic reign of Henry Dundas as Lord Advocate was for a time eclipsed, Henry Erskine was his successor in the Whig interest. In his good-humoured way Dundas proposed to lend Erskine his embroidered gown, suggesting that it ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... us in the earlier portion of this chapter answer the question. 'I say to my servant, Go! and he goeth; Come! and he cometh; Do this! and he doeth it. Speak Thou, and all the embattled forces of the universe will obey Thine autocratic and sovereign behest,' they 'hearken to His commandments, and do the voice ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... products of civilization, result from and imply the influence of kings and leaders in essentially the same sense as do the successes of primitive war, the only difference being that the kings are here more numerous, and though they do not wear any arms or uniforms, are incomparably more autocratic than the kings and czars who do."[199] "Slavery, feudalism, and capitalism," he tells us, "agree with one another in being systems under which the few"[200] control the actions ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... perhaps forever," said Philip Dru. "Already a large majority of the newly elected House have asked me to become the Executive. If I accepted, there would be those who would believe that in a little while, I would again assume autocratic control. I would be a constant menace to my country if I remained ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... for one thing, Monsieur! You see, I owe you a compliment for calling me such a pretty name as this!" With a mischievous smile she touched the roses nodding in her girdle. "And very autocratic for another, with a very bad temper. If you can't get your way you would be ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... sects reduce Our sainted Mother of th'imperial Isles, Which have for ages from Her bosom drank Those truths immortal, Life and Conscience need. But never may the rude assault of hearts Self-blinded, or the autocratic pride Of Reason, by no hallowing faith subdued, One lock of glory from Her rev'rend head Succeed in tearing: Love, and Awe, and Truth Her doctrines preach, with apostolic force: Her creed is Unity, her head is Christ, Her Forms primeval, and her Creed divine, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... endless preparation for strife and bloodshed, but a real peace. The world is an old world. It has never had peace. It has been rocking and swaying like an ocean, and Europe—poor Europe!—has always lived under the menace of the sword. When this war began two-thirds of Europe were under autocratic rule. It is the other way about now, and democracy means peace. The democracy of France did not want war; the democracy of Italy hesitated long before they entered the war; the democracy of this country shrank from it—shrank and ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... Galitzin, who had been her father's minister and was now Sophia's main supporter in all her autocratic designs and actions, found himself obliged to leave Moscow to attend to his private affairs on his great estates, and to be absent for more than a month; and after his departure the princess depended on me more than ever. Like many women in high ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... iron age; for the present, he is satisfied with courtiers, later he will demand valets. All those who are of any worth, all those who stand erect before his shadow, will be sacrificed sooner or later. His autocratic methods will end by producing the same results as those of ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam

... said the autocratic Mr. Quince, sharply. "O' course, if you think you know more about it than I do, I've nothing ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... Junkers are riff-raff whose only claim to their position is the possession of ability of some sort: mostly ability to make money. And, of course, the Kaiser is a Junker, though less true-blue than the Crown Prince, and much less autocratic than Sir Edward Grey, who, without consulting us, sends us to war by a word to an ambassador and pledges all our wealth to his foreign allies by a ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... mildly uttered; it is impossible to receive more chastely and more gracefully, what M. Bonaparte, in his autocratic style, calls "guarantees of calmness,"[2] but what Moliere, with the license of a great ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... people who were not getting on Air of knowing everything, and really they knew nothing—nothing As if man's honour suffered when he's injured Autocratic manner of settling other people's business Avoid falling between two stools Bad business to be unable to take pride in anything one does Begging the question Believe without the risk of too much thinking ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger

... Bois, how I envy you! You will have an object in life, while I, who feel as though a pent-up volcano were roaring within me, am condemned to let my struggling energies smoulder beneath the ashes of my father's autocratic will! You have heard of his opposition to my studying for the bar? What is to become of me if I am deprived of every stimulating incentive to action?—especially now—now that"—he checked himself suddenly. He was not aware that M. de Bois had been informed by Bertha of Madeleine's rejection, and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... him. Again and again, in the course of history, he has gathered desperate courage to defy authority that is blind and evil. Always at last, as in the French and the Russian revolutions and in the more recent European revolts, he succeeds in wresting the power from those in autocratic authority. And yet, just as of old, not only kings, but all others who attempt dictatorship and the playing of providence, try the simple tactics of the ostrich; they close the window, or their ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various

... as he was en rapport with Nathaniel Macon, Speaker of the House, and with John Randolph, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, he could direct the policies of his party as effectively as the most autocratic dictator. When he had made up his mind that Justice Samuel Chase of the Supreme Court should be impeached, he simply penned a note to Joseph Nicholson, who was then managing the impeachment of Judge Pickering, raising the question whether Chase's attack on the ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... unnecessary too, as if the day didn't come soon enough without his warning; but I suppose he is anxious to waken his hens and get them at their daily task, and so he disturbs the entire community. In short, I dislike him; his swagger, his autocratic strut, his greed, his irritating self-consciousness, his endless parading of himself up and down in a ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... fact of that 'striking and jovial personality' were not properly insisted upon, Sir Morton went himself to see the editor of the 'Riversford Gazette,' an illiterate tuft-hunting little man,—and nearly frightened him into fits. He had asserted himself in this kind of autocratic fashion ever since he had purchased Badsworth, when he was still in his forties,—and it may be well imagined that at the age of sixty he was not prepared to be thwarted, even in a matter wherein he had ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... reluctantly gave his consent for Said to be placed on the roll of the regiment of Spahis. And the unusual love existing between the two brothers had survived a test that might have proved too strong for its continuance; Omar, bowing to the decision of the autocratic old Chief, had refrained even from comment, and Said, despite his enthusiasm, had carefully avoided inflaming his brother's deeply rooted hatred of the nation the younger man was proud to serve. His easy-going nature adapted itself readily to the two wholly separate lives ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... of their leaders, that they always become "machines," bureaucratically organized like governments. Lagardelle adopts Rousseau's view that the essence of representative government (all existing governments that are not autocratic being representative) is "the inactivity of the citizen" and urges that political parties, like society in general, are divided between the governing and the governed. While there is much truth in this analysis,—this being the situation which it is sought to correct both in government and ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... will was law to me in everything. His slightest wish I regarded as a behest. His talents amazed me. But I thought him not only the cleverest, but the best of men. It seemed to me right that such a man should be autocratic. A beneficent autocracy became my ideal of government. That my rector's will should be law to his wife, his servants, his curates, his organist, his choir, to those attached to his schools, to those who benefited by the charities he organized, ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... extremest wealth, by degradation to the rank of rulers and commanders, and by the severest rigors of luxury, power, splendor, and magnificence known among the Kosekin. Overwhelmed thus with the cares of government, crushed under the weight of authority and autocratic rule, surrounded by countless slaves all ready to die for them, their lives would be embittered and their punishment would be more than they could bear. But the philosophic Kohen Gadol dared all these punishments, and pursued his ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... is told by men whom he respects that this fact makes it certain that the representative system which is suitable for England will never be suitable for India, and therefore he remains uneasily responsible for the permanent autocratic government of three hundred million people, remembering from time to time that some of those people or their neighbours may have much more definite political ideas than his own, and that he ultimately may have to fight for a power which he hardly ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas

... this. And when it was said that such was the teaching of the Bible, he answered: 'Even if five hundred Bibles should say so, he would not believe it!' And to our knowledge he was never called to account for this statement." (20.) The autocratic actions of the leaders of the North Carolina Synod and their adherents virtually resulted in a rupture of Synod in the same year. For the dissatisfied party held a synod of their own at Buffalo Creek, at the time specified by the constitution, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... parties, Valckenier and Hooft, were agreed in demanding that the French offers of a separate peace should be accepted. On the same side was found Henry Casimir, Stadholder of Friesland, who was jealous of his cousin's autocratic exercise ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... leaders of the population of Bantoc were wealthy little brown men. There was much money in circulation, the leading Moros and Tagalos having handsome homes and entertaining lavishly. There was a native fashionable set, just as exclusive and autocratic as any that exists in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... view, Rose's sobs actually frightened the birds and the squirrels. She paced back and forth under the trees, wondering how she could have been engaged to a man for eight months and know so little about him as she seemed to know about Stephen Waterman today. Who would have believed he could be so autocratic, so severe, SS so unapproachable? Who could have foreseen that she, Rose Wiley, would ever be given up to another man,—handed over as coolly as if she had been a bale of cotton? She wanted to return Claude Merrill's love because it was the only way out ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... himself a prisoner in Chateau St. Louis. In due time he was brought before the sovereign council and convicted of obstructing the King's justice. He was confined for almost a year, and then, as the priests also joined in protest against the autocratic governance of Frontenac, it was judged prudent to refer the matter to the King. Perrot was accordingly taken from prison and shipped to France for a new trial. The result, however, was the vindication of Frontenac, both Louis and Colbert ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... this point and was patient while the prince turned the conversation on his favourite theme, the inferiority of a democratic to an autocratic form of government. ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett

... France even when she was under the military despotism of Napoleon. He was the arch-enemy of England in Europe. They were the arch-enemy of England in America. This alone was enough to overcome their natural repugnance to his autocratic ways. Their position towards the British was such that they could not draw back from France, whose change of government had made her a more efficient anti-British friend. 'Let us unite with France and stand or fall together' was the cry the Democratic press repeated for years in ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood

... in the whole of that vat which seethed so pleasantly with culture, one bubble of revolutionary ferment. Here there was neither poverty nor discontent nor muttered menace of any upheaval: Mrs Lucas, busy and serene, worked harder than any of her subjects, and exercised an autocratic control over a ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... monarchy, under Louis Phillippe, followed. It was successful at first, until the old, old story of attempted autocratic usurpation was again repeated by the monarch. He was forcibly ejected, and the Republic of 1848 was formed. But long ere this, moving gently down the stream of life, the journey had ended, and Lafayette slept with his fathers. Vive l'esprit ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell

... or to turn on his heel, and walk out without another word. He did neither. Either would have been disastrous, as he well knew. He had not come up three years with the spring brigade from the Dickey and Lake Bolsover without knowing the autocratic, almost royal, rule of old Angus. Fitzpatrick, factor at Fort Severn ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... perversity had recently astonished those who remembered her in her first season as a sweet, reasonable, and unspoiled girl, was always friendly with him. That must be looked upon as important, considering Sylvia's unassailable position, and her kinship to the autocratic old lady whose kindly ukase had for generations remained the undisputed law in the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... insanity say that the Roman Emperors as soon as they attained the rule of the world were made mad by the possession of that stupendous power. The sceptre of Emperor William is mighty. No more autocratic influence proceeds from any other monarch or ruler. But you will say how about our President in time of war? Great power can safely be given to a president. Our presidents have all risen from the ranks. Usually they have gone through ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... he was President of the University of Princeton, and was elected as Governor of the State of New Jersey. Even in those days he displayed, side by side, on the one hand, his democratic bias which led him violently to oppose the aristocratic student-clubs, and on the other, his egocentric and autocratic leanings which made him inaccessible to any advice from outside, and constantly embroiled him with the governing council of the University. As Governor of New Jersey, The Holy Land of "Trusts," Mr. Wilson opened an extraordinarily sharp campaign against their dominion. Mr. Roosevelt, ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... fetters. Once the colonies had freed themselves from England's protecting arm, it would be a simple matter for the Bourbons to gather them in like so many little lost chicks from a rainy yard. The intrigants of autocratic systems have never been able to understand that the urge of the spirit of independence in men is not primarily to break shackles but to STAND ALONE and that the breaking of bonds is incidental to the true demonstration of freedom. The Bourbons and their ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... pillows, or that we might not scrawl obscene verses on the whitewashed walls, in case we had succeeded in smuggling in a forbidden lead-pencil. For such offenses, and they happened only too often, we were all held equally guilty in the eyes of the sour, autocratic matron. As each night brought a fresh relay of girls to the dormitory, it was productive of a new series of episodes, which ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... of these "livings" are in the gift of great land owners; one noble lord alone disposes of fifty-six such plums; and needless to say, he does not present them to clergymen who favor radical land-taxes. He gives them to men like himself—autocratic to the poor, easy-going to members of his own class, and cynical concerning ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... which is perhaps partly to be explained by the fact, that he was called in his eighteenth year to the position of an absolute sovereign, and that his ungovernable fury against every one who disturbed his autocratic course by counter-argument or counter-advice scared away from him all independent counsellors. What various causes cooperated to produce the weak and disgraceful management which he showed in the first Macedonian war, we cannot tell; it may ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... significance to democracy are of significance to education; for democracy and education are processes concerned with, the people's ability to solve their problems through their experience in solving them. If America is ever to realize its concept of political democracy, it can accept neither the autocratic method of business management nor the bureaucratic schemes of state socialism. It cannot realize political democracy until it realizes in a large measure ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot

... perpetual expectancy, and for this Ahmed Ben Hassan preserved the rigid discipline that prevailed in his tribe, insisting on the high standard that had kept them famous. The life-work that his predecessor had taken over from his father the present Ahmed Ben Hassan had carried on and developed with autocratic perseverance. The inborn love of fighting had been carefully fostered in the tribe, the weapons with which they were armed were of the newest pattern. Raoul knew with perfect certainty that to the picked men following them this ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... doubtful. The hereditary taint expressed itself, in his case, not by mystic leanings as in his two brothers, Alexander and Nicholas (in their various ways, for one was mystically liberal and the other mystically autocratic), but by the fury of an uncontrollable temper which generally broke out in disgusting abuse on the parade ground. He was a passionate militarist and an amazing drill-master. He treated his Polish army as a spoiled child treats a favourite toy, except that he did not take it to bed with him ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... Divine Mysteries to mankind. This Divine Envy still exists in a modified form, and varies according to circumstances. In Hesiod it appears in the lowest type of human malignity. In the God of Moses, it is jealousy of the infringement of the autocratic power, the check to political treason; and even the penalties denounced for worshipping other gods often seem dictated rather by a jealous regard for His own greatness in Deity, than by the immorality and degraded nature of the worship itself. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... British Freemasonry, to which a certain number of students of occult science, including all the members of the S.R.I.A., belonged. "English Masonry," it was remarked, "boasts the Grand Lodge of 1717, the Mother Lodge of the World. They are a proud, jealous, autocratic body. Co-Masonry derives from the Grand Orient of France, an illegitimate body according to English ruling. No English Mason can work with Co-Masons.... If the English Grand Lodge hears of anything ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... myself paddled up to it, and were most hospitably entertained by Mr. Fraser and his agreeable family. His father's bagpipes, still in excellent order, were speedily brought out, and it was interesting to handle them, for they had heralded the approach of the autocratic little Governor to many an inland post from Hudson's Bay to Fraser River, over seventy ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair

... think it, I'm going to fight them for their own good. Bebel wrote in his memoirs that the way to get democratic progress in autocratic countries is through military defeat; and it seems up to America to ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... hundred years ahead. I am sure the ignorant nurse-maids will have killed our baby by then, and we shall be a wretched down-trodden commune, while they will be a splendidly governed aristocratic nation under one autocratic king! ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn

... lost his thread as well as his temper, and the conversazione came to a premature end, to the great satisfaction of the conspirators, most of whom had at one time or another been silenced in their attempts to bring him to logical conclusions, by his autocratic way of carrying on the debate without regard to objections, which they had not had the courage ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... turned away from Louis, holding out longing arms for the softness of her mother, the autocratic strength of her father. But she had to dry her eyes quickly because the cabman had stopped and was speaking through ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... proceed the play changes from day to day. However autocratic the producer, however obstinate the dramatist, the play will vary at each rehearsal like a large cloud in a gentle wind. It is never the same play for two days together. Nor is this surprising, seeing that every day and night a ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett

... know that the last is a theory only to be read in books. Where is there one so autocratic in her own home as a Chinese mother? She lives within its four walls, but there she is supreme. Her sons obey her even when their hair is touched with silver. Did not thy son have to ask thy leave before he would ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper

... ability to keep his men in abject fear of his commands. It held the men in the thralls of hypnotism, and in its efficaciousness depended the safety of the captain and his "loyal" adherents. With some crews the title Captain did not convey autocratic power nor dictatorial prerogatives, his power to command absolutely being confined only to times of combat. A usurpation of power frequently brought death as a deterrent to any aspiring successor. In those cases ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann

... polite man—this towering Czar; but for all that, a very cruel man—a colossal embodiment of the autocratic principle— selfish and cold and hard—though he did win upon the Queen's heart by praise of her husband. He said: "Nowhere will you find a handsomer young man; he has such an air of nobility and goodness." It was a ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... unwilling to swear that, need go any further. You must have confidence in my plans, my judgment. And you must be willing to obey. It is all very autocratic, I know, but the expedition cannot proceed on any ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... traveled no faster than my thoughts as I hurried back to my own apartment and the bedside of my mother-in-law. I dreaded inexpressibly the conflict I foresaw when the autocratic old woman should find out that I had sent for ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... carpentering," said Andre-Louis. Nevertheless he had to go back to it that afternoon, and to labour strenuously until four o'clock, when at last the autocratic Binet announced himself satisfied with the preparations, and proceeded, again with the help of Andre-Louis, to prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallow candles and partly by ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... evening talking learnedly about silos and ensilage I admit that I became the very pattern of humility, but when I take my place in the throne of my arm-chair with the light from the green-shaded lamp falling on the open pages of my book, I assure you I am decidedly an autocratic person. My retainers must distinctly keep their places! I have my court favourites upon whom I lavish the richest gifts of my attention. I reserve for them a special place in the worn case nearest my person, where at the mere outreaching of an idle hand I can summon them to beguile ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... and it is not surprising, for, in spite of being autocratic to the last degree, he is honest, courageous, ambitious, hard working, and, withal, a thorough German, being intensely patriotic. Indeed, if the people of the Fatherland had the right to vote for a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... If love is blind, self-love is surely half-witted as well, for it never sees nor understands that the world is fooling it. Roden failed to heed the significant fact that Von Holzen did not even ask him what line of conduct he intended to follow with regard to Cornish, nor seek in his autocratic way to instruct him on that point; but turned instead to other matters and did not again refer to Cornish or the ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... position had made things easy for her in a way and now her society editorship of the leading journal had become a position from which she wielded much power over the gay world that delighted in her wit and beauty, took her autocratic dictums in most cases, and followed her ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... as a man cultivates independence and autocratic ideas, just so in proportion is he nearing the brink over which many have fallen to destruction. When an independent man has a fall, his enemies glory and loud are the shouts that arise from them, and if we listen closely we will hear the multitude ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter

... time the autocratic form of government still prevailed in Russia, and the Allies still considered themselves bound to Russia's aspirations; moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the obligations established by the Pact of London. That is why in the statements of the ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... play being amusing; from first to last the audience was convulsed. The actresses threw themselves admirably into their parts, and rendered their characters with the utmost spirit. Veronica, well padded with pillows, made a stout and presentable Sir Anthony Absolute, and played the autocratic parent to the life. Hermie, with blue cloak, sword, and military stride, endeavoured to live up to her conception of an eighteenth-century buck, and made love with a fervour that was all the more enhanced ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... white-haired in the Cathedral's service. He was a fine figure in his purple gown, broad-shouldered, his chest and stomach of a grand protuberance, his broad white flowing beard a true emblem of his ancient dignity. He was the most autocratic of Vergers and had been allowed now for many years to do as he pleased. The only thorn in his flesh was Cobbett, the junior Verger, who, as he very well realised, was longing for him to die, that he might step into his shoes. "I do believe," he was accustomed ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... idolatrie and superstitioun whatsoever.... And therefore wee confesse and avow that sik as resist the supreme power doing that thing quhilk appertains to his charge, do resist Goddis ordinance, and therefore cannot be guiltles."[260] Melville, who was called to contend with a king bent on securing autocratic power in the church as well as in the state, laid down, with the utmost precision, the principle in chapter x., "Although kings and princes that be godlie, sumtymes be their awin authority whan the kirk is corruptit and all things out of ordor, place ministers and restore the trew service ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... America, throughout all the countries of Europe, over the plains of Russia and the hills of Palestine, men and women had known what war was and had prayed that its horrors might never return. In even the most autocratic states subjects and rulers were for once of one mind: in the future war must be prevented. To secure peace forever was the earnest desire of two statesmen so strongly contrasted as the impressionable Czar Alexander I of Russia, acclaimed as the "White Angel" ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... idea of property is given us by the Roman law, faithfully followed in this particular by the ancient legists. It is the absolute, exclusive, autocratic domain of a man over a thing,—a domain which begins by USUCAPTION, is maintained by POSSESSION, and finally, by the aid of PRESCRIPTION, finds its sanction in the civil law; a domain which so identifies the man with the thing, that the proprietor can say, "He who uses my field, virtually ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... the first time in Russia's history law has been established based on the direct will of the population, established through the most democratic franchise in the world. Under Czarism, law was merely the promulgation of autocratic tyranny.... ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... riots, assassination of officials and general bloodshed were the common order of the day. At the very beginning of these outbreaks a manifest of the czar promised some reforms. However, he made it clear that in a general way the Government was resolved to retain its autocratic form. In a way this manifest is a true picture of the cool attitude which the Government took throughout these troublous times. Whenever the Government was forced by especially violent outbreaks to fear ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... route in 1841. I did this before the introduction of representative government, and it is right to say that I knew that I could not have got a vote for it. I felt that this was the last act of an expiring autocratic regime, and I believe it was one of the least popular of my acts; but certainly no small sum of public money has been expended with greater results—for, as I hoped, Mr. Forrest's expedition has bridged the gap that ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... country. History has happily long since done justice to James Otis and seen him in a fairer and far more worthy light—the light not only of a patriot lover of liberty, but an ardent and invincible defender of his country against autocratic encroachment, and a fearless asserter of the principles which have become the foundation stone of the American nation. In his masterful way, Otis was at times heedlessly bitter and inveterate in his prejudices against the mother ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... the state is almost unanimous in its condemnation of the late Legislature. * * * As we have said before, the general littleness of the body, its petty conduct in many instances, its trades and combinations, the autocratic methods of self-seeking members, the quarrels, the cheap declamations and intemperate and undignified and unwarrantable public denunciations by members who should have shown a better sense of dignity and decency, the dishonesty ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs



Words linked to "Autocratic" :   undemocratic, domineering, autocrat



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