"Usurp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of joy she had known. She had been hard and wild enough at first, but just now, when she slipped down upon the door-step with her back turned to the wretched man within—when it came upon her that, traitor as he was, she herself had given him the right to take her bright-faced lover's place, and usurp his tender power—when the fresh sea-breeze blew upon her face and stirred her hair, and the warm, rare sunshine touched her, even breeze and sunshine helped her to the end, so that she broke down into a sharp sob, as any other woman might have done, only that the repressed strength of ...
— One Day At Arle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that may be the outcome of his gross pleasures soon begins to haunt him and to usurp in his mind the place of ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... prating about him when he is at stool Two opinions alike, no more than two hairs Two principal guiding reins are reward and punishment Tyrannic sourness not to endure a form contrary to one's own Tyrannical authority physicians usurp over poor creatures Unbecoming rudeness to carp at everything Under fortune's favour, to prepare myself for her disgrace Universal judgments that I see so common, signify nothing Unjust judges of their actions, as they are of ours Unjust to exact from me ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... is there usurp'd for her brow; her forehead: and then sleek, as the parallel to smooth, that went before. A kind of paranomasie, or agnomination: do you ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... and rigorously. So much for excess of partiality, so much for over-consideration, so much for lack of faith in over-anxiety, so much more of late for the keen mother-jealousy that had quickened in her to anguish at the thought that another would one day usurp her undivided throne, and claim and take the lion's share of the love that had been all hers. Her spiritual director was far too lenient, in her opinion. She was all the more exacting towards herself. What right had a nun to be so bound by an earthly tie? It was defrauding her Saviour and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... vicinity had probably invented, or at least propagated, for their own advantage. It was said that, during the times of the Galwegian independence, one Hanlon Mac-Dingawaie, brother to the reigning chief, Knarth Mac-Dingawaie, murdered his brother and sovereign, in order to usurp the principality from his infant nephew, and that, being pursued for vengeance by the faithful allies and retainers of the house, who espoused the cause of the lawful heir, he was compelled to retreat, with a few followers whom he had involved in his ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... further: "Where the shining glass, Lets in the light amid your temple's side, By broken by-ways did I inward pass, And in that window made a postern wide, Nor shall therefore this ill-advised lass Usurp the glory should this fact betide, Mine be these bonds, mine be these flames so pure, O glorious ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... good thrashing, Mr Terry, for playing the bully. There, there, my good lad, forget and forgive, and don't try and usurp my duties here. I will look ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... an address of thanks to Mr. Pitt, and given instructions to their members; the chief articles of which are, to promote an inquiry into the disposal of the money that has been granted, and to consent to no peace, unless we are to retain all, or near all, our conquests. Thus the city of London usurp the right of making peace and war. But is the government to be dictated to by one town? By no means. But suppose they are not -what is the consequence? How will the money be raised? If it cannot be raised without them, Mr. Pitt must again be minister: ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... was in the house, no one else thought of answering the telephone. Mrs. Waddington would have been the last to usurp the prerogative. For that instrument was the tap root of her spy system over her daughter. By it, she picked up things; learned what this irresponsible responsibility of hers was doing. Mrs. Waddington had her mental lists ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... enemy. No country is invaded by another without cause, and as the United States is in friendly relations with all the Powers, there is no reason to fear foreign invasion. Even should a foreign power successfully attack her and usurp a portion of her territories, a supposition which is most improbable, would the enemy be able to hold what he seized? History shows that no conquered country has ever been successfully and permanently kept without the people's consent, and there ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... shewed to you and many Precedents also in the case. Much is to be offered to you in that; according to the laws of the nations, that was a due Parliament. Those Commissions were issued forth, and what was done was done by their power; and whereas it hath been said we did assume and usurp an authority, I say this was done rather in the fear ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... abandon platforms and stand up for peace. Peace with all nations has been the master policy. It has elevated our country to its present condition of power and prosperity. Do not let us sacrifice peace, and suffer violence and discord to usurp its reign. We have a magnificent future if we can only preserve the Union as our fathers constructed it. While it lasts there is a great light in the firmament in which all may walk in security, hope, and happiness. It is a light reaching far down the depths of futurity cheering and guiding ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labours or usurp their honours, but that I might spare a perpetual repetition by one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the reverence due to instructers and benefactors, Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... very pleasant; there was no question. He did not at all usurp her office, nor interfere with it. But when he saw her getting weary of a parliamentary discussion, or a long discourse on politics or parties, his hand would gently draw away the paper from hers and his voice carry on ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... obeyed a limited monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and adorned the dignity of human kind. [164] The acquiescence of the provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The apprehensions of the subjects urged ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... them as he loomed A cloud of black against the crimson sky, Spoke, as a man may hardly speak but once: "My seamen, oh my friends, companions, kings; For I am least among you, being your captain; And ye are men, and all men born are kings, By right divine, and I the least of these Because I must usurp the throne of God And sit in judgment, even till I have set My seal upon the red wax of this blood, This blood of my dead friend, ere it grow cold. Not all the waters of that mighty sea Could wash my hands ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... self-restraint Bawr refrained from striking, that he might seem to usurp no share in Grom's amazing achievement. He stood leaning upon his spear, calmly watching the last feeble paroxysm, till Grom came scrambling down from the ledge and stood beside him. He took the bow and arrows, and examined them in ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... seed and enabling it to walk invisible, turned the flank of the baronial tariff-system and made the roads safe for the great liberalizer Commerce. This made Money omnipresent, and prepared the way for its present omnipotence. Fortunately it cannot usurp the third attribute of Deity,—omniscience. But whatever the consequences, this Florentine invention was at first nothing but admirable, securing to brain its legitimate influence over brawn. The latter has begun its revolt, but whether it will succeed ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... (I mean that Brutus, who in open senate Stabb'd the first Caesar that usurp'd the ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... therefore, it was their duty to acquiesce. OMAR then beckoned with his hand for audience a second time, and told them, that ALMORAN had not only practised the arts of sorcery to deprive HAMET of ALMEIDA, but that he meditated a design to usurp the sole dominion, and deprive him of the share of the government to which he had a right by the will of Solyman his father. This also they heard with the same sentiments of wonder and acquiescence: If it is decreed, said they, that ALMORAN shall be king alone, who ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... away of other faces and other forms, that face and that form now began to usurp the chief place in my thoughts. Not to my relief and pleasure. That could scarcely be, remembering all that had occurred; rather to my increasing distress and passionate resentment. I longed to forget I was held ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... black man, yes, and the yellow man, his place. Now, I haven't got one particle of race-prejudice. I'm the first to be glad when a nigger succeeds—so long as he stays where he belongs and doesn't try to usurp the rightful authority and business ability of ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... consequence that the officer who usurps the power of others may design only to advance the public interest and to govern well. The system which permits an honest and well-meaning man to do this will afford equal opportunity for selfish ambition to usurp power in its own interest. Unlimited official power concentrated in one person is despotism, and it is only by carefully observed and jealously maintained limitations upon the power of every public officer that the workings of free institutions ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root
... a question for which Mrs. Woolper could find no answer. She knew that the pain and horror which she felt were something more than natural, but beyond this point her thoughts refused to travel. A superstitious feeling arose at this point, to usurp the office of reason, and she accounted for the strangeness of Miss Halliday's illness as she might have done had she lived in the sixteenth century, and been liable to the suspicion ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... my lawfull autority of Norroy King of Arms, and have done and will doe as you say, things relating to heraldry, contrary to my prohibition, &c.; these are therefore to acquaint you, that if you continue in the same mind and will usurp on my office, I intend to make you sensible of the wrong you doe me in my office, by taking out process against you, and making you pay for your transgression. I shall give you no hard words, but shal be as good as my word if there is law in England to restrain you; ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... this battle—I do not even know by what name it will be known to future generations—would be to usurp the duties of the historian, and I shall only attempt, therefore, to tell you of that portion of it which I saw with my own eyes. On the morning of September 13 four Belgian divisions moved southward from Malines, their objective being the town of ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... of the morning, but set free by it. There are times when Nature permits no rivalry; she claims every thought and gives herself to us only as we give ourselves to her. She effaces us and takes complete possession of our souls. Not so, however, does she usurp the throne of our own personal life in those early hours when the sun, the master artist, whose touch has coloured every leaf and tinted every flower, demands her adoration. Then it is, perhaps, that she turns her thoughts from all lesser companionships and, rapt in universal ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... detect at once. Let her make her ultimatum, and there are enough generous minds in Europe that will counteract her in the balance. Of course her motive is to cripple a power that rivals her in commerce and manufactures, that threatens even to usurp her history. In twenty more years of prosperity, it will require a close calculation to determine whether England, her laws and history, claim for a home the Continent of America or the Isle of Britain. Therefore, finding us ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... be a pale and perspiring youth, tending to long back hair and apt to be startled by the slightest sound when he is alone. And what a lot of them write poetry, and such poetry too! That is the manner of the man who is going to seize your house and usurp your cow, while you will be lucky if you are allowed a place on a perch in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... this: The Emperor loves you, it is true; he calls you his most faithful servant, and promises ever to be a gracious Sovereign to you, but he will never further your projects of becoming an independent ruler, and will not assist you to effect the Elector's ruin, that you may usurp his place. He rather wishes you to remain what you are—Stadtholder in the Mark—and to exert all your energies in maintaining that position, since the Emperor relies upon your good offices for securing him an ally in the Elector. The Mark is to remain ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... dreaming hound, That rung, by starts, his deep-ton'd music round. Long by the paddock's humble pale confin'd, His aged hunters cours'd the viewless wind: And each, with glowing energy pourtray'd, The far-fam'd triumphs of the field display'd: Usurp'd the canvas of the crowded hall, And chas'd a line of heroes from the wall. There slept the horn each jocund echo knew. And many a smile and many a story drew! High o'er the hearth his forest-trophies ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... doubt infinitely varied in their nature, their structure and faculties, yet to view the whole scheme with an undoubting persuasion of its truth. It is however somewhat in opposition to the ideas of piety formed by our less adventurous ancestors, that we should usurp the throne ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... handsome, and conciliated general good will by his engaging manners,—was viewed by his father with an anxiety of love that sometimes became almost painful to witness. But this natural self-surrender to a first involuntary emotion Lord Altamont did not suffer to usurp any such lengthened expression as might too painfully have reminded me of being "one too many." One solitary half minute being paid down as a tribute to the sanctities of the case, his next care was to withdraw me, the stranger, from any oppressive feeling of strangership. And accordingly, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... often, it is possessed by him that receives it with the same right as it was conveyed. It may, indeed, like all our possessions, be forcibly seized or fraudulently obtained. But no injury is still done to the people; for what they never had, they have never lost. Caius may usurp the right of Titius; but neither Caius nor Titius injure the people; and no man's conscience, however tender or however active, can prompt him to restore what may be proved to have been never taken away. Supposing, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... that I am guilty. Impious and rash! thus to usurp the prerogatives of your Maker! to set up your bounded views and halting reason, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... them to believe him very profound and wise; the majority did submit to him, and he had a great success in revolutionary circles. His activity was directed to the preparation of a rising in which he was to usurp the power and call together a council. A programme, composed by him, should be proposed before the council, and he felt sure that this programme of his solved every problem, and that it would be impossible not to ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... precisely the state of the argument concerning the position and duties of women. The facts of moral and intellectual equality being established, it seems somewhat irrational to condemn women to obscurity and detail for their field of exertion, while men usurp the extended one of public usefulness. And a good case may be made out on this very point. Yet the conclusions are false and pernicious, and the prejudices which we now smile at as obsolete are truths of nature's own imparting, only wanting ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... of November 14, 1665, a state paper which has been declared to have "the highly dubious honor of being the one written law in the civilized world which fearlessly carries out absolutism to its last consequences."[779] In the Kongelov it was made lese-majeste in any manner to usurp or infringe the king's absolute authority; it was asserted that the moment the sovereign ascends the throne crown and scepter are vested in him by his own right; and the sole obligation of the king was affirmed to be to maintain the indivisibility of the realm, to preserve the Christian faith in ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I copied their books; not that I might appropriate their labors or usurp their honors, but that I might spare perpetual repetition by one general acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the reverence due to instructors and benefactors, Junius appears to have excelled in extent ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to ask the question, Why did the pale-face usurp the lands of the Indians without remuneration? It was because the Indian was not orthodox. He may have been lazy from a Puritanical stand-point, and he may also have hunted on the twenty-seventh ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... preservation of the vital defensive positions. Barham was far too astute to play into Napoleon's hands, and by blindly following his enemy's lead to be jockeyed into sacrificing the position which his enemy wished to secure. If our maxim be suffered to usurp the place of instructed judgment, the almost inevitable result will be that it will lead us into just the kind of mistake which ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... asked, did the jury think? They were men of the world. Candidly, had they ever seen such a chauffeur and footman before? Did they look like servants? Of course they had Mr. Bumble's—their master's—confidence. But had they the jury's? He did not wish to usurp the functions of the cinema or the stage, but it was his duty to remind them that sometimes Truth was stranger than Fiction.... Here were two servants, who were obviously not servants at all, giving such overwhelming satisfaction that they were allowed unheard-of liberty—liberty ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... this, but I cannot do otherwise; for it is not right that this religious should place these forts in the condition in which he left Cagayan. For with authority as judge-provisor, while my predecessor was exercising the duties of this government, he did his utmost to usurp the royal jurisdiction—arresting and punishing soldiers and other persons without asking the royal aid, or fulfilling his obligation and his Majesty's command. Will your Lordship be pleased to relieve this condition as the occasion demands, by sending a secular cura as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... Constitution or by the laws. Under this interpretation of executive power I did and caused to be done many things not previously done by the President and the heads of the departments. I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power. In other words, I acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... penalties is the scientific sovereignty; and in the scientific diagrams the passions, 'the poor and private passions,' and the arbitrary will, in whomsoever they speak, no matter what symbols of sovereignty they have contrived to usurp, make no better figure in their struggles with that law, than that same which the poet's vivid imagination and intense perception of incompatibilities, has seized on here. The king struggles vainly against the might of the universal ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... she said, with a lift of her sleek brown head, "didn't she usurp my prerogatives at the wedding? The best man belongs, for that evening alone, to the maid of honour—he can't escape it—it is his fate. Common civility should have chained him to my chariot wheels, but with that white-headed ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... manifestly be that of reinstating itself in power, in consolidating that power, and in acting as a powerful unity, according to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. The CONSTITUTION—bear that word well in mind—the Constitution which suffers no State to usurp a single power belonging to the General Government, and which was expressly framed for the purpose of making all its freemen the citizens of one great nation. Let the reader consult the Constitution, study its unmistakable plan of national integrity and of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... materialise mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what is just; to acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from virtue; assuming the title of the champions of modern civilisation, and placing themselves in a station which they usurp with insolence, and from which they are driven ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... multiplicity of breeches, sat on his "stoep" and smoked his pipe in lordly silence; nor did it ever enter his brain that the active, restless Yankee, whom he saw through his half-shut eyes worrying about in dog day heat, ever intent on the main chance, was one day to usurp control over these goodly Dutch domains. Already, however, the races regarded each other with disparaging eyes. The Yankees sneeringly spoke of the round-crowned burghers of the Manhattoes as the "Copper-heads;" while the latter, glorying ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... British Merlin sung, Of keenest eye and truest tongue. Say not, the chiefs who first arrive Usurp the seats for which all strive; The forefathers this land who found Failed to plant the vantage-ground; Ever from one who comes to-morrow Men wait their good and truth to borrow. But wilt thou measure ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... determine what is the seal, and who are the officers, of a community unknown as an organized body to the Congress of the United States? Can the right be admitted in that community to usurp the sovereignty over territory which belongs to the States of the Union? All these questions must be answered before I can consent to any such irregular proceeding as that which is now presented ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... dominators over their subjectis, whom they govern civilly; bot it is proper to Christ onlie to be callit Lord and Master in the spirituall government of the kirk, and all utheris that beiris office therein aucht not to usurp dominion therein, nor be callit lordis, bot onlie ministeris, disciples, and servantis. For it is Christis proper office to command and rewll His kirk universall, and every particular kirk, throw His Spirit and Word, be ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... of your tragedy presently, by way of dessert, for instance. That will be sugared roast meat,—mordioux! Ah! pardon me, monsieur, that was a little oath which escaped me, because it is a habit with my lord and master. I sometimes allow myself to usurp that little oath, as it seems in pretty good taste. I take this liberty only in his absence, please to observe, for you may understand that in his presence—but, in truth, monsieur, this cider is abominable; do you not think so? ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Let not corroding jealousy usurp Your Royal breast, unnumber'd ills attend The wretch ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... that newspapers in America will too much supersede and usurp the place of books, and lead to a superficial knowledge of things. Gleaning the papers in search of that which is really useful, candid, and fair seems too much like hunting for grains of wheat ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... away at once by the strong arm of power. They represented to the sovereigns, that it seemed like insensibility to the goodness of Providence, which had delivered the infidels into their hands, to allow them any longer to usurp the fair inheritance of the Christians, and that the whole of the stiff- necked race of Mahomet might justly be required to submit without exception to instant baptism, or to sell their estates and remove to Africa. This, they maintained, could be scarcely regarded as ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... like her, like the philosophers, like the popes, like the press in our times, to a participation in the government of the world, but because they disputed her claims as one of the powers of the age. The Jesuits were scandalized that such a woman should usurp the reins of state, especially when they perceived that she mocked and defied them; and they therefore refused to pay her court, and even conspired to effect her overthrow. But they had not sufficiently considered the potency of her wrath, or the desperate means of revenge to which she ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... "Either," he said, "the world and countless orbs Throughout the ages wander at their will; Or, if the fates control them, ruin huge Hangs o'er this city and o'er all mankind. Shall Earth yawn open and engulph the towns? Shall scorching heat usurp the temperate air And fields refuse their timely fruit? The streams Flow mixed with poison? In what plague, ye gods, In what destruction shall ye wreak your ire? Whate'er the truth, the days in which we live Shall ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... same passions, and a thousand others; living together under a kind of truce, but continually ready to break out into open war; continually jealous of each other; continually on the defensive, because continually dreading an attack; ever ready to usurp on the rights of others, and perpetually entangled in the most wretched contentions, concerning what all would neglect, if not despise, did not the errors of this selfish system give value to what is ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... in past years vague and indefinite enough on several points of importance, it was truly said. But in the pulpit and out of it, on one point it had been full, clear, and definite. A man must rule (well) his own household. "The husband is the head of the wife," who is not suffered "to usurp authority over the man," but who is to listen in silence, being "the weaker ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... true Peter Craigmile, Jr., dead? Then he can never arise to take the place this young man is now daring to usurp. Can Richard Kildene be proved to be living? Then is he, posing as Peter Craigmile, Jr., free from the charge of murder even if he makes confession thereto. He returns and makes this plea because he would live the ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... performed a legitimate function in the past, he contended, when there was no law in the land, that time was now beyond recall; for law was now established, and it was just law. The Queen's government had shown itself fit to cope with the situation, and for them to usurp its powers was to step backward into the night out of which they had come. Further, no lighter word than "criminal" could characterize such conduct. And yet further, he promised them, in set, sober terms, if anything serious were the outcome, to ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... that the national policy should be one of 'drift,' although I admit that there are many most excellent persons who by their attitude seem to resent any attempt to steer the ship of State along a definite course as being an impious attempt to usurp the functions of Providence, whose special business ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors, and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force; the frontlet on her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... he proceed to rest the phenomenon, in matter of fact, simply upon a physical cause, to the exclusion of a divine, and to say that the given case actually belongs to his science because other like cases do, I must tell him, Ne sutor ultra crepidam: he is making his particular craft usurp and occupy the universe. This then is the drift of my illustration. If the creature is ever setting in motion an endless series of physical causes and effects, much more is the Creator; and as our excluding ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... called in to assist the reason, usurps its place or leaves its ally helplessly entangled in its web. Names which stand for things are confounded with them; the means are mistaken for the end; the instrument of interpretation for the object; and thus symbols come to usurp an independent character as truths and persons. Though perhaps a necessary path, they were a dangerous one by which to approach the Deity; in which many, says PLUTARCH, "mistaking the sign for the thing signified, fell into a ridiculous superstition; while ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... nature in its due sequences and proportions: first the blade—then the ear—then, and not till then, the full corn in the ear; and thus, as Dr. Temple wisely says, "not to forget wisdom in teaching knowledge." If the blade be forced, and usurp the capital it inherits; if it be robbed by you its guardian of its birthright, or squandered like a spendthrift, then there is not any ear, much less any corn; if the blade be blasted or dwarfed in our haste and greed for the full shock and its price, we spoil all three. It is not easy ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... chosen to believe thy lies. They have fallen with thee from before the face of God. Thus hast thou used the power given thee. Thou hast said in thy heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.... I will be like the Most High! Thou hast sought to usurp power, to take a kingdom that does not belong to thee. God holds you all as in the hollow of His hand; yet He has not restrained thine agency. He has been patient and longsuffering with you. Rebellious children ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... for its power over the whole national mind, this is far the leading one), we are met at once by questions which may well put all of you at pause. Were they idly imagined to be real beings? and did they so usurp the place of the true God? Or were they actually real beings—evil spirits,—leading men away from the true God? Or is it conceivable that they might have been real beings,—good spirits,—entrusted with some message from the true God? These were the questions ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... heaven of fame is not very large, and the more there are who enter it the less is the share of each. The great names of the past rob us of our place in it; the space which they fill in the popular memory they usurp from us who aspire to occupy it. And so we rise up in revolt against them, and hence the bitterness with which all those who seek after fame in the world of letters judge those who have already attained it and are in enjoyment of it. If additions ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... abject its inhabitants may appear, where the most daring and ambitious can venture to usurp the supreme power without first obtaining a hold on public opinion; we cannot have a stronger proof of this fact, as applicable to Persia, than what we find in the conduct of Nadir upon this memorable occasion. Though that chief had revived ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... WESTON. By heav'n! this coldness may to madness drive me. Am I to suffer for another's rashness, Of which, the new-born babe is not more innocent? Perhaps, some other hath usurp'd thine heart? 'Tis plain; too plain—You cannot ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... that I acknowledge you the Author Of giving me my Birth, I have discharg'd A part of my Obedience. But if now You should (as cruel fathers do) proclaim Your right, and Tyrant-like usurp the glory Of my peculiar honours, not deriv'd From successary, but purchas'd with my bloud, Then I must stand first Champion for ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... human privileges. Those States of the Union which are preeminently loyal to it, have ever cherished the most liberal principles of civil polity, and have framed their constitutions in accordance with the most modern and advanced maxims of popular rights. So far are they from any disposition to usurp authority or to impose unjust or unnecessary restraints upon the political action of the people, that they are charged with the opposite fault of carrying liberty to the extreme of ungoverned license. Of all the American States, these are the least likely to interfere with the great principles of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... neck and shoulders. A gust of overpowering rage swept over him. He did not know that he growled, but he growled aloud with a terrible ferocity. For the last time in his life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and reason, and it was because of his great love for John Thornton that he lost ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread,' etc. Why Christ fasted forty days and would not exceed the same, without sense and feeling of hunger, is before touched upon, that is, He would provoke the devil to battle by the wilderness and long abstinence, but He would not usurp or arrogate any more to Himself in that case than God had wrought with others, His servants and messengers before. But Christ Jesus (as St. Augustine more amply declares), without feeling of hunger, might have endured the whole year, or ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... altered; trade's unfeeling train Usurp the land and dispossess the swain; Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose, 65 Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose, And every want to opulence allied, And every pang that folly pays to pride. These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, Those calm desires that asked but little ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... unnerved, young Paul observed: "It's like a dreadful dream, And Uncle Ben has fallen ten Per cent. in my esteem. Not only did he first usurp us, But now he's left us here ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... not a pupil, of course, and she had only come in response to the heart promptings of motherhood, white, black, or brown, to talk about her offspring to the strange woman who was to usurp a mother's place with her so many hours of each day. She was quite as voluble as American mothers are, and her daughter was quite embarrassed by her volubility. The child sat stealing frightened glances at me and ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... generally objects of execration, and so terrible crimes were actually perpetrated in the course of it, that it is only just to note the circumstances which explain the origin of these atrocities, and which enabled violent leaders and wild passions to usurp control. The efforts of the constitutionalists to save the throne were balked by the exiles and the foreign governments. Frederick William II. of Prussia (1786-1797), and Leopold II. the emperor (1790-1792), in the Declaration of Pilnitz (Aug. 27, 1791), called on the other European ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... throne, traitors have stolen my crown; traitors bar the gates of my palace in my face and laugh at me through the bars; there is a false king in Syracuse, but he shall not usurp unchallenged." ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... two rooms, with plenty of furniture of different kinds stored by the agent, probably for removal. The whole business of our Commission and all its agents are much disliked by the cotton-agents, partly because they don't sympathize with our purposes,—partly because we seem about to usurp their authority, to which of course ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... the perfection of representation in the eyes of some, and I understand it to be the opinion of many of the new sect of politics; but I trust to the good sense of the people of England never to permit such a mob, nor any thing resembling it, to usurp the sacred office of their legislature." Windham, one of the most eloquent and accomplished men of the Whig party, warmly seconded Burke, and after a few words from Sheridan and Fox, the conversation dropped. The subject, however, was one of intense interest and not easily to be forgotten. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... man's past in no wise serves to usurp the functions of present duties. Notwithstanding the fact that there are lowering clouds and muttering thunders, yet there is every indication of a day, to express it boldly, that is coming that will ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the same line of railway, but he always travelled first class; the same train thus presenting the anomaly of the master being in that place which one would naturally assign to the man, and the man appearing to usurp the position of the master. One day these two alighted at the terminus in full view of each other. "Well," said Mr. B—, in that tone of banter which a superior so frequently thinks it becoming ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... was attended soon with difficulties. The old courtiers recovered their influence. Dion was calumniated and slandered, as seeking to usurp the sovereign powers, and that Plato was brought to Syracuse as an agent in the conspiracy. Plato tried to counterwork this mischief, but in vain. Dionysius lost all inclination to reform, and Dion was hated, for he was superior to his nephew in dignity and ability, and was haughty and ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... damnable, are performed. Countless sabbaths have I attended within it; or upon Rumbles Moor, or on the summit of Pendle Hill, or within the ruins of Whalley Abbey. Many proselytes have I made; many unbaptised babes offered up in sacrifice. I am high-priestess to the Demon, and thy mother would usurp mine office." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... growing disk the sun crosses the sky; the moon shines no more, and is scarcely visible. Yet still, perhaps, the northern lights flicker over the desert, icy plain, and still the stars twinkle in silence, peacefully as of yore. Some have burnt out, but new ones usurp their place; and round them revolve new spheres, teeming with new life, new sufferings, without any aim. Such is the infinite cycle of eternity; such are nature's ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... insigne; the mailed heel trampling a stand of wheat; Harolde Dugald, of the neighboring fief. Geoffrey was on coldly polite terms with Dugald—he had no use for the other man's way of treating his serfs—and now he felt a prickle of indignant rage at this attempt to usurp a share of his glory. He saw Dugald's turret begin to traverse, and hastily tried to get the finishing shot into The Barbarian's tankette before the other Leaguesman could fire. But Dugald was not aiming for The Barbarian. ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... deed has been often mentioned before—the purification of Ithaca, chiefly by the slaughter of the Suitors, "the shameless set, who usurp thy house and woo thy wife." Sitting on the roots of the sacred olive, the two, the man and the deity, plan destruction to the guilty. Verily those double elements, the human and the divine, must co-operate if the ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... minority of an infant king, convened the popular assembly known as the Thing, and bade the people set her own child's claims aside in favor of Beowulf. This proposal was hailed with enthusiasm; but Beowulf refused to usurp his kinsman's throne, and raising Hardred, Hygelac's infant son, upon his shield, he declared that he would protect and uphold him as long as he lived. The people, following his example, swore fealty to the new king, and faithfully kept this oath ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... on him and sweetly seized him, so that he took himself back to bed laden with slumber. Starkad, coming in on him at daybreak, saw him locked asleep in the arms of his wife, and would not suffer him to be vexed with a sudden shock, or summoned from his quiet slumbers; lest he should seem to usurp the duty of wakening him and breaking upon the sweetness of so new a union, all because of cowardice. He thought it, therefore, more handsome to meet the peril alone than to gain a comrade by disturbing the pleasure of another. So he quietly retraced his steps, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... indicate have been carefully drawn, and appear to be of such authority that they should be generally accepted. Sometimes, as, for example, in mathematics, a conventional set of symbols may quite usurp the function of ordinary language, and may enormously curtail the labor of setting forth the processes and ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... execrable son! so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurp'd, from God not given. He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By His donation; but man over men He made not lord; such title to Himself Reserving, human ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... congregation not to rise next Wednesday evening in the prayer meeting, either to pray or testify. The privilege has been withdrawn as one perniciously against the tenets of the church. For Paul says in first Timothy, 'I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence;' also I give you Paul's further command, 'Let the deacons be the husband of one wife, ruling their children and their ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... it, I should willingly have assisted my country with my person or my counsels; but, my lords, this man, who engrosses all authority, seems, likewise, to believe that he is in possession of all knowledge, and that he is equally capable, as he is equally willing, to usurp the supreme and uncontroulable direction both of civil ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... "I love the holy zeal which is jealous of allowing objects, dear even to your wishes, to encroach on the sanctuary of heaven. Be ever thus, meek child of the church, and no human idol will be able to usurp that part of your virgin heart which belongs ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... caught a bad cold, and my aunt has let loose Dr. Wade upon me. Please come directly, if you will save me from ever so much nasty medicine, at the least. My aunt is not my mother, thank heaven! though she would gladly usurp that relationship. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... had long studied canonical interdictions; he consulted neither his ministers nor his doctors; it was a personal reply he addressed to the emperor. "It is out of our power." said he, "to pronounce the judgment of nullity; if we were to usurp such an authority that we have not, we should render ourselves culpable of an abominable abuse before the tribunal of God; and your Majesty yourself, in your justice, would blame us for pronouncing a sentence contrary ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... new governor, like a new broom, has swept all clean. A few weeks glide away, and the nose again recalls the savory old times when streets were never swept, and filth once more reigns paramount. The town relapses into its former state, again the false weights usurp the place of honest measures, and the only permanent and visible sign of the new ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... placed the royal insignia on the altar, and addressing the king and his surrounding prelates, said, "There are the crown and sceptre which Canute intrusted to my charge. To you, I neither give nor refuse them, you may take them if you please; but I strictly forbid any of my brother bishops to usurp an office, which is the prerogative ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... who feel the triviality of them, imitate them. It is true that the titles of Count and Marquis have fallen into the dust because of the quantity of people without wealth, and even without land, who usurp them; and that they have become so worthless, that people of quality who are Marquises or Counts (if they will permit me to say it) are silly enough to be annoyed if those titles are given to them in conversation. It is certain, however, that these titles ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... alas!—Now ghastly desolation, In triumph, sits upon our shatter'd spires; Now superstition, ignorance, and errour, Usurp our ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... the past. At the present day, with better means at hand, a more hopeful view is taken. But here a caution is necessary; for, in attempting to reconstruct the history of primitive times, such is the interest which it inspires, that many allow imagination to usurp the place of research, and write in terms ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... has an extensive influence on our conduct in regard to both these classes of emotions. This is Self-love;—which leads us to seek our own protection, comfort, and advantage. It is a sound and legitimate principle of action when kept in its proper place;—when allowed to usurp an undue influence, it degenerates into selfishness; and it then interferes in a material degree with the exercise of the affections, or, in other words, with ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... meant our Christian neighbors who reside By right of law and ancient heritage Within the land, but not the tribe who do Usurp the ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... great rulers of Cordova, Abderrahman III and Al Mansur, drove back the Castilians to the northern mountains and raided the inmost recesses of the Christian territories. Somewhat later the Wild Berber hordes of the Almoravides and the Almohads, crossing from Africa to usurp the Ommeiad dominions and carry on the holy war with greater energy, aroused new fears and provoked in the threatened kingdoms a fanaticism equal to their own. The Spanish Christians appealed for help to their northern neighbours; armies of volunteers from Normandy, ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... scarcely applicable to our state in this stage of trial, seeing that such non-resistance, if general, would surrender our civil and religious rights into the hands of whatsoever daring tyrants might usurp the same; yet I am, and have been, inclined to limit the use of carnal arms to the case of necessary self-defence, whether such regards our own person, or the protection of our country against invasion; or of our rights of property, and the freedom of our laws and ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... entered her own house. During her rapid ride she had already framed a speech of apology to Major Van Zandt, which, however, utterly fled from her lips as that officer showed himself respectfully on the threshold. Yet she permitted him to usurp the functions of the grinning Caesar, and help her from her horse; albeit she was conscious of exhibiting the awkward timidity of a bashful rustic, until at last, with a stammering, "Thank ye," she actually ran up stairs to hide her glowing face and ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... sayest that I usurp another's titles. In youth I saw the Wise Men of the East, Magalath and Pangalath and Saracen, Who followed the bright star, but home returned For fear of Herod by another way. O shining worlds above me! in what deep Recesses of your realms ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... dissolution of the Union. He answered Never, because he could conceive of no possible contingency that would make it for the interest and happiness of the people to break up this glorious confederacy. He would yield to it, if Congress were to usurp a power, which he was sure, it never would, of abolishing slavery within the States, for in the contingency of such a usurpation we should be in a better condition as to slavery out of the Union than in it. He believed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... of Columbus and of Vasco di Gama open out new tracks. Suddenly commerce is revolutionised. France, England, Spain, become nearer to America and India than Italy; so Italy declines; while the Atlantic states usurp the first place as the centres ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... beggar-man considered and said, "Be it known unto thee, most noble sir, that the king harboureth against thee the suspicion, that thou wouldest usurp his kingdom, and he spake, as he spake, to sound thee. Arise therefore, and crop thy hair. Doff these thy fine garments, and don an hair-shirt, and at daybreak present thyself before the king. And when he asketh thee, 'What ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... stranger, Rome still offered the appearance of a Pagan city. It contained one hundred and fifty-two temples, and one hundred and eighty smaller chapels or shrines, still sacred to their tutelary God, and used for public worship. Christianity had neither ventured to usurp those few buildings which might be converted to her use, still less had she the power to destroy them. The religious edifices were under the protection of the praefect of the city, and the praefect was usually a Pagan; at all events he would not permit any breach of the public peace, or violation ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... reigned at one time upon earth in the form of a man. His twin-brother Set was jealous of his popularity, and hated him to such a degree that he contrived a plan whereby he succeeded in putting Osiris to death. Set then tried to usurp his brother's kingdom and to make himself sole lord of Egypt, and, although no text states it distinctly, it is clear that he seized his brother's wife, Isis, and shut her up in his house. Isis was, however, under the protection of the god Thoth, and she escaped with ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... from sharing this view, are inclined to take the opposite view. At Athens there was a great tribunal composed of men learned in, and competent to interpret, the law. The people could not tolerate such an institution, so laboured to destroy it and to usurp its functions. The crowd reasoned thus. "We can interpret and carry out laws, because we make them." The conclusion was right, but the minor premise was disputable. The retort can be made: "True, you can interpret and carry out laws because you make them, ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... me, monsieur," said he to the composer of dance-music, "how it is that the Napoleon of these tunes can condescend to usurp the place of Palestrina, Pergolesi, and Mozart,—poor creatures who must pack and vanish at the advent of that ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... in order to conceal the fact that they are sprats; clarified horse fat is called "fresh country butter," and Irish regiments are made to decorate themselves with common clover under the delusion that it is the shamrock. Other plants have been from time to time utilised to usurp the title of "shamrock." Thus the small Lucerne clover or medicago is often sold as "shamrock" to Irish patriots, and the watercress has been solemnly pat forward as the true shamrock simply because old writers tell us, as evidence of the barbarous state ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... witness the drinking scene in —, and others equally outrees, in which the author, having turned probability out of doors, ends by throwing possibility out of the window—leaving folly and madness to usurp their place—and play a thousand antics for the admiration of the public, who, pleased with novelty, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... bees, some of them strange and unusual to us. One cicada had a sustained note, in quality about like that of our own August-day's friend, but in quantity and duration as the roar of a train to the gentle hum of a good motor car. Like all cicada noises it did not usurp the sound world, but constituted itself an underlying basis, so to speak. And when it stopped the silence seemed to rush in ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... kept that commandment all the other commandments would be obeyed. If we secure this queen-bee we are given the swarm. To put nothing "before" God! What is left in the circle of obedience? God first, always and everywhere. Nothing allowed to usurp His throne for an hour! I was once allowed to sit on an earthly throne for a few seconds, but even that is not to be allowed with the throne of God. Nothing is to share His sovereignty, even for a moment. His dominion is to be unconditional ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... king, had resolved that the royal ministry had no right to impose taxes so long as the assembly was unable peaceably to pursue its deliberations, and designed, by giving this resolution the form of a law, to lead the people in this manner to break loose from the Government. This attempt to usurp authority was doomed to be disappointed. The assembly, having overstepped its prerogatives, lost its influence. The king found himself again in possession of the reins of power. It rested with him to punish the temerity of the people by tightening the reins, or on his own authority, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... priestly ambition and the desire of domination should in time usurp the place of those laborious, enthusiastic, and pious missionaries who, so happily for the natives, had managed to revolutionize their minds, and so spared their country those scenes of blood which blot with ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... church, represented as it might be by the monstrous brutality of a Borgia, or the military madness of a Julius, was, in his view, sufficient to authorize any hasty Luther to make a profane bonfire of a papal bull; any hot Henry to usurp the trade of manufacturing creeds; so no "sacred right of insurrection," no unflinching patriotic opposition, no claim of rights, (by petitioners having swords in their hands,) are admissible ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very engines which had lifted ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... du Barry sought to overcome the objections of the titled class, to quell jealousies and petty quarrels; she did not usurp any power and always endeavored not to trouble or embarrass anyone. After some time, she succeeded in winning the favor of some of the ladies, and, when her influence was fairly well established, she began to plan the overthrow ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Democratic candidate for the Chief Magistracy over seventy millions of people, on account of a few half-mawkish, half- blasphemous phrases in a convention speech, can bear witness to the necessity of a reform in this particular—a reform which will forbid a sensation-seeking city mob to usurp the function of the whole people ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... reserved. It may necessitate the abolition of some of the big contests that have been the excitement of many thousands. But it must not be forgotten prelude and preparation for life; they must not be allowed to usurp the chief place in a man's thoughts or to unfit him for his greatest after-usefulness. [Footnote: Cf. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 90, p. 534; Outlook, vol. 98, p. 597.] Is it wrong to smoke? Statistics taken with care at many American colleges show with apparent conclusiveness that ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... dazzling charm of outward form, 5 The power of gold, the pride of birth, Have taken Woman's heart by storm— Usurp'd the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... are the only ends. The party owes its right to existence to the people's will; when its life must be prolonged by artificial stimulants it is fit that it should die. It is not the people's master, but the people's servant; if it should usurp the oppressor's place, it must die the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... the same year with Cimarosa, and even earlier than Mozart, and being the contemporary of Verdi and Wagner, he witnessed almost the origin of the two modern classical schools of France and Germany, their rise to perfection, and, if not their decline, the arrival of a time when criticism would usurp the place of creation, and when to propound new rules for art claims higher consideration than to act according to its ever unalterable principles. His artistic life indeed was a rainbow based on the two extremes of modern music which shed light and glory ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... intervention the work to which the Prussian nation had now committed itself beyond power of recall. It was the fortune of the Prussian State, while its King dissembled before the French in Berlin, to possess a soldier brave enough to emancipate its army, and a citizen bold enough to usurp the government of its provinces. Frederick William forgave York his intrepidity; Stein's action was never forgiven by the timid and jealous sovereign whose subjects he had summoned to arm ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... under the death sentence; the day is set for each man. "I am no worse off," he thought, "than I was before—if I could only see it that way—and I will—I am going to be the Captain of my soul—even though it may be for a very short cruise—no disease or whimpering weakness will usurp my place—'Gladly I lived—gladly I died. And I laid me down with a will,'" he quoted, but his mouth twisted a little on the words. Life was too sweet. He loved it too well to lay it down gladly. O no, there could be ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... dispossession, my own forfeiture, my own abdication, but for the abdication of universal suffrage for ten years, by the coming generations, over whom I have no right, over whom you, an usurper, force me to usurp power, which, by the way, be it said in passing, would suffice to nullify that monstrous ballot, if all conceivable nullities were not already piled, heaped and welded upon it. What! is that what you would have me do? You make me vote that all is finished, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... doubtless, a good deal of abuse of authority on the part of husbands, but the women get their share of the good that is going in the world, as a general thing. If the law is against them, they manage to usurp full an even amount of privilege and authority, and keep along about in line with the other sex. I never knew an out and out controversy between a man and his wife, in which the former did not get the worst of it in the end; ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... high-born Saxon sons to bow 'Neath victor-pride and insolence—learn to feel What earth's dark woes—when abject vassals kneel; And worse the hour when his remorseless heir, Alike uncheck'd by heaven, or earthly prayer, With lusts ignoble, fed by martial might, Usurp'd man's fair ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... limitation Locke suggested is of more doubtful value. Government, he says, in substance, is a trustee and trustees abuse their power; let us therefore divide it as to parts and persons that the temptation to usurp may be diminished. There is a long history to this doctrine in its more obvious form, and it is a lamentable history. It tied men down to a tyrannous classification which had no root in the material it was supposed ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... life, and of mere butterfly flitting from flower to flower; here is that crying back to the antique spirit that was leavening the middle-class of France which was about to claim dominion over the land and to step to the foot of the throne and usurp the sceptre and diadem of her ancient line of kings as the Third Estate; and to come to power with violent upheaval, wading to the throne through blood and terror. Here we see Vigee Le Brun, royalist, glorifying motherhood, her arms and shoulders bare in chaste nudity, ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... commander in chief of the military forces had, by his own authority, arrested several citizens for civil offences, and had avowed on record, that he had adopted measures to send them out of the territory, openly declaring his determination to usurp the functions of the judiciary, by making himself the only judge of the guilt of the persons he suspected, and asserting in the same manner, and as yet without contradiction, that his measures were taken, after several ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... survey was of immense value. Its object, according to the king, was that every man might know and be satisfied with his rightful possessions, and not with impunity usurp the property of others. But it was also of great service to the king, so that he might know who were his vassals, the amount of taxation which he could draw from them, and the actual strength of ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... that place in the mind which superstition would usurp, and so leaves little room for it; and likewise lays us under the strongest ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... late evening; only as twilight came on did a new thought begin to keep me awake, a thought to which as yet I had paid no attention: "What kind of a child could it be, for whom I was now being exchanged? Who was to usurp my place at table, in my bed-room, and in my mother's heart? Was she small or large? beautiful or ugly? obedient or contrary? had she brothers or sisters, to whom I was to be a brother? was she as much afraid of me as ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... they would be found least entitled to the possession of it. Those who have most warrantably declaimed against evil constitutions, have been among those who were least given to assume to themselves a title to power;—they have been found to defend themselves, but not rashly to usurp authority. If there were but one individual who could avenge bloodshed, and were his mind in a proper state, he would seem to have a call addressed to him to do so; failing to attend to it he would err. Were a community ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... you may happen to be dancing when supper is announced to the supper-table, unless she has come with a gentleman, in which case you must not usurp his privilege. If she is disengaged, escort her to a seat in the supper-room, if possible, and see that she is served with the dishes she selects. Do not take your own supper at the same time; wait till the lady ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... fire of life. But the most of all, dread the powers that move in air; their nature is desire unquenchable; their destiny is—never to be fulfilled—never to be at peace: they roam hither and thither like the winds they guide; they usurp dominion over the passionate and tender soul, but they love not in our way; where they dwell the heart is a madness and the feet are filled with a hurrying fever, and night has no sleep and day holds no joy in its sunlit cup. Listen ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... friendships and tastes had a downward tendency, who had not caught the meaning of their position and work, and felt none of its responsibilities. So under this no-government the School-house began to see bad times. The big fifth-form boys, who were a sporting and drinking set, soon began to usurp power, and to fag the little boys as if they were prepostors, and to bully and oppress any who showed signs of resistance. The bigger sort of sixth-form boys just described soon made common cause with the fifth, while the smaller ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... on to his exposition of an obscure word. There is no such Saxon vocable as dare, to stare. Again, what more frequent blunder than to confound a secondary and derivative sense of a word with its radical and primary—indeed, sometimes to allow the former to usurp the precedence, and at length altogether oust the latter: hence it comes to pass, that we find dare is one while said to imply peeping and prying, another while trembling or crouching; moods and actions merely consequent ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... Humphry Ward, I think, who is our sufficient authority for it) poetry was but occasional amusement and solace to him, prose his regular avocation from task-work; and there is abundant evidence that, willingly or unwillingly, he never allowed either to usurp the place of the vocation which he had accepted. Not everybody, perhaps, is so scrupulous. It is not an absolutely unknown thing to hear men boast of getting through their work somehow or other, that they may devote themselves to parerga which they like, and which ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... in her white silk robes. Decima, with her wondrous beauty, and the hectic on her cheeks again. Many an envious pair of eyes was cast to her. "That dreadful old maid, Decima Verner!" was amongst the compliments launched at her. "She to usurp him! How had my Lady Verner contrived to manoeuvre ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and unfair of Baraka to call him to account in that way, but he was not surprised at it, as Baraka, from the beginning of the journey to the present moment, had always been backbiting him, to try and usurp his position. Baraka, at this, somewhat taken aback, said there were no such things as perquisites on a journey like this; for whatever could be saved from the chiefs was for the common good of all, and all alike ought to share in it—repeating words ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... such a warning, because I am not aware that in this bill Congress has ever assumed any doubtful power. The power of Congress over this District is without limit, and, therefore, in prescribing who shall vote for mayor and city council of this city it can not be claimed that we usurp power ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... well, Mr. Colbert," asked Mrs. Dunmore; "or do you trespass upon the hours necessary to your repose and recreation that you are so much thinner and paler than you used to be? I fear I must usurp your prerogative and turn preacher if you are really destroying your health by too great ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... heir-apparent to the said King Charles the Second; but James, Duke of York, taking advantage of the absence of the said James, Duke of Monmouth, beyond the seas, did first cause the said late King to be poisoned, and immediately thereupon did usurp and invade the Crown, and doth continue so to do. We, therefore, the noblemen, gentlemen, and commons at present assembled, in the names of ourselves and all the loyal and Protestant noblemen, gentlemen, and commons of England, in pursuance ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... which assures pensions to the legitimate or illegitimate companions of the National Guards, killed in the defence of our municipal rights. No half measures. We, the illegitimate companions, will no longer suffer the legitimate wives to usurp rights they no longer possess, and which they ought never to have had at all. Let the decree be modified. All for the free women, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... He died a poor man, though wealth was within his reach. He devoted himself to the severest toil, amidst allurements to luxuriate in the delights of domestic and social intercourse, such as few indeed have encountered. He silently permitted some to usurp his hardly-earned honours, that no selfish controversy might desecrate their common cause. He made no effort to obtain the praises of the world, though he had talents to command, and a temper peculiarly disposed to ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... acknowledge and adjudge more, I, who have the Paraclete himself in the person of the new prophets, saying: "The Church has the power to forgive sins, but I will not do it, lest they commit still others."{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} I now inquire into your opinion, to discover from what source you usurp this power ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D. |
