toggle menu
menu
vocabulary
1000+ books

tyranny
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • Going back to school would mean placing himself once again under the tyranny of Dolores Umbridge, who had no doubt managed to force through another dozen decrees in their absence; there was no Quidditch to look forward to now that he had been banned; there was every likelihood that their burden of homework would increase as the exams drew even nearer; and Dumbledore remained as remote as ever.†   (source)
  • We have ended decades of tyranny.†   (source)
  • The storm finally blew itself out sometime after 1 A.M., disappearing somewhere out at sea, its flashes of anger growing fainter and then finally disappearing altogether, off to bring meteorological tyranny to some other unseen place.†   (source)
  • But at least Arobynn had an excuse for being equal parts tyrannical and doting.†   (source)
  • My Aunt Martha—like many Americans—could become quite tyrannical in the defense of democracy.†   (source)
  • "Many of the Illuminati," Langdon continued, "wanted to combat the church's tyranny with acts of violence, but their most revered member persuaded them against it.†   (source)
  • Some conspiracy theorists thought the princess had survived and was still alive somewhere, waiting for the right time to reclaim her crown and end Levana's rule of tyranny, but Cinder knew it was only desperation that fueled these rumors.†   (source)
  • AND CAN I THEN BUT PRAY OTHERS MAY NEVER FEEL TYRANNIC SWAY?†   (source)
  • Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority.†   (source)
  • On her end, Mommy had no model for raising us other than the experience of her own Orthodox Jewish family, which despite the seeming flaws-an unbending nature, a stridency, a focus on money, a deep distrust of all outsiders, not to mention her father's tyranny-represented the best and worst of the immigrant mentality: hard work, no nonsense, quest for excellence, distrust of authority figures, and a deep belief in God and education.†   (source)
  • Poor tyrannical Rachel keeps trying to build a big-sister career upon a slim sixteen-month seniority, insisting that we respect her as our elder.†   (source)
  • More than eight thousand of Art's pilgrims seeking escape from the tyranny of mediocrity and searching for a renewal of vision on this rough-hewn world.†   (source)
  • And tyranny and absolute rule are dead.†   (source)
  • We are living in a tyrannical state now, where we are not allowed to— Mae checked how many pages were left.†   (source)
  • They were all Hitler majors, members of the only class I still taught, Advanced Nazism, three hours a week, restricted to qualified seniors, a course of study designed to cultivate historical perspective, theoretical rigor and mature insight into the continuing mass appeal of fascist tyranny, with special emphasis on parades, rallies and uniforms, three credits, written reports.†   (source)
  • History teaches us that tyranny has never endured.†   (source)
  • Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules.†   (source)
  • Overthrowing one corrupt government and instating some kind of factionless tyranny.†   (source)
  • The truth was that Escolastica Daza had no other means of support except her brother's charity, and she knew that his tyrannical nature would never forgive such a betrayal of his confidence.†   (source)
  • For this type of constitution to be good, it must not degenerate into "tyranny"—that is, when one ruler governs the state to his own advantage.†   (source)
  • Mother went on talking, telling me that as the daughter of the okiya I would at some point move into the larger room occupied by Hatsumomo and Pumpkin, who together would share the smaller room where I'd lived up to now I was listening with only half my mind, until I began slowly to realize that as Mother's daughter, I would no longer have to struggle under Hatsumomo's tyranny.†   (source)
  • But, of course, it was my body, hungering, biding its time against the tyranny of my spirit.†   (source)
  • And then, the vicious political idea--the justification of personal tyranny.†   (source)
  • If we fail now, then Galbatorix's tyranny will extend over all the races, and his reign shall have no conceivable end.†   (source)
  • I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people by whites.†   (source)
  • "Death before tyranny," he says.†   (source)
  • But all the tyranny in the world will never put a God in the heavens!†   (source)
  • Perhaps there lingered in this a touch of half-jealousy of his wife's baby; perhaps he knew instinctively that Johnnie's rebellion against his tyranny was always strongest where Deanie was concerned.†   (source)
  • This is not a tidy world of tyrannical men and victimized women, but a messier realm of oppressive social customs adhered to by men and women alike.†   (source)
  • Phipps crossed her fingers, hoping that these matings would re-create the perfect forms of the forebears without the tyrannical disposition.†   (source)
  • But for now, I'm free from the tyranny of their need masquerading as concern.†   (source)
  • And how soon would Hattie resume her tyranny over me?†   (source)
  • Only then did I begin to speak of tyranny.†   (source)
  • Listen, Leslie, I'm not sure if I'm actually exercising some sort of tyranny or not.†   (source)
  • When you have lived through deception and tyranny and you survive, you tend to overreact to the slightest reminder of that tyranny.†   (source)
  • Combating the Tyranny of the Positive Attitude BARBARA HELD MANY AMERICANS INSIST THAT EVERYONE HAVE a positive attitude, even when the going gets rough.†   (source)
  • I want to help, but there is a tyranny involved ….†   (source)
  • Never was a cause more important or glorious than that which you are engaged in; not only your wives, your children, and distant posterity, but humanity at large, the world of mankind, are interested in it; for if tyranny should prevail in this great country, we may expect liberty will expire throughout the world.†   (source)
  • More likely, just hating her mother for yet another act of tyranny, Annie concluded.†   (source)
  • Querido Gustavo, The days rain tyranny.†   (source)
  • Shall I call the tree tyrannical, since where it stands nothing survives but itself and its highborne guests?†   (source)
  • Half the lords in the realm could not tell taxation from tyranny, and would bolt to the nearest usurper in a heartbeat if it would save them a clipped copper.†   (source)
  • In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny.†   (source)
  • We are breaking up the vicious tyranny of economic power.†   (source)
  • The city, river-girt, has a tyrannical need for order and symmetry.†   (source)
  • This was the monarch who had their father killed so they could begin their tyrannical rule over the Milago.†   (source)
  • And we much prefer it to the tyrannical ravings of a whimsical monarch, or in your case, a child queen.†   (source)
  • According to Rolf, Miss Boon was tyrannical, Ms.†   (source)
  • He tried to retaliate by putting his guitar up on the wall, but the absence of music hurt him more than it did anyone else, and in a week their tyranny had beaten him down and, allowing that the theory of scales was correct, he had resumed his playing.†   (source)
  • "bursting the bonds of tyranny," and the like, may come across to this post-Freudian age as mawkish posturing, romantic sentimentalism, hollow platitudes.†   (source)
  • Phillip Bolling: "We talk of freedom while slavery exists in the land, and speak with horror of the tyranny of the Turk; but we foster an evil which the best interests of the community require shall be removed and to which we trace the cause of the depression of eastern Virginia."†   (source)
  • A national guaranty would be used against both tyrannical rulers and community factions.†   (source)
  • These people had cried out for deliverance from the tyrannical reign of the one-eyed king and, beaten almost to extinction in their last campaign and now about to fight beside goblins and giants, they longed for a hero to gain them back their lost pride.†   (source)
  • We established this country in the first place with strong state governments just for that reason, to avoid a central tyranny-†   (source)
  • He said, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."†   (source)
  • This company will provide termporary supervision and will start analyzing how to do away with the tyrannical parts of the Authority and how to transfer the useful parts to private hands.†   (source)
  • Freedom or tyranny!†   (source)
  • "But you're under the tyrannical hoot of the Horvath, Mr. Tyler."†   (source)
  • Ralph asked if Helen had something to tell him; and when it turned out that there was nothing wrong (or nothing, at least, that she would admit), childish love turned into adolescent embarrassment turned into manly tyranny.†   (source)
  • Bonaparte does not suspect it now, but when he returns to France he will be ready to take command of a revolutionary army, and use his knack to end the tyranny of the ruling class instead of using it to add meaningless crowns to King Charles's most unworthy head.†   (source)
  • By now it must be the sum of many races, and long ago it left the tyranny of matter behind.†   (source)
  • Other immigrants come to America looking for freedom from tyranny, acceptance by the culture, assimilation into it, this melting pot.†   (source)
  • This was the constant, overwhelming reality of her father, a man who had exercised over his household, and especially Sophie, a tyrannical domination so inflexible yet so cunningly subtle that she was a grown woman, fully come of age, before she realized that she loathed him past all telling.†   (source)
  • One must go to contemporary observers in Europe for a non-Texan opinion as to the nature of the tyranny that raised need for revolt.†   (source)
  • Somewhere she had picked up the tyrannical spirit of the ladies of the Mauve Decade and, like them, looked upon men as naturally brutish creatures whose licentious and lazy instincts could be overcome only by the guidance of a good woman.†   (source)
  • Everything had conspired to push black Africa into every kind of tyranny.†   (source)
  • To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny.†   (source)
  • There was kindliness in that power, but it was corroded by the habit of tyranny.†   (source)
  • One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.   (source)
  • Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.   (source)
  • Europeans criticize me for my tyrannical rule, claiming that I suppress creativity.†   (source)
  • But that exacting, tyrannical God of his has left me for good.†   (source)
  • The rich, tyrannical cities must be destroyed, the virtuous poor set free.†   (source)
  • It's sinful and tyrannical, according to Jefferson.†   (source)
  • I will not be a slave to the Horvath or to a tyrannical government of socialists.†   (source)
  • And it will eventually turn into a tyrannical aristocracy.†   (source)
  • Therefore, the executive can easily declare an emergency and assume tyrannical powers.†   (source)
  • Before transforming into a tyrannical aristocracy, the Senate must first corrupt itself.†   (source)
  • If this is not true, a tyrant or a few tyrannical nobles could say they were creating a republic.†   (source)
  • Their local governments will support them if they must oppose a tyrannical federal government.†   (source)
  • All were regarded as tyrannical by many, all eventually collapsed or were overthrown.†   (source)
  • He sounded now incredibly like one of those lawyers summing up, tyrannical and grandiose.†   (source)
  • He returned from the cellar a changed man--exuberant, expansive, tyrannical.†   (source)
  • But I'd thought it was a small conflict, like the Boston Massacre, which Dad talked about a lot, in which half a dozen people had been martyred by a tyrannical government.†   (source)
  • Once it's mandatory to have an account, and once all government services are channeled through the Circle, you'll have helped create the world's first tyrannical monopoly.†   (source)
  • But if you are thinking these are the actions of a terrorist group or a tyrannical government regime, you are only partially correct.†   (source)
  • " Well, Grandmother was so marvelous she brought the house down; it was a grand performance, rather wasted—in my opinion—on poor John and Constance, who were drearily played by a somewhat sheepish Mr. Fish, our dog-loving neighbor (and a regular choice of Dan's), and by the tyrannical Mrs. Walker, whose legs were her sexiest feature—and they were almost completely covered in the long dresses appropriate to this drawing-room comedy.†   (source)
  • THAT YOUR SEX ARE NATURALLY TYRANNICAL IS A TRUTH SO THOROUGHLY ESTABLISHED AS TO ADMIT OF NO DISPUTE, BUT SUCH OF YOU AS WISH TO BE HAPPY WILLINGLY GIVE UP THE HARSH TITLE OF MASTER FOR THE MORE TENDER AND ENDEARING ONE OF FRIEND.†   (source)
  • As for the tens of thousands of immigrants deported under Section 98, including those sent back to countries such as Germany and Italy where they face internment, these had advocated tyrannical rule and now would get a first-hand taste of it, Mr. Griffen stated.†   (source)
  • Outraged northerners mourn his loss and openly rant about revenge, while southerners rejoice in the death of the tyrannical man who wouldn't give them the freedom to form their own nation.†   (source)
  • But, my grandmother's tyrannical constitution brought its own kind of pressure to bear on him; as she grew older, she was always ill: aches, migraines, moodiness that only expensive specialists in the States would know how to cure.†   (source)
  • Abigail controlled too tyrannically the luxuriant vegetable flow that grew in such thriftless riot in the warm Carolina days.†   (source)
  • Goblins in all their forms were miserable creatures—cruel, tyrannical, and bullying whenever they could manage the upper hand.†   (source)
  • If all power were to be vested in a single legislature, "What was there to restrain it from making tyrannical laws, in order to execute them in a tyrannical manner?"†   (source)
  • A twenty-three-year-old printer from Philadelphia, a private in the 71st Pennsylvania wounded while helping to repel Pickett's assault at Gettysburg, wrote to his father that any sacrifice was worth the cost, "for what is home with all its endearments, if we have not a country freed from every vestige of the anarchy, and the tyrannical and blood thirsty despotism which threatens on every side to overwhelm us?"†   (source)
  • Annie had come across them on her morning run from whose tyrannical routine she seemed, with no apparent ill effect, to have all but escaped.†   (source)
  • He had nicknamed a particularly tyrannical, humorless, and rosy steward "Pink Whiskers," a sobriquet that was soon used by all the jockeys.†   (source)
  • That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of yours as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.†   (source)
  • But to a correspondent in England, he warned, "Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel asunlimited despots," and he lamented that so much more blood would have to flow before the lesson was learned.†   (source)
  • He stopped internal conspiracies, led by ambitious and tyrannical people who threatened the government.†   (source)
  • If the federal government overreaches its authority and uses its power tyrannically, the people, who created it, must go to the Constitution.†   (source)
  • Tyrannical Use of Militia Illogical†   (source)
  • If the new Constitution is not adopted, the country will either fall apart or Congress will be given tyrannical powers.†   (source)
  • Encroachments can lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands.†   (source)
  • Because of the danger to them, State leaders would not lightly or rashly attempt this, except when the federal government uses its authority tyrannically.†   (source)
  • If the House of Representatives can pass an unjust and tyrannical law and not be punished, why should more than two thirds of the Senate be punished for approving an injurious treaty with a foreign power?†   (source)
  • "When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body," says he, "there can be no liberty, because apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate enact tyrannical laws then execute them in a tyrannical manner."†   (source)
  • Not virtuous but tyrannical.†   (source)
  • -ENGLISH AUTHOR SAMUEL JOHNSON IN HIS POLITICAL PAMPHLET, TAXATION NO TYRANNY   (source)
  • Wasn't it to impede tyranny, aggression, repression?†   (source)
  • Theirs was a gentle tyranny, but a tyranny nevertheless.†   (source)
  • Death, sickness, poverty, tyranny, and countless other miseries stalk the land.†   (source)
  • So why should he object to the tyranny of a political dictatorship?†   (source)
  • Through the long tyranny of that night, something had begun to stir and kick inside us.†   (source)
  • "Jamie, I've been fighting the tyranny of you lefty jerks my whole life.†   (source)
  • Annie's acts of tyranny were normally executed without a hint of guilt or self-doubt.†   (source)
  • He can never be free of the tyranny of nature.†   (source)
  • Her tyranny over my dreams and my daydreams was unshakable and complete.†   (source)
  • Sorry, but this country was not founded on existing under tyranny.†   (source)
  • Revolutions produced the extremes of tyranny and anarchy.†   (source)
  • If practical at all, it would instantly degenerate into a military tyranny.†   (source)
  • And without it, every government degenerates into tyranny.†   (source)
  • In a monarchy, it is a barrier to a king's tyranny.†   (source)
  • And the approach of tyranny was measured by how far away from annual elections.†   (source)
  • The Senate must be corrupted first before it can try to establish a tyranny.†   (source)
  • Some fell under the tyranny of Macedonian garrisons; others fell to usurpers within Greece.†   (source)
  • Legislative usurpations lead to the same tyranny as executive usurpations.†   (source)
  • In a little time, the same type of tyrannies that hurt Europe will be established in this country.†   (source)
  • Are the State governments tyrannies because they have this power?†   (source)
  • The tyrannies of Philip, the king of Macedon, provoked new alliances among the Greeks.†   (source)
  • Why, then, had he succumbed so completely to the tyranny of the legend?†   (source)
  • Not to mention all the other forms of outrage and tyranny.†   (source)
  • Any psychiatrist would say so: the tyranny of the insecure.†   (source)
  • Once more the subtle tyranny of the Congressman's image.†   (source)
  • Again, I stress this is all myth, but allegedly, the Masons transported their secret wisdom from the Old World to the New World—here, to America—a land they hoped would remain free from religious tyranny.†   (source)
  • And there is often a sense of transcendent claustrophobia, of a shortening horizon, and always a sense of struggle against the tyranny of circumstance—often depicted as a never named sinister male figure who looms.†   (source)
  • Locke had first and foremost emphasized that the legislative and the executive power must be separated if tyranny was to be avoided.†   (source)
  • Locke and Hobbes that the forty-six guests—freed at long last from the tyranny of social conventions—would shove the tables aside, gather the fruits of the earth in hand, and share them freely in a state of natural bliss!†   (source)
  • A Postscript On August 6, 1960, my family arrived in New York City, exiles from the tyranny of Trujillo.†   (source)
  • Even if the tyrannic Hitler had not become head of state in Germany^ all the lesser Nazis could have formed a terrifying mob rule.†   (source)
  • Despite the fact that all the splendid modulations of the seasons and those colorful festivities that recur in the course of normal life have been replaced by a tyranny of indistinguishable days, the men in such situations will carve their 365 notches into a piece of wood or scratch them into the walls of their cell.†   (source)
  • Ye stood in the middle of the space the crowd cleared for her, raised a bony fist, and—with a resolve and strength that Wang could not believe she possessed—said, "Eliminate human tyranny!"†   (source)
  • Mrs. Walker, whose own term as a Vestry member was expiring—thus giving her even more energy for her Sunday school tyrannies—complained that attendance at the adult evening Bible study was flagging.†   (source)
  • No one knows what Colonel Parkman really looked like, since he left no pictorial evidence of himself and the statue wasn't erected until 1885, but he looks like this now Such is the tyranny of Art.†   (source)
  • Throughout time he has struggled against some form of tyranny that would enslave his mind or his body.†   (source)
  • A week or so after denouncing the tyranny of men, Abigail wrote to say that in her loneliness and with so much riding on her shoulders, she scarcely knew which way to turn.†   (source)
  • Eragon had known Ajihad only a short while, but in that time he had come to respect him both as a person and for what he represented: freedom from tyranny.†   (source)
  • If Glaedr and I go to our deaths, then we go willingly, for by our sacrifice, we may help to free Alagaesia from the shadow of Galbatorix's tyranny.†   (source)
  • I know, intelligent criticism cannot be 'wrong,' but I was wrong to submit to the tyranny by which critics of art live, and to follow the road that they follow, because, to maintain their society and vocation, they parse by intellect alone works that are great solely because of the spirit.†   (source)
  • Jaime was horrified by any form of extremism and held that guerrilla warfare is only justified by tyranny, where the only solution is to shoot it out, but that it would be an aberration in a country where change can be obtained by popular vote.†   (source)
  • I don't believe there ever was a people in any age or part of the world that enjoyed so much liberty as the people of America did under the mild indulgent government (God bless it) of England and never was a people under a worser state of tyranny than we are at present.†   (source)
  • A tyranny?†   (source)
  • There is so worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.†   (source)
  • "Death before tyranny," he murmurs.†   (source)
  • Then one day from the world of a carefree, happy life of a young, up-and-coming writer/director in prewar Poland, I was thrown into the Nazis' and, later, Communists' world of hatred, tyranny, murder, and destruction.†   (source)
  • It is tyranny.†   (source)
  • …he didn't know which speeches to believe, which books, which politicians; he didn't know if nations would topple like dominoes or stand separate like trees; he didn't know who really started the war, or why, or when, or with what motives; he didn't know if it mattered; he saw sense in both sides of the debate, but he did not know where truth lay; he didn't know if communist tyranny would prove worse in the long run than the tyrannies of Ky or Thieu or Khanh—he simply didn't know.†   (source)
  • King Charles would surely grant him a title and lands, and send him out a-conquering in Europe, making King Charles ever richer and more powerful and the people ever more willing to endure his tyranny.†   (source)
  • In a democracy, the strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny.†   (source)
  • Rather, he had to instill a sense of purpose and destiny, to make the villagers believe, as he did, that joining the Varden and resisting Galbatorix's tyranny was the noblest action in the world.†   (source)
  • The concepts of southern nationalism, liberty, self-government, resistance to tyranny, and other ideological purposes I quoted earlier all have a rather abstract quality.†   (source)
  • A king is the people's only protection against tyranny…. especially against the worst of all tyrants, themselves.†   (source)
  • Nor did they put much stock in international condemnation, which lumped them in the same category as the other tyrannies of the region, because it seemed a small price to pay for the defeat of Marxism.†   (source)
  • …he didn't know which speeches to believe, which books, which politicians; he didn't know if nations would topple like dominoes or stand separate like trees; he didn't know who really started the war, or why, or when, or with what motives; he didn't know if it mattered; he saw sense in both sides of the debate, but he did not know where truth lay; he didn't know if communist tyranny would prove worse in the long run than the tyrannies of Ky or Thieu or Khanh—he simply didn't know.†   (source)
  • Death before tyranny.†   (source)
  • …all claiming that obedience to objective reality is the same as obedience to the State, that there is no difference between a law of nature and a bureaucrat's directive, that a hungry man is not free, that man must be released from the tyranny of food, shelter and clothing-all of it, for years, that the day might come when Nat Taggart, the realist, would be asked to consider the will of Cuffy Meigs as a fact of nature, irrevocable and absolute like steel, rails and gravitation, to…†   (source)
  • The proportion that discoursed in more depth on ideological issues such as liberty, constitutional rights, resistance to tyranny, and so on was smaller-40 percent.†   (source)
  • You might even consider installing the candidates who receive the least number of votes; unpopular men may be just the sort to save you from a new tyranny.†   (source)
  • It has helped them survive the impervious tyranny of Southern men more comfortable with a myth than a flesh-and-blood woman.†   (source)
  • "For what have we been contending against the tyranny of Britain," she asked, writing to Mary Cranch, "to become the sacrifice of a lawless banditti?†   (source)
  • He was confident that the Confederacy would win this "second War for American Independence" because "Tyranny cannot prosper in the nineteenth century" against "a people fighting for their liberties."†   (source)
  • Adam Selene talked over video, reminding that Authority was certain to try to regain its tyranny and we had only days to prepare; papers quoted him and published stories of their own—we had made special effort to recruit newsmen before coup.†   (source)
  • Not just God, although many are believers in God, but a vision, a philosophy, a shared belief in freedom and justice and the battle against tyranny.†   (source)
  • As always, he was ruled by the tyranny of instinct, by passion and the instant legislation of a simple heart.†   (source)
  • In a letter written three months before he was killed at Chancellorsville, this soldier explained to his father that he considered the war "a struggle between Liberty on one side, and Tyranny on the other."†   (source)
  • Ahead of anyone in the government, and more clearly than any, Adams foresaw the French Revolution leading to chaos, horror, and ultimate tyranny.†   (source)
  • In past history popularly elected governments have been no better and sometimes far worse than overt tyrannies.†   (source)
  • Samuel Adams was quick to callthe killings a "bloody butchery" and to distribute a print published by Paul Revere vividly portraying the scene as a slaughter of the innocent, an image of British tyranny, the Boston Massacre, that would become fixed in the public mind.†   (source)
  • By continuing to drive north toward the old rice and indigo plantations of the Wando River, I was paying ultimatehomage to that fear and my inability to surrender to its tyranny over me.†   (source)
  • A Louisiana cavalryman believed that a Yankee triumph would be "more galling in its tyranny than the darkest horror under which Ireland or Poland has ever groaned," and a Mississippi officer feared it would mean descent "to a depth of degredation immeasurably below that of the Helots of Greece."†   (source)
  • Tradd had enrolled at the Institute to satisfy a dream of his father's, who thought that his son would not—could not—make it through the plebe system but that the process, no matter how brief or cataclysmic, would liberate him from the soft and victorious tyranny of his mother's rule.†   (source)
  • If "traitors be allowed to overthrow and break asunder ties most sacred—costing our forefathers long years of blood and toil," agreed a Connecticut enlisted man in 1863, then "all the hope and confidence of the world in the capacity of men for self government will be lost …. and perhaps be followed by a long night of tyranny."†   (source)
  • Beyond its stirring preamble, most of the document before Congress was taken up with a list of grievances, specific charges against the King—"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns…… He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny…… " And it was the King, "the Christian King of Great Britain," Jefferson had emphasized, who was responsible for the horrors of the slave trade.†   (source)
  • They are a merry race, though, Godknows, they had very little to laugh about during the bloody tyrannous occupation of the English.†   (source)
  • Confederate soldiers' letters and diaries continued in 1864 and even into 1865 to abound with such expressions as this "gigantic struggle for liberty," for "the great Democratic principles of States' Rights and States' Sovereignty," for "the dear rights of freemen" against "tyranny and oppression," a cause "made a thousand times dearer by the sacrifice it has cost and is costing us."†   (source)
  • He felt privileged, blessed in his profession, he told Jonathan Sewall: Now to what higher object, to what greater character, can any mortal aspire than to be possessed of all this knowledge, well digested and ready at command, to assist the feeble and friendless, to discountenance the haughty and lawless, to procure redress to wrongs, the advancement of right, to assert and maintain liberty and virtue, to discourage and abolish tyranny and vice?†   (source)
  • On the Fourth of July the same year, a Kentuckian who had cast his lot with the Confederacy reflected in his diary on George Washington, "who set us an example in bursting the bonds of tyranny" to fight for "those inestimable and priceless rights …. obtained by our forefathers and bequeathed to us."†   (source)
  • Our children see this, and learn to imitate it…… The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.†   (source)
  • From a treatise by the eminent Italian penologist and opponent of capital punishment Cesare, Marchese di Beccaria, he carefully copied the following:If, by supporting the rights of mankind, and of invincible truth, I shall contribute to save from the agonies of death one unfortunate victim of tyranny, or of ignorance, equally fatal, his blessings and years of transport will be sufficient consolation to me for the contempt of all mankind.†   (source)
▲ show less (of above)