The Brahmanical caste became tyrannical, exacting, and oppressive.

It was now that that bewildered and Pharasaical faith which had so long held this professor of religion in a bondage even more oppressive than open and announced sins, most felt the insufficiency of the creed in which he had rather been speculating than trusting all his life, to render the passing hour composed and secure.

* I say we must necessarily undo these violent, oppressive acts.

Burke knew that the Bourbon absolute monarchy was oppressive and tyrannical, extravagant and indifferent to the welfare of the people; but he would not get rid of it by cutting off the head of the king, especially when Louis was willing to make great concessions: he would have limited his power, or driven him into exile as the English punished James II.

In addition to this injustice, the Irish, who were mostly Roman Catholics, were ground down by such oppressive laws that they were really serfs to those landlords who owned the soil on which they toiled for a mere pittance,about fourpence a day,resulting in a general poverty such as has never before been seen in any European country, with its attendant misery and crime.

It was different from those of Spain and Italy in this respect, that it was a struggle not to gain political rights from oppressive rulers, but to secure national independence.

The old postage law had proved oppressive to all classes except members of Parliament, who had the franking privilege, which the new law abolished.

And the fact that a joint responsibility for Sarah Gailey's welfare bound herself and George Cannon together in spite of themselvesthis fact seemed to her grandiose and romantic, no longer oppressive.

The solitude and the silence assume an oppressive significance.

Hence the authority of a public officer in unfortunate Europe consists in the power to rule and to command, and not in the power to serve his country wellit makes men oppressive downwards, while it makes them creeping before those who are above.

The slender sunbeams lengthened, crossing the room from end to end, the heat of the warm afternoon grew oppressive in the drowsy obscurity made by the closed shutters, and the silence of the house seemed more profound than before.

What one would have wished, after experience, was that she had refrained from producing even that single volume, and thus from giving her self-importance a troublesome kind of double incorporation which became oppressive to her acquaintances, and set up in herself one of those slight chronic forms of disease to which I have just referred.

An oppressive government and a persecuting religion, while breeding vices in those who hold power, are well known to breed answering vices in those who are powerless and suffering.

Were it otherwise even, the strictness of the poll-tax would place great obstacles in the way of gratifying the desire for travel, generated by that oppressive impost.

When the tail-lights of the train had disappeared into the cutting, I felt very much alone, and the silence of the countryside became oppressive.

He groaned, unable to breathe; his pain was so close and oppressive, that he had no room to draw his breath.

Antoninus is admitted by all to have been noble and good, not oppressive to the Christians nor severe to any of his other subjects; instead, he showed the Christians great respect and added to the honor in which Hadrian had been wont to hold them.

To no one was he harsh or oppressive, but he was gracious and gentle toward all.

The elephants found the towers oppressive and so would not even carry their drivers any longer [but threw them off also].

I found the climate and the air exceedingly oppressive; and the heat, although at that period hardly above 86 degrees in the shade, very weakening.

I suffered, especially in the town, from an oppressive feeling of fatigue and weakness; and to the kindness and friendship of Herr Geiger, the Secretary to the Austrian Consulate, and his wife, who took me with them into the country, and showed me the greatest attention, do I alone owe my recovery.

The oppressive sense of fear was now at an end.

This last regulation is particularly oppressive and palpably unjust.

Still the feeling is so absurd and ludicrous in itself, and is exhibited in so many grotesque positions, even when oppressive, that the sufferer cannot help laughing at it.

"This place is oppressive," said one of the miners, after a long silence.